rustle | exo: oh, the things we invent

oh, the things we invent (when we are scared and want to be rescued)
— Baekhyun/Baekhyun + Kyungsoo, eventual Baekhyun/Kyungsoo. NC-17. 16000 words.
— "prepare for trouble," baekhyun said. "and make it double," baekhyun – the other baekhyun – added.
— march 8, white day advent calendar, for

drankcontrast.
— a kind artist drew something for this fic HERE! please show her lots of love ♥

Kyungsoo has never experienced a stranger Monday his entire life.

It starts off relatively normal: he gets up ten minutes before the alarm goes off, but remains slumped against the headboard for another five minutes. Then he pushes the blanket down until it pools at his feet, until he can kick it off and kick himself off of bed. He stays at the foot of the cushion for a while, sitting still and surveying his surroundings. Chanyeol is curled up on his bed. The room is still dark. Sunrise isn't until 6 a.m.. He can feel the last dregs of fatigue spilling from his fingers onto the bedsheets as blood rushes to the tips of his fingers. As the last few traces of cold leave him and as warmth settles in. He coughs, sniffles, rubs his eyes and the drowsiness away. Then he stretches his arms overhead. It's normal enough a routine that he doesn't even realize he's already walking out of the room and down the hall until he hears something a few feet away.

He looks around him. Nobody ever gets up at five in the morning. It's exactly why he sets his alarm at five – so he can get some peace and quiet before the wave of noises in the form of nine other bodies settles in. The noise dies down after a while, though. He takes that as a sign to go on and resume his journey to the kitchen.

The silence dissipates after a while, replaced instead by a dull thud coming from nearby. He looks over his shoulder, to his sides. There's no sign of movement anywhere. He hears muffled voices soon after, coming from… the living room? Just outside the window? It's hard to tell. He hasn't even been awake for more than ten minutes yet. Straining his ears is a chore. Still, he yawns into the press of his hand to his mouth in an effort not to make any sound. Then the sound of the knob being twisted reaches his ears, makes a shiver crawl up his nape when he realizes where it's coming from.

He looks to his side and the knob moves.

Someone's in the bathroom.

A faint ssh, don't be– keep quiet–, then a low grunt in response. The voice sounds different, but sounds too close to the first voice Kyungsoo heard. He balls his hands into fists.

There are people in the bathroom.

He prepares to take a step back or forward, to walk as fast as he can to the kitchen or just dash, but to no avail. The door opens with a slick twist of the knob. Light filters from inside and hits Kyungsoo's eyes, blinds him for a split second. Then a familiar figure's slipping from the narrow opening of the door, stepping into Kyungsoo's personal space, bumping his shoulder. He looks up from where he's been staring at the knob but only catches the side profile of the man – fluffy hair, sleepy eyes, a mole just above his lip. Lips thin and pink and chapped. Eye bags the size of craters worn under his eyes like a natural extension of his features. He's seen this face before – in the same dorm, same company, opposite him in the recording booth. Right beside or behind him during performances. Choreography almost always puts them at the same side of the stage. So he whispers, "Baekhyun?" when he feels his tongue again, when the traitorous cold unwraps itself from his throat.

"Sorry," Baekhyun mumbles. His voice is low, scratchy, like he's been practicing too much and too long. Kyungsoo shrugs, takes another step back. This is normal.

Except it isn't, because there's another man stepping out of the bathroom who looks exactly like Baekhyun. The man's eyes widen and his lips fall open into a small 'o'. The man – this man who looks like the 'Baekhyun' Kyungsoo had just seen earlier – gasps. Kyungsoo swallows hard. It takes a good three seconds for Kyungsoo to think of looking at the other guy, to compare and contrast the features of these two Baekhyuns standing in front of him. Everything's the same from the crinkles at the corners of his eyes down to the mole north of his upper lip. It takes him another five to find the words to say, "There's two… of you." Baekhyun – both of them – shakes his head, looks at the other's mirror image, then looks back at Kyungsoo. He feels a jolt of electricity shoot up his spine, traveling to his temples as Baekhyun whispers, "Go." As the first Baekhyun looks over his shoulder before leaving, and as the second Baekhyun wraps his fingers around Kyungsoo's wrist.

"We are not talking about this," Baekhyun mutters, then drags him to the kitchen. His voice is scratchier, a bit pitchy. He sounds as if he's been running miles for the past hour. He hasn't. "You are drinking your coffee and I'll make pancakes and we won't talk about this," he continues. Then he presses his lips into a thin, thin line.

Kyungsoo gulps hard. Shrugs, because he's not yet awake for this. The grip on his wrist tightens like Baekhyun's reminding him of this agreement waiting for his sign off. So he mumbles, "Fine", and takes a deep breath, shaking off Baekhyun's hold on him. He walks over to where the coffee maker is, then, and resumes his morning routine.

Later, over breakfast, with eight other bodies crowding in on them, Baekhyun links their ankles under the dining table. It's as if he's asking, you don't break promises, right? I just had to make sure. You can't be too sure. For all of their training in SM, they've never been taught how to place complete trust in people. Believe that the weirdest possible thing like actually debuting with someone who has the ability to multiply is possible. So Kyungsoo looks up, meets Baekhyun's gaze, and addresses him with a nod. He takes a deep breath, holds all the air in his chest until he can feel his ears popping. When he looks to his side to cough and try to rid himself of the tickling sensation in his throat, Baekhyun pulls away with an easy smile.

From a corner of his eye, he sees Baekhyun staring. He keeps his eyes on his coffee and laughs at his reflection in the swirl of the black liquid: eyes wide open and lips trembling. Too calculated, awake, alive.

Comeback means insurmountable number of hours poured into one thing and one thing alone – practice. They're way past the recording stage, the tracks having been mastered weeks ago, but from time to time Kyungsoo winces at the sound of his own voice. He grimaces when he hears his tone get a bit too throaty just before Baekhyun's voice comes in. He sounded better in the demo, where his voice was velvety smooth and he wasn't too conscious of the number of takes it would take him to perfect his lines. He almost always sounds better on demo, without the pressure of having to be perfect weighing down on him, wrapping around his throat, giving it a tight squeeze.

"Let it go," Jongdae tells him, kicking his foot. Kyungsoo turns to his side. He doesn't bother to furrow his eyebrows in question; he's too tired for that. Instead, he tilts his head and nods in Jongdae's direction as if saying, go on, praise and please me. Jongdae's good with that, making people feel better even if, yes, he does agree to them being particularly shitty at that time. He just knows how to phrase his thoughts properly, in the best way possible. Like, "You can salvage yourself in the lives. They are making us sing life for comeback stage, after all," instead of, I know you sounded terrible in the final master but stop acting like a kid. Grow the fuck up.

Kyungsoo shrugs. Snorts. "Can't be too sure. The producers haven't forgotten Friday the 13th yet," he grumbles. Jongdae heaves a sigh and throws a light jab on his arm. It doesn't hurt a bit. It does jostle him out of fatigue, though. "What?"

"He's right, y'know," Baekhyun says, voice low and rough. He sounds like he's just come from running from Gwangju-si to Gangwon-do and then back. He hasn't. Traveling from being slumped against the door to where Kyungsoo is takes no more then ten steps. He slides next to Kyungsoo and holds out a hand, as if asking for a high five. Five days ago, this could've meant, I feel you, bro. We all make mistakes. Shit happens to the best of us. But after that incident that fine morning, after catching Baekhyun with a mirror image of himself in the bathroom, Kyungsoo isn't so sure how to read the gesture anymore. If things as strange as that can happen then maybe Baekhyun can electrocute him with a touch of his hand. So he stares at the outstretched hand, studies the lines on Baekhyun's palm. His skin is dry, cracking close to the webs of his fingers. And his hand is shaking. It's the same kind of shake Kyungsoo felt Baekhyun's fingers carve on his skin that night, when he found two of Baekhyun shuffled in the same room. "Hey, don't leave me hanging now–"

Kyungsoo shivers, jerks back. He blinks a few times. Baekhyun nudges him in his side, digs his elbow even deeper into Kyungsoo's gut like he's reminding Kyungsoo that he's still waiting for an answer. Kyungsoo relents after a while, giving Baekhyun's hand a light slap. No sparks, just the heat of Baekhyun's palm sticking to his own. The grin of Baekhyun's lips in blinding. "There, better."

None of this is better, though. It's been three years since they've debuted and their health situation isn't getting any better. Jongin's been complaining more about his back problem. Zitao fell again last night, during practice. Yixing hasn't been straining himself, but maybe that's because he can't test the limits of his body anymore. Joonmyun's been taking more calls from the management, reassuring the higher ups that EXO's doing fine, practice is and will always be exciting. Nobody's leaving. Three years in and they already have more scandals than SHINee has ever had. It's no surprise, though – the media's hyperaware of everything now, and virtually anyone can be an investigator. More badly put, a stalker. You can dig up someone's flight information and find out that they're heading to this location, just the two of them, via the internet. You can spread the information via the same channel, too. If, before, being an idol meant sharing a piece of yourself with the public, now it means opening yourself up, peeling off your layers for everyone to see. Shedding all your layers for everyone to see who you really are.

"One last round in ten minutes?" Joonmyun calls out from behind Baekhyun.

Chanyeol raises two thumbs up, then collapses on the floor. Jongin remains standing, still going through the routine but in smaller, more muted movements. "Gotta take this," Baekhyun says, fishing for his phone from his pocket and holding it up in the air. The screen isn't even blinking.

"Reception's bad in the fire exit!" Jongdae calls out. Chanyeol snickers like it's supposed to be funny. It isn't. Not to Kyungsoo. Not when he has an inkling of what might happen.

Kyungsoo slips from the room before the ten minutes elapse, saying he has to go to the bathroom. Chanyeol, ever helpful, tosses a pack of wipes in his direction because, "They ran out of tissue in there a few minutes ago. Some dude's probably taking a dump, took the whole ream or something. It smelled awful in there. Or maybe–" An exaggerated gasp, then, "–maybe someone killed somebody and he used the tissue to clean up the mess–" Chanyeol was watching some twisted sci-fi movie last night. He left it running until Kyungsoo was done with his shower. It was the exact same scenario Chanyeol was trying to replicate in real life. It would've been hilarious if Kyungsoo really didn't have to pee. So in reply, he sticks out his middle finger, hand raised over his shoulder until he steps out of the room. Chanyeol's fading laughter in a reminder of the distance between the practice room and everything else.

When they're in SM, preparing for a comeback, it feels as if they're in a different world. Much more toxic, the scent of sweat and tears thick and heavy in the room. It's almost sickening.

The bathroom is blessedly free from any trace of blood when Kyungsoo arrives. The last cubicle is occupied, so he takes the one in the middle, pulls down the seat cover before gripping the waistband of his pants. He's prepared to pull down his bottoms when a throaty groan fills the bathroom, bounces off its walls and rings in Kyungsoo's ears.

"Come on," says the voice. It sounds eerily familiar. "We don't have time–"

"You don't. I do," says a second voice. It sounds much like the first, except with more lilts. Less roughened by fatigue and more velvety, like Baekhyun had taken a shot of whiskey before belting out his lines in their new duet for the third album. "Just a bit more–"

Wet slapping sounds, a low grunt, then a thud against the door of the cubicle. "God-fucking-dammit–"

Kyungsoo leans forward, resting his forehead on the door. He closes his eyes.

Not this shit again.

This isn't the first time he's hearing anyone get off or fucking around with someone. An open secret in SM: almost everyone fucks with everybody during tours. Joonmyun gets around a lot, manages to lure girls into a stall or maybe backstage after a really great performance. "I can sing a lot of songs," is Joonmyun's standard pick up line; Jongin's is, "I… need help. Please?" It's almost normal to see someone backed against the wall that nobody minds anyone's business anymore during breaks. Idols need a form of release, somehow, something to get rid of the stress, and this is one of them. Once, Kyungsoo walked in on Sehun licking a stripe along Jongin's neck and sucking marks there. He was looking for Sunyoung then, meaning to practice his number with her, but instead he found Jongin rubbing up against Sehun. Sehun flashed him an amused glance and Kyungsoo took a step back at the first opportunity. Ten minutes after, Jongin emerged from the room with his top crumpled. Sehun's hair was a mess. Kyungsoo locked himself up in a cubicle as soon as he'd finished practicing with Sunyoung and touched himself, rubbed his thumb along the tent in his pants. Then Joonmyun came knocking on the door and said, "Kyungsoo? Kyungsoo! We're up in ten minutes."

Beat you to it, hyung, he wanted to say then. He didn't. Instead, he washed his hands and flicked water in his eyes. Asked the make up artists to retouch his eyeliner. Went up on stage and sang his heart out. Baekhyun, sensing the tremble in his voice, gripped him by the wrist and sang Kyungsoo's line in a faint, faint voice, just enough to cover the cracks in Kyungsoo's tone. Like he was saying, yeah, I feel you. And I can feel your pulse on my skin.

There's no Baekhyun to hold his hand right now, though, no Baekhyun to snap him back to reality because Baekhyun is elsewhere, two cubicles away. Kyungsoo can hear the rustling of clothes, can hear the slapping of skin on skin. Like someone patting the other's back except this isn't dance practice. And Baekhyun's a shitty dancer. He shivers all over when he hears a series of growls, groans. Gulps hard and digs his nails into his skin at the same time that Baekhyun lets out the most obscene moan. Get out, get out now while you can, a voice at the back of his mind says, but the sound gets drowned by Baekhyun's soft ah's, swallowed by Baekhyun's whimpers. It balls up into something that lodges itself in Kyungsoo's throat, keeps him from breathing properly and evenly. It sends a sizzle of heat straight down Kyungsoo's abdomen.

He takes a few quick breaths, matching that of Baekhyun's uneven breathing. "Jesus, fuck–" comes Baekhyun's choked voice, and that's what reels Kyungsoo back to reality, back to this moment where he's supposed to be looking for Baekhyun and not getting off to his voice.

He slams his fist into the door. Baekhyun's breath hitches a few feet away. "There's someone–" he begins, but his speech is soon cut off by a throaty moan, long and drawn out, like that's what does it for him: the knowledge that someone's watching, listening, that someone's getting off to the mere sound of his voice whittled down to these tiny whimpers and whispers.

A thick blanket of silence wraps around the room, fills its four corners with white noise and the occasional sound of heavy breathing. Kyungsoo can hear his own pulse at the back of his ears, can feel it behind his knees. In the warm and heavy reminder of arousal between his legs that twitches when the other door swings open, then shuts closed not too long after.

When Kyungsoo's well sure that Baekhyun is no longer in sight, he slips from the cubicle and splashes water on his face. It does little to keep him in check, does very little to still the warm thrum of arousal in his chest, but it does make his vision clearer than before. In the mirror, he sees two images: the wrecked look on his features, sweet and sickening, and the ghost of Baekhyun's bright smile hovering his shoulder.

(When he returns to the practice room, hair sticking up in several directions from when he'd mussed it up, Baekhyun cranes his neck and meets his eyes. There's an unspoken message somewhere there, in the tilt of Baekhyun's chin, scrawled on the giving slope of his neck. It's there in the way he holds Kyungsoo's gaze like he's saying, you didn't see what you saw earlier, didn't hear anything. You weren't supposed to know a thing. Kyungsoo's better with body language, so he drops his gaze, traces the column of Baekhyun's neck and fixes his eyes on the bloom of red on Baekhyun's skin.

Baekhyun adjusts his shirt, pulls it up by the collar. Kyungsoo adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his notes. Jongin counts to three and the music starts. Kyungsoo's body moves to the beat, like every verse is an extension of himself or a phantom limb he isn't even aware that he has. Every brush of his pants against his arousal stings. It's torture.

It's business as usual.)

Kyungsoo tilts his head up and lets the water from the shower prick his skin. The image of Baekhyun's stare still burns at the back of his eyelids, still burns and scores a line down his belly to send a funny tingle to the tip of his dick. They'd made eye contact again after practice, just before the van arrived. It could've meant, 'stall' or 'lemme know if we have to go already, then I'll try to cum– come as soon as possible'. They were still working out the details. What Kyungsoo was sure of, though, was this: he had immaculate timing. By the time Joonmyun looked over his shoulder to do a headcount, Baekhyun was back, not a hair out of place. Then Baekhyun sat right beside him in the van. Pressed thigh to thigh, there was very little that he could do when Baekhyun rested his head on his shoulder. So Kyungsoo let him. When Baekhyun scribbled 'thanks' on the back of his hand five minutes into the ride, Kyungsoo just snorted in response.

He laughs to himself now and presses his palms to his cheeks. He can still feel the sting of the characters Baekhyun had written on his skin, the figures Baekhyun doodled on his hand. He'd tried washing them off earlier, but to no avail. He'd just ended up with the skin on his knuckles white and dry.

He reaches for the soap and tries rubbing it off again. Still no luck.

There's a reason why he'd let the others shower ahead of him: it's hard to get off on the other side of the door knowing that there's someone's leaning against the wall, waiting for his turn. Knowing that someone might catch him. He can't be the first person to get off to the image of his fellow member, his friend on his knees and sucking him off, though. He can't be the only one cursed with the gift of photographic memory so crisp and clear that he can even hear the sounds Baekhyun would make if he thrust too hard into Baekhyun's face, fucked his mouth just so.

But he's the only one who knows about the other Baekhyun. Baekhyun – the one whose voice he's been dancing to for the past three years already – said so earlier, in the van, with his lips pressed to the back of Kyungsoo's ear. "It's a secret. Our little secret," Baekhyun had whispered. Their knuckles brushed against each other. Baekhyun jerked back, like he wasn't accustomed to anyone else but his double touching him. Kyungsoo shrugged his shoulders and said, "Not my secret to tell." He felt Baekhyun's muscles relax after that, the tight knot of tension on the corners of Baekhyun's mouth relaxing against Kyungsoo's cheek.

He feels the ghost of a hand slither around his waist, wrap around him like a quilt and drape on his shoulders. His chest tightens. The warmth travels from the tips of his fingers down to his toes, making them curl–

"Yah, Kyungsoo–" Three knocks on the door, unevenly spaced out. Kyungsoo jerks back, his entire body shivering under the spray. This isn't Baekhyun. This isn't an illusion. This is Chanyeol reeling him back to the surface, like a harsh splash of water to his face. "Hey man, you alive in there? Did the toilet swallow you whole or something?"

"I'll be out in a few," he replies. He tucks his chin, rinsing the shampoo out of his hair. He feels nothing but the slide of the strands against his skin, carving narrow slits along the length of his fingers. The soap's long been washed away by the water. "Five minutes," he promises.

"Cool," says Chanyeol on the other side of the door. "Want coffee?"

"Hot choco."

"Or tea– O... kay."

"Thanks," Kyungsoo mutters. He leaves it up to years of knowing each other to amplify the sound of his voice, magnify it tenfold. He tilts his head up again. His bangs stick to his face, slipping between the narrow gaps in his eyebrows. He brushes his hair away, then, and turns off the shower all the way. He doesn't leave until he sees the last drop of water fall to the trap, until he feels his hands again. Then he reaches for his towel, wraps it around his waist tight. Before stepping out of the bathroom, he doubles the knot, makes sure his towel won't come off. He can't take risks. He can't let his guard down.

He can't let himself down.

With only a few weeks left until the start of promotions, the practices start to stretch for longer hours. Minseok's been massaging his knees more, or at least whenever he can. Zitao stretches his back during the small windows of time when they can breathe. Jongin's complaints have dwindled to tiny whimpers, but that isn't to say that the pain's more bearable. It isn't. Kyungsoo has seen Jongin making occasional trips to his physical therapist. He's seen Jongin taking medication for the pain. Once, during breakfast, Jongin went into a fit of panic because he couldn't find his pillbox. So when Sehun dangled it in front of him, he snatched the box right away and kicked Sehun in the calf.

"Not funny," Jongin mumbled. These days, it translates to: this pain is fucking killing me. Someone call the doctor. "Really not funny. Let's see you feel the same thing and–"

"Okay, okay. Enough," Joonmyun interrupted. He shot them a stern look, then blinked at his food like he was trying to recall what he'd been doing before reprimanding the two. Two seats away, Kyungsoo tried picking the seaweed in his soup with his chopsticks, but his hands wouldn't stop shaking. It's the same shit day in and day out, three months before comeback. It was still worse prior to debut, though. So all in all, they're better off now.

He grips his bicep tight now, trying to massage it. His hands haven't stilled yet. The press of his palm is warm, though, a bit comforting, but just as soon as the tension in his limbs dissipates, his throat clenches. He can taste acid in the roof of his mouth. The last meal he's – they – had was breakfast, seven in the morning. The coffee was good, but caffeine unwraps itself from the drinker's body six hours after it's been consumed. And it's already five in the afternoon. They've all just been taking water ever since, too caught up in the desire to perfect the routine before they let their guards down and slack off. Jongin might have munched on a cracker or two, but he needs it for his medication. And they need Jongin in this team.

"Fuck–" Joonmyun huffs, throws his hands in the air at the same time that he groans. "Okay. Break time. Fifteen minutes!" he says in surrender. Chanyeol lets out the most unabashed 'yay!' and collapses on the floor. It sounds more like a llama drowning than anything else. "Just fifteen minutes, okay? After that, we run through the steps one last time–"

"And try to get things right once and for all. Yada yada yada." Yixing sinks to his knees, then lies on his stomach on the floor. He's more vocal when tired but, then again, who isn't? Yixing's patience and control isn't as immeasurable as most people think. He's human, too. "I feel like I'm practicing for fifty comebacks. Everything hurts."

Including your heart? Kyungsoo hears someone ask. Probably Zitao. Only he would have enough energy to joke around after too many runs of their routine. He snorts. "Last time, you said you felt like you were practicing for a hundred."

"A thousand," Baekhyun corrects. He looks around, then turns to Joonmyun to ask, "Can I pee?"

Joonmyun rolls his eyes. "Do whatever you want. Just come back in fifteen minutes. No extensions."

Baekhyun sneaks a glance at Kyungsoo before going on his way. Kyungsoo feels the hair at the back of his nape stand. He shakes that off, cracks his neck and pulls his knees closer to his chest. Fifteen minutes is enough for a nap.

He doesn't get to, though, because Chanyeol starts poking him in his side so he could extend his legs in front of him. So Chanyeol could use his 'squishy legs' as a cushion. There's no use trying to fight it, so Kyungsoo gives in and allows Chanyeol to offer him silence as a 'thank you'. It's enough to soothe the tension in his nerves, his muscles, to make his stomach stop lurching long enough to last until the last practice session before they call it a day. He threads his fingers through Chanyeol's hair, twirls a couple of strands in his fingers until Chanyeol's humming in his sleep. He rouses ten minutes after, unfolding from the curl of his body and burying his nose in the shallow groove between Kyungsoo's knees.

"You smell like shit," Chanyeol groans. He rubs the tip of his nose against Kyungsoo's jeans. Kyungsoo isn't sure yet what Chanyeol's trying to achieve, but whatever – he's too tired to figure this out. "Did you fart?"

From a corner of his eye, he sees Joonmyun shaking his head. "I can, now," Kyungsoo replies, then, standing from where he's been seated on the floor and squeezing his thighs. The rush of blood makes him shiver, almost makes him topple over when his blood reaches his calves. It makes the pulse at the back of his knees throb in heavy beats.

"Do it."

"Like hell, I would."

"All bark, no bite," Chanyeol says, sticking out his tongue.

Kyungsoo does a chomping gesture with his teeth. Chanyeol only laughs in response. A few feet away, Jongin asks, "Where's Baekhyun-hyung? He asked me to teach him how to land nicely after doing a pirouette."

Kyungsoo takes a deep breath. "I'll fetch the dog," he mutters. He draws his shoulders back. The dull 'popping' of his bones feels more like a go signal than a sign to take a break. "Be back in five."

Joonmyun waves him off and closes his eyes again in response.

He checks the bathroom first, swinging the door as quietly as possible so as to not startle anyone. The scent of lime and ocean water greets him. There's none of the thick scent of sex in the air, no closed doors or heavy breathing filling the four corners of the room. His reflection in the mirror glares at him, studies him from head to toe. There's no silhouette of Baekhyun over his shoulder this time, no other Baekhyun to make him turn around and do a double take. Make sure he isn't just imagining things. He feels a familiar sizzle crawl down his stomach, and he shakes it off even before it can make his insides turn. Even before the tingling sensation can reach his toes and make them curl.

He blinks a few times, cups his hands under the tap so he can splash water on his face. Reality, he tells himself. This is reality. It's just him here. He needs to find Baekhyun, on Joonmyun's 'orders'.

He checks the rooftop next, remembering how they used to share a stick up there between recordings in an attempt to calm their stomachs from growling. They were too young then, just a few months shy of debuting. They were naive, a bit foolish. They were irrelevant. Even if they went to Hongdae to get ass drunk or wasted, no one would recognize them, so it was okay to puff one stick after another in the open air. It's nice having that leisure and not having to be hyperaware of everything all the time. Nowadays, they can't even leave the SM building through the back door without having to check if someone's waiting to snap pictures at them outside.

He swings the door to the rooftop open. No Baekhyun in sight here, as well, not even a shadow of him. The air here is cool and fresh and clean. This isn't the air they're breathing back in the practice room, or even in the booth during recordings.

Closed spaces, a voice at the back of his mind says. He takes a different flight of stairs back down, takes one last deep breath of the air out here before heading back inside. He knows exactly where to find Baekhyun.

The fire exit isn't the most comfortable of places to be in. It's hot and humid here, and the air is so thin that Kyungsoo feels his chest constrict three floors in. His threadbare shirt sticks to his back, just along the column of his spine. He can feel the growing cold on the waistband of his pants, sweat from hours of practice collecting on it. Walking into a cold room is a disaster waiting to happen so he stays here, continues his journey south despite aching knees.

He grips the railing with his left hand and the area just above his knee with his right. Two more floors until he gets back to where he started. Two more floors until his limbs give up and out on him.

He lets out a breathy exhale when he catches sight of a tuft of hair from the railings. Baekhyun's voice is low, laboured, but it echoes in the fire exit nonetheless. Gets amplified with every step forward that Kyungsoo takes. Soon, he's seeing another body, hunched in the same manner that Baekhyun is – knees pulled close to his chest, chin rested on them. Bottom lip jutted out and eyebrows in a startlingly straight line even as one of them whispers, "This is tiring."

One of them looks up. This Baekhyun's hair is more messed up, bangs clumped together at the tips because of sweat and oil. Kyungsoo gulps hard. "So they sent a search party for me. How cute," this Baekhyun says, but it sounds strange, almost different. Almost like Kyungsoo doesn't know this voice, like he hasn't been practicing alongside Baekhyun for years. Hasn't been singing to his voice or sleeping to the cracks of it. "Or did you decide to go out on your own?" he continues to ask.

Kyungsoo runs a hand through his hair, grabs a fistful and pulls his hair back. He feels a pinch of pain in his scalp. There are still two Baekhyuns here. "Yeah. I– Well, Joonmyun-hyung was looking for you. Fifteen minutes is over." He drops his gaze to Baekhyun's wrist. He's wearing a wristwatch. Baekhyun hates wearing watches. He shifts his gaze to the other Baekhyun, then, craning his neck to check if he's wearing a band on his wrist. There's nothing there but the glow of fingernail scratches. This is Baekhyun."You can't keep disappearing on us during breaks. Pretty soon, they'll think–"

"I won't do it. I'm not leaving." Baekhyun number two scratches the slope of his neck, rolls his eyes. Growls, except he sounds more like a cat in a lion's costume, mewling again and again. "I just need time alone."

Kyungsoo snorts. Two bodies pressed thigh to thigh in a stairwell is hardly 'alone'. Two bodies sliding against each other in the van, at the very back where it's darkest and they have the leisure of doing anything and everything, isn't 'alone'.

A pregnant pause, then Baekhyun adds, "With myself, I mean. Sort out my shit. Calm down the voices in my head. It's that time of the year again." His shadow laughs a little, nudges him in his side with his elbow. Baekhyun doesn't flinch, but he does rub the underside of his nose. He looks up at Kyungsoo to meet his gaze after a while. A familiar tingle crawls from the back of Kyungsoo's knees down to his ankle. He loses the feeling in his legs for a moment, but it's back as soon as Baekhyun reaches out, as soon as Baekhyun curls his fingers at the cuffs of Kyungsoo's track pants. "They're too noisy."

Baekhyun means, I can't stop thinking about every single thing. Can't stop overanalyzing and being too self-aware, self-conscious. It's the same virus that consumed them before debut, during those six long months when they did nothing but practice how to make people fall in love with them with a coy smile. It's the same virus that nibbled on Kyungsoo's fingers when he accidentally dropped the microphone during a performance. He'd be traumatized by the event after that, scarred forever by the horrified expression on fans' faces. Those were the culprits, sickness and fatigue. Together, they were a force to be reckoned with. They were indestructible.

Alone, being sick of this routine was a sneaky little virus that ate people from the inside. Like a common cold left unattended for too long. A tiny vessel of 'Baekhyun' in Kyungsoo that blooms everytime Baekhyun's voice cracks or whenever he goes pitchy, like every misstep of Baekhyun's is an extension of Kyungsoo's failures. They are part of the same team, after all, part of the unofficial sub-unit called 'when all else fails, when the other members screw up, sing their parts as well.' EXO's caped crusaders when the burden of vocals is too much for Jongdae to bear.

Kyungsoo heaves a sigh. He looks at Baekhyun's fingers, then lifts his gaze to meet Baekhyuns' own. "Then make them shut up."

Both Baekhyuns laugh. One sounds more alive than the other. The twitch of the corners of Baekhyun's – the one he was talking to earlier – mouth is so subtle, barely there. He's the one with the rougher voice, more drenched in fatigue. "I think you know that I'm not good with the shutting up thing."

"Then practice."

"I'm tired of practicing."

"We're all tired," Kyungsoo grumbles. "But that doesn't mean you can just give up and hide wherever and expect us not to get any weird ideas."

Baekhyun cocks an eyebrow. He parts his lips like he's about to say something, but nothing comes out. Instead, he blows at his bangs and yawns, open-mouthed, unabashed. "Weird ideas, huh?" he says after a while, seconds after the silence begins to ease in. Kyungsoo's body gives a tiny jerk. It feels as if he's just snapped his neck or something. "What sort of weird ideas?"

The type where someone leaves the group again – that's Joonmyun's greatest fear at the moment. Yifan and Lu Han's departure from the group didn't mean cutting ties with them completely. It just meant being more creative with finding ways to contact them, capitalizing on the small windows of opportunity to keep in touch. Yifan still listens to EXO's music and sobs a little whenever he hears Don't Go. Lu Han still steals Minseok and Sehun from noraebang plans to play soccer with them. They still enjoy samgyupsal as a group of twelve from time to time. The biggest difference lay in the image they had to portray, the hatred they had to harbor in their hearts everytime they went on screen. Every guest appearance was like giving the media opportunity to break the group up one talk show at a time. And every single time, they had to relive the feeling of uncertainty at the back of their minds like a dull ache they've never been able to get rid of.

And then there's Baekhyun being driven to tipping or breaking point, Baekhyun cracking under the pressure and losing his mind. EXO losing one vocalist after another and those talents losing their voice due to overwork. Their career going down the fucking drain without a chance of being ever revived. The rest of the group falling into the same pit of despair because 'we are one'. It's a silly slogan, but nothing quite captures the essence of their friendship like those three words. And EXO-L actually means EXO-Link, not Love.

"All sorts of weird ideas," Kyungsoo answers, instead. He holds Baekhyun's gaze longer, trying to look for an opening. At the slightest movement of Baekhyun's eyebrows, Kyungsoo gestures at the other Baekhyun beside him. He doesn't even get to finish, because soon Baekhyun is rolling his eyes and grinning and letting slip tiny bursts of laughter from his lips. "And ideas turned reality."

"He's both real and unreal. He's got a part of me in him," Baekhyun says, like he's talking about a real person, someone they've worked with in those three years that they've been promoting SM's songs as a group. He isn't. He's talking about this shadow of a person right beside him, the contours of his features fading out into tiny wisps. "He's just not as awesome as I am."

Kyungsoo laughs a little. Baekhyun's shaking his head now, his mouth twisting into a small, incredulous smile. It's as if he's saying, what the hell am I thinking? What did I really want to achieve? How can I still be me when part of me is with this other person beside me? He seems to struggle articulating that, so Kyungsoo echoes the sentiment for him, saying, "But he came from you. He can neither be better nor worse." He can feel light laughter bubbling on his lips, tickling his throat. He half scoffs, half snorts. The lines of tension on Baekhyun's forehead ease into a smooth plain. "It's as good as it gets."

As good as it gets means Baekhyun working hard and working other people harder. Rallying everyone to do their very best so that he won't have to pick up after someone's shit. Often, Baekhyun kids about being the hero, saving the faces of people whose voices crack at the most inopportune times, but after that incident where he went flat on live TV, the teasing dwindled to just sprouts of jokes. They were guests in a reality show that time, a comedy one. Baekhyun managed to turn that humiliating experience into the best joke of the year. The best comeback, as well, when he blew people away after his second performance. Still, Kyungsoo can't forget the look of horror in Baekhyun's features, his wide eyes, the tiny 'o' of his mouth. The way his fingers trembled on Kyungsoo's thigh and the way he almost hit Kyungsoo in the face with his fist when he nailed the high note in his comeback.

"You're not so bad," Kyungsoo says after a while, voice dropping down to a whisper.

Baekhyun cocks an eyebrow at him, challenging, but the corners of his mouth are quirked up. "Eh. I still have a lot to work on," is Baekhyun's response, the low volume of his voice rivaling that of Kyungsoo's. He locks his arms in front of him, stretching, but it looks more like him burying his face between his arms in an effort to not bare all his teeth at Kyungsoo in glee. It's there in the violent upward tug on his cheeks, in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he resurfaces. It's there in the warm flush coloring his cheeks. None of that shared resource of breathing air and blood between him and the shadow anymore.

He returns his hand to where it's been tugging on a leg of Kyungsoo's pants. Kyungsoo doesn't pay much notice to it, or at least he doesn't it show. "So come back to the practice room with me," he says after a while. It sounds like a plea. It isn't. It's a directive. He clears his throat. "There are people waiting."

Baekhyun holds his gaze for a moment, then looks down at this shoes. Kyungsoo cranes his neck and almost snorts when he sees Baekhyun's dirtied up Keds, his favorite pair even before they debuted. They're worn out, the tips of the shoes almost torn and tattered, but then it's been years. Anything that's been abused this much really will come out like it's been through the worst shitstorm ever. He hears a dull 'pop', then, and feels his entire body jerk. The figure beside Baekhyun dissipates into wisps of black, purified by the light filtering from wherever and making it disappear. Baekhyun looks more alive, though, lips a nice shade of red and cheeks tinted with a bit of pink. His back is no longer hunched, shoulders no longer slumped. His eyes are focused and discerning and asking, did you wait with the rest of the group?

Baekhyun unfurls his fingers from the tight fist on the cuff of Kyungsoo's pants. He drops his hand to his side, then says, "Right. Before hyung throws a fit."

"Right," Kyungsoo echoes, then extends a hand in Baekhyun's direction. Baekhyun looks up at him, just stares at him with an eyebrow cocked in question. Here he is again, reminding Kyungsoo that he's waiting for an answer, a tiny jerk of the body, the slightest gesture that can be a response to what he asked earlier. So Kyungsoo says, "Don't make me wait," shakes his hand a little like waving it in front of Baekhyun's eyes will snap Baekhyun out of his reverie.

Baekhyun slips his fingers between Kyungsoo's own. His palm is rough, callous. The fit of their hands is warm. It makes Kyungsoo shiver.

It makes his insides turn again, and again, and again.

"I can summon him at will when I'm sad. Or just not feeling well," Baekhyun explains one time, when Kyungsoo finds him at the rooftop during lunch. "I just have to say, 'hey Byun', and poof!"

Baekhyun makes this weird sort of gesture with his hands, brandishing them in the air. He even puffs his cheeks and purses his lips as if in concentration, as if he's really summoning his other self just by mentioning the key phrase. And it would've been funny if nothing happened and they ended up staring at emptiness, really, because how the hell does that happen? You don't just think of something and expect it to materialize in front of you. Kyungsoo presses his lips thinly together, then, trying hard not to laugh, but– Poof! The other Baekhyun appears, wisps of white weaving into something more solid. It's as if he's a genie who's just been summoned by his master, a master who looks strangely like him.

Kyungsoo feels his throat go dry. He parts his lips a little, presses them together again when the words escape him. Baekhyun's grinning at him as if saying, hah, you non-believer. He gulps hard.

"And he stays there for as long as he likes," he continues. He sways from side to side, tilting his head like a kid who's just won a bet. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"No?" Kyungsoo answers, earnest. He furrows his eyebrows. "And then what?"

Baekhyun hums, taking a deep breath as he leans back against the railing. He eyes Baekhyun – the other one, the real one – from head to toe, or at least until the other Baekhyun traps him against the steel bars, hands on either side of him. He shakes his head, slow and deliberate, then holds the other Baekhyun's gaze. He watches the subtle rise of Baekhyun's eyebrows, the slow rise and fall of the other Baekhyun's chest as he nods, each repetition three seconds from each other. It's as if there's a conversation going on, spoken through the language of quirks, the tiniest shift of facial muscles. And it feels like intruding. Kyungsoo feels a traitorous cold wrap around his throat, then sink to the bottom of his stomach. He feels it bloom inside him, making him shiver all over.

Then Baekhyun jerks back, shoulders hitting the railing. He lets out a low scowl. "Then he keeps me company," Baekhyun finally answers. He hasn't looked away from the other Baekhyun yet, hasn't lowered the raised eyebrow or pressed his lips together in a dangerously thin line. "However I want him to, for however long I want to keep him around."

That's sickening, that's sick, Kyungsoo wants to say, but Baekhyun doesn't seem to mind the whole arrangement. And the other Baekhyun is studying him, like Baekhyun – the real one, the one who's mouthing 'go' then cocking his head in Kyungsoo's direction – is the most interesting thing ever. Like he's the unexpected outcome of a science experiment, the biggest shock of the century. Kyungsoo can see it now, the headlines on broadsheets if this ever makes the news: 'Byun Baekhyun finds completion in... himself?' The subheading can be, '"I like myself a lot," EXO's Baekhyun confesses'. Kyungsoo will never admit to writing that article.

The other Baekhyun inches farther away from Baekhyun until he's hitting the wall. There's a good foot and a half between both Baekhyuns now, just enough space for Kyungsoo to slip into. Baekhyun gestures at him, then, and says, "C'mere, I don't bite."

Yeah, you just fuck yourself in a bathroom stall during breaks. Kyungsoo snorts, keeps his mouth shuts and just nods. Pretends that the whole arrangement makes sense. At least Baekhyun's voice hasn't crack yet despite the endless hours of practice and his dancing hasn't declined from passable to laughable. He sits next to Baekhyun, then, and looks the other way, studying the features of the other Baekhyun to his right.

A funny shiver crawls up his spine, makes his breath hitch. They have the same smile, the same glint in the eyes. And when they reach out to pinch his cheeks, Kyungsoo isn't able to tell the difference.

Knowing Baekhyun's secret has its pros and cons. On the pros, in no particular order: he gets to observe a strange life form talk and walk and react like a human being, gets to order Baekhyun around and get free coffee from him every morning. There's also Baekhyun not getting tired so easily when they're rehearsing their duet for the upcoming comeback (KBS informed them of the new plan for their ten-minute stage only three days ago). On the cons, meanwhile: being the one assigned to 'fetch' Baekhyun because, "You're the only one who finds him," Sehun had said one time. He has to live with the knowledge that one other person lives among them, someone who's supposed to have all of Baekhyun's memories but isn't entirely Baekhyun. That this other Baekhyun can crawl under his covers anytime the real Baekhyun wishes. That he has to be the one to cover for Baekhyun every fucking time.

The last item, struck through at least three times: that there's always a 50% chance that he'd walk in on the two making out in the closest cramped space. Then under that, in tiny text, the fact that he has to ignore the strain in his pants every single time.

He catches them in the bathroom at ass o' clock in the morning. He isn't due for his early morning pee until another hour, but everyone got a little drunk after Joonmyun said he'd pay for the alcohol after a long and tiring day of practice (then deferred the food costs to 'best hyung, Minseok-hyung'). He had two, three bottle of beers that night, then one too many shots of soju, dove straight into his bed and didn't bother to freshen up before passing out on the bed. Fast forward three hours after and here he is, holding his bladder and padding closer to the common bathroom. They'd petitioned even before Growl promotions ended to have another bathroom made somewhere in the dorm, but the management fell on deaf ears. Shrugged them off like they weren't one of SM's most valuable assets of 2014. In hindsight, they should've seen it coming but then Zitao's optimism had already rubbed off of everybody.

He peels his bangs off his forehead and cringes at the slide of his hair between his fingers. His scalp's fucking oily. He's gross.

A dull thump against the door, then suppressed groans. He looks to his side from where he's been staring at the clump of hair between his fingers.

Baekhyun's probably doing this on purpose.

Only 'probably' because anyone can wake up at two in the morning to pee and then go back to bed. But then everyone's aware of Kyungsoo's routine. It's the same practice he's been following since all of them were tossed into one house and forced to live with each other. If Joonmyun woke up in the middle of the night for some strange reason then maybe he wouldn't bump into Kyungsoo even in his state of sleep. And Kyungsoo wouldn't make the mistake of snapping Joonmyun out of his trance to make sure that their leader doesn't walk into a door.

He shakes his head, shakes the fatigue from his limbs. He can hear the alcohol sloshing in his mind, making every part of his body feel sore. He can run to the kitchen, walk away from what's happening on the other side of the door, but he can't. There's something about knowing what's happening just beyond the door but not quite knowing everything that's going on that's keeping him rooted on his spot. There's something about the mystery that wraps around Kyungsoo's ankle and keeps him from moving, from even jerking his feet and shucking off the cool, tight circle around his ankles. And there's something about the way Baekhyun's moans get muffled by all the distance between them, the knowledge that Kyungsoo isn't seeing everything just yet and that if he just knocks on the door then maybe, maybe Baekhyun can show him how it's done–

No. He shuts his eyes. Takes a few steps back until he feels the back of his head hit the wall. It doesn't hurt. It should. And he should be walking away now before Baekhyun even gets wind of his presence on the other side of the door–

"Someone's–" Baekhyun mumbles something inaudible. Kyungsoo steps to his right, then left. He looks at either side of him. It's just him in the hall, just him and the knowledge that Baekhyun's fucking himself or being fucked by his shadow. And maybe the overwhelming strain in his pants, his arousal hot and heavy between his legs. He reaches south, cupping his dick through his bottoms.

He throws his head back and lets out a low groan at the first touch. He's too hot, too sensitive right now. Alcohol has made his limbs loose and logic more elusive. He gives his cock another squeeze, then draws a line along the length with his thumb. His breath hitches.

"There's someone– Wait–"

Kyungsoo opens his eyes. He can feel his fingers tremble against his cock, can feel warmth traveling down his belly all the way to the tip of his dick. He can't wait anymore.

The door swings open, revealing Baekhyun on the other side. Just one of him, the real one whose mole just north of his upper lip is darker than that of the copycat's. Kyungsoo drops his hand to his side. He bites his bottom lip, swallows down the whimper threatening to spill from his lips. But control has never been his best trait in tight situations, has never been something he's exercised off-stage or behind the camera. All the pretending and suppressing on stage just leaves him so pent up, craving and yearning for a touch less impersonal than that of a fan's, less familiar than the stroke of his own hand and the fingers of imagination wrapping around his dick, jerking him off in an easy rhythm.

"You're awake," Baekhyun whispers. Over his shoulder, the other Baekhyun tiptoes, cranes his neck. His cheeks are flushed and his lips are swollen. There's a bright red mark on his neck, the base of his throat, on the space just a few centimeters shy of his chin. And his eyes are unfocused, like Baekhyun had stolen all of his attention and never gave it back. Baekhyun loves marking his territory, making sure that everybody knows that he's got this game in the bag, it's game over. Stating again and again that between singing and his charm, it's the charm that wins people over. His talent is just a plus.

Kyungsoo nods. His dick twitches in his pants in acknowledgement. "I... had to pee."

"I was–" Baekhyun looks over his shoulder. The other Baekhyun catches his bottom lip between his teeth, sucks on it until Baekhyun's moaning into the open press of the other's mouth. "–am using it."

"I can see that," Kyungsoo mutters. He drops his gaze to his feet, kicks at the floor. "It's nothing important. I'll just–"

"Join us," the other Baekhyun says. Baekhyun – the real one, whose hair's a mess and whose lips are the brightest shade of red – pulls away, widens his eyes at his reflection. Kyungsoo gulps hard. "Since you're already in on the secret. This can be incentive to keep mum about it."

Baekhyun widens his eyes. "He's Kyungsoo."

"Exactly. He's Kyungsoo." The other Baekhyun laughs a little. "All the more reason to invite him inside."

What is that even supposed to mean, Kyungsoo wants to ask, but his body's betraying him right now. All his senses are acting against him. Maybe this is just a test. Maybe he's just seeing things, hearing things. Maybe abstaining from sex and getting off to Jongdae's shitty porn is working against him. Maybe this is all a dream and if he just kicks his feet hard enough, he'll jerk back to reality. But it isn't. Baekhyun's heavy gaze burns at the back of his eyelids. The warmth of Baekhyun's breath tickling the bridge of his nose feels too real. And the way his stomach lurches in several different directions is too consuming for this to be part of his wicked, wild imagination.

Kyungsoo lets his gaze trace the curve of Baekhyun's cheeks, lets it settle on the swell of Baekhyun's top lip. His breath hitches. This isn't test. This isn't part of the training program. When he signed a contract with SM, he signed himself up for months of vocal and dance lessons, personality development. Self-improvement. Nobody taught him – them – what to do when your bandmate walked up to you, a gentle, coaxing smile on his lips as he asked, "Do you want to get into a threesome with me?" And in all of Kyungsoo's years in SM, experience has never taught him how to deal with the sinking sensation in his stomach, the clawing pain in his chest as he convinced himself that kissing a bandmate, someone he has to trust with all of his life and his career, is the worst possible idea.

"You're kidding, right?" Kyungsoo croaks.

Baekhyun blinks a few times. He reaches out, curling his fingers around Kyungsoo's wrist. His fingers are cold and his pulse is beating strongly against Kyungsoo's skin. He isn't kidding. "Wish I was."

What Baekhyun probably means is, I wish we weren't in the same band. That way, we won't have to worry about being awkward tomorrow. That way, we can just forget about this and sit beside each other in the van and not think about anything at all.

"So?" asks the other Baekhyun, impatient as any version of Baekhyun would be. Kyungsoo takes a deep breath, takes a leap of faith, and takes a step forward. When Baekhyun shuts the door behind him and traps him against the door, he lays all logic to rest and succumbs to the whims of his limbs. To the muscle left of his chest. To the voice at the very back of his head saying, 'Be careful what you wish for, Do Kyungsoo. It might just happen to you.'

It's an early morning for them the following day. They have a radio guesting at seven in the morning, which means call time is at six. They have to get up at five. Kyungsoo doesn't fall asleep until four in the morning, when Baekhyun has stopped wiggling in his bed and has finally leaned into the press of his back to Kyungsoo's chest. There's still the sting of Baekhyun nipping his bottom lip, sucking on his top lip like he was on a quest to keep Kyungsoo from enunciating his syllables properly on broadcast. Every part of him that Baekhyun has touched burns. And there's still a dull ache in his jaw hours after, when they've already shuffled into the van and Baekhyun has slipped right beside him, head finding a nice fit on his shoulder.

Kyungsoo groans. Baekhyun chuckles. The vibrations tickle Kyungsoo's skin. They make his insides turn. "Sorry," Baekhyun mumbles after a while, once the door has already been closed. "Slept well?"

How, Kyungsoo wants to ask. He doesn't. Instead, he shrugs but only lightly, careful not to shake Baekhyun up too much. "Slept just fine."

Baekhyun hums. He rests a palm on Kyungsoo's thigh, then gives it a gentle squeeze. His touch is warm, gentle, unlike the way he'd pushed Kyungsoo against the wall just hours ago. Kyungsoo tries to relax into the touch, but it's hard. Every inch of his body recalls Baekhyun's touch as a tension trigger, an alarm. A warning that, hey, if you don't keep your guard up then you might just fall into the allure of Baekhyun's charms.

Kyungsoo leans back and closes his eyes. Baekhyun moves closer, murmuring into the press of his lips to Kyungsoo's chest. Too pliant, Kyungsoo muses. This could be number two. This might not be the real Baekhyun.

But then it's not as if he'd studied the way Baekhyun kissed him a few hours ago, or committed the way Baekhyun mapped the curves of Kyungsoo's body with his hands. Baekhyun's reflection is more gentle, less aggressive, more generous with light touches but fucks Kyungsoo's mouth in a motion so slow that it's torture. He takes time to peel off Kyungsoo's layers – traces Kyungsoo's lips with the tip of his dick at first before pushing at the seam of his lips. Cradles Kyungsoo's face in his hands as he thrusts into the giving cavern of Kyungsoo's mouth. And he likes looking at Kyungsoo in the eye like he has to make sure that Kyungsoo's focused on nothing but this moment, the feeling of his release spilling at the back of Kyungsoo's throat.

And Baekhyun – the real Baekhyun that he's spent nearly a lifetime breathing alongside of – Baekhyun rips his many layers of defense with reckless abandon, crushes their lips together and smiles against Kyungsoo's warm mouth like he's always looked forward to the collision. Baekhyun grips him tight by the shoulders until Kyungsoo's seething into the kiss, whispering expletives and saying, 'Baekhyun, fuck, not too hard– You'll pay for this–' And Baekhyun smiles at that, pulls away for the briefest of moments like he's saying, ah, that's right. This is the Kyungsoo I know. All the apprehension in his features when his reflection suggested that Kyungsoo join in the fun, all the uncertainty and a speck of something that Kyungsoo can't pinpoint just yet– Kyungsoo doesn't feel it in the slide of their limbs, in the way their bodies fit. It's as if Baekhyun has been rehearsing for this, a duet long overdue, and belting out all the important parts. All Kyungsoo has to do is to fill the spaces in between with his own voice, with his part of the song.

"Sleep," Baekhyun mutters now, pinching him in his thigh. Kyungsoo jerks a little. "Stop thinking and just rest a bit. We'll be on the road for close to an hour so. I'll wake you up when we're near."

'But I don't want to wake up,' a voice at the back of Kyungsoo's mind says. He shuns that away, silences it until it shrinks into an undetectable wave of noise. He closes his eyes, then, and takes a deep breath, takes in the scent of Baekhyun's shampoo – a sweet mix of apple and cinnamon – in Baekhyun's hair.

He lays his palm atop Baekhyun's own. Baekhyun's fingers tremble, freeze, then thaw out when Kyungsoo starts rubbing a line along the side of Baekhyun's hand. He doesn't stop until he feels the weight of Baekhyun's body settle against his side.

He leans into the warmth of Baekhyun's touch, wraps it up in special paper and tucks somewhere inside him where it's safe. He lets it consume him.

They talk about all sorts of things on air: Joonmyun's upcoming musical, Jongdae's new collaboration with Li Yin. Jongin starring in an action for the very first time. One of Chanyeol's compositions making it to the final roster of songs for the album. Minseok having to enlist for military service soon. Through it all, Baekhyun bumps his right knee into Kyungsoo's left, locks their ankles together under the table. It's inconvenient because Kyungsoo's trying hard to focus on the discussion and not the fact that his body feels as if he's just been tossed into an ice bath and then suited up for battle. At the same time, though, it keeps him awake, keeps him hyperaware of everything happening around him that Joonmyun can part his lips to say something funny and he'd be prepared to laugh. It keeps him on the edge, enough that the slightest shake of the table when Chanyeol slams his fist onto it in a fit of laughter makes him shiver.

He's just bored, Kyungsoo. Baekhyun's just bored. Let is rest, he tells himself, but then Baekhyun doesn't pull away even during the ten minute break. He doesn't even stand from his seat to grab a bottle of water. Instead, he asks Chanyeol to bring two for them. Or three, because Kyungsoo drinks water faster than he can breathe. 'hey dont 4get d water for ur favorite tinies tysm - your favorite midget mwah', Baekhyun texts Chanyeol as a reminder when the latter chats with Eeteuk for too long. The veracity of Baekhyun being Chanyeol's favorite is still subject to debate; Kyungsoo's positive that the title belongs to him.

"Can't believe you did it," Baekhyun mumbles when Chanyeol tosses the bottles in their direction. Luckily, Baekhyun catches them – two with his hands, the last one with his face. He places one just a few inches shy of Kyungsoo's clasped hands, then gives one to Kyungsoo. The remaining bottle, he presses to his eyes, cheeks, the underside of his jaw. Draws an arc with the bottom of the bottle around his neck and shivers when he accidentally tucks the bottle between his chin and his neck. He shakes his head, then, like he's shaking off fatigue from his body. Three seconds then he resurfaces, eyes brighter than before. Kyungsoo can see himself reflected in them. "And we should be practicing our duet. Can't be too sure. We might fuck it up."

Kyungsoo snorts. Baekhyun means, we're too old for this. We don't have the leisure of screwing up anymore. They've been doing 'the singing thing' for close to four years now that a minor fuck up may very well be setting themselves up to be the headlines of the entertainment section in every broadsheet. So Kyungsoo uncaps the bottle and gulps down a generous amount of water before turning to Baekhyun, promising, "We won't fuck it up."

"You sound so sure."

"I am sure," he replies. His voice cracks when Baekhyun drops a cold hand on his thigh, gives the giving flesh a gentle squeeze. He should've worn sweatpants or something thicker. Now the last few slivers of cold from Baekhyun's hands are seeping through his clothes, scoring lines along his skin. "We've been practicing for weeks."

"Months," Baekhyun corrects. He begins to rub patterns on Kyungsoo's thigh – a swirl, weird 'v' drawings that look like birds. A star, a circle, a heart. "We can practice right here, then. Just for my peace of mind."

Kyungsoo leans back a little, looking at Baekhyun from head to toe. His eyebrows are arched up, and the smile on his lips reaches his eyes. There's strain on his cheeks, though, in the tiny tremble of his muscles, of his lips. Baekhyun's fingers are still cold. He's nervous. So Kyungsoo lays his palm down on Baekhyun's own, slots his fingers between Baekhyun's slender ones. He presses down on the fit of their hands until he can feel three pulses – Baekhyun's, his own, and its echo, a three-part harmony that eases the tension in Baekhyun's muscles.

They do nail the high notes perfectly, nail the harmony in the chorus and the trickier one in the bridge. The host closes the program with a jubilant ending and Baekhyun pulls Kyungsoo into the warmth of his embrace, planting a soft yet warm kiss to his cheek shielded from the rest of the world by the thick tuft of his hair.

They're carrying out convenience store shopping duties today. It's already eleven in the evening, but Jongin asked (pleaded) Kyungsoo nicely to make ramyun for him (everyone) because, "Shouldn't hard workers be rewarded with ramyun?" Then Joonmyun craned his neck and mouthed, 'Yeah, I'm pretty hungry, too. Won't you do it for your favorite hyung?' Chanyeol looked at him like some overeager puppy with a new plaything or a really nice bone. So it made sense, really, for Kyungsoo to just give in. If he didn't, the others wouldn't let on.

"I'll come with you," Baekhyun offered, then snatched a set of keys from the rack. It was probably Joonmyun's. Or Kyungsoo's. Baekhyun's love affair with his scooter is so intense, it's almost hilarious. "I can drive, it you want."

Kyungsoo squinted hard, trying to make out the details on the keychain. Baekhyun reached for Kyungsoo's glasses deep in his pocket and pushed them up the bridge of Kyungsoo's nose. He could've done that, himself. No need for Baekhyun to invade his private space in front of all these people. He blinked twice, then, as the details on the keychain came to focus. That was his car key, alright. "Nah, I'll just drive."

"I won't ram your car into a wall or something."

"I'm driving. And you won't touch anything in my car." He snatched his key and reached out to grab Baekhyun by the wrist. "I'm serious. Touch anything and I'll break your neck."

Baekhyun cackled. It was a bad sign. It made Kyungsoo's insides turn and his chest constrict. "I won't be a bad boy. I promise."

And Baekhyun didn't. Still doesn't, even now that they're parked in a darker part of the road. Kyungsoo finally picks up the call, silencing the ringtone Joonmyun had set for himself on Kyungsoo's phone, and goes on about adding more items to the grocery list, 'take out the chocolates; I can't have Jongdae developing coughs and colds a week from comeback. And I think we're low on kim? Oh hey, you know what, just make some modern seaweed soup here. Hotdogs instead of pork. That's better than instant ramyun–'

Kyungsoo's breath hitches. He looks to his side and finds Baekhyun leaning closer, too close that he can feel Baekhyun's breath on his skin. Close enough that he can see the dots of red mapping out a constellation on Baekhyun's cheek. Stick to your beauty regimen, he wants to say, but the words get flushed down by Baekhyun sliding his one hand up Kyungsoo's nape, by Baekhyun snaking his free hand to Kyungsoo's inner thigh, fingers warm and tapping a weird rhythm on his skin.

"What are you doing–" Kyungsoo asks, voice dropping to a whisper, but promptly remembers that Joonmyun's on the other end of the line. So he says, "Just text me the list, hyung," looks at Baekhyun with a stern gaze and mouths, 'what the actual fuck?'

"Midnight snack," Baekhyun whispers, then dips his hand further inside. He brushes his knuckles against Kyungsoo's crotch and Kyungsoo almost steps on the gas. He doesn't. Instead, he grips the steering wheel tight with one hand, then steadies himself in his seat with the other. "Besides, traffic in Seoul's still bad at this hour."

Kyungsoo cranes his neck. No sign of traffic anywhere. The traffic lights are red. There are no pedestrians crossing. He takes a deep breath when his phone buzzes at the same time that Baekhyun scores a line on Kyungsoo's length with the hot press of his thumb.

He hits the hazard button and shifts in his seat.

There's a rule about covering one's tracks and making sure about not getting caught making out in public with anyone from another group, but there's no rule against fucking Baekhyun's face with easy jerks in the darkness of the night, here in his car with all the lights turned off. So he lets Baekhyun undo the button of his pants, wiggles out of his bottoms when Baekhyun looks up at him with a heavy gaze and a grin on his lips. For a moment, he contemplates on asking, is this really you? Are you Baekhyun? Or are you one of his reflections and the personas he's come to develop through the years? But Baekhyun gives him no time to think nor speak. Baekhyun wets his lips, makes a show out of it with the way he licks his top lip, tongue even grazing his teeth. Baekhyun sinks to his knees, then, tilting his head as he peppers Kyungsoo's dick with soft kisses. His back hits the compartment, but he's undeterred. If anything, it only fuels him more, makes him dig his nails into Kyungsoo's warm skin, gripping Kyungsoo's thighs tight. He can feel the slow-forming smile on Baekhyun's lips as Baekhyun presses the tip of Kyungsoo's dick to the tiny parting of his lips, giving his cock a light suck before leaning in, slipping his length between Baekhyun's lips like Baekhyun's trying to swallow him dick first.

He shivers. His breath hitches. He can feel his thighs trembling at the prickling warmth of Baekhyun's breath on his skin. Then Baekhyun pulls away only to take him back in in one fluid motion, then another, and another.

If the other Baekhyun is already pretty decent at giving head, then the real Baekhyun is even better. Baekhyun doesn't stick to just one pattern – he alternates between slow bobs of the head, a lick along the underside of his shaft, and rough jerks where he makes sure to make Kyungsoo gasp and whimper at the slightest graze of his teeth along the sensitive skin. He keeps a tight ring around the base of Kyungsoo's cock, loosening it a bit from time to time only to give Kyungsoo's dick a slick twist or a gentle squeeze, running teasing rubs of the thumb along his vein. Kyungsoo can feel Baekhyun's light laughter on his dick, against his thighs that haven't stopped shaking since Baekhyun took him in whole, but then he can just be imagining things. He can be getting himself off to the image of Baekhyun blowing him in the fire exit, the stairwell, the bathroom cubicle, in the dorm in the most quiet way possible, trying to keep eight other people from hearing them on the other side of the door. He can be imagining Baekhyun grinning at him before licking along his rim and sucking on it relentlessly the same way he did that night, when the other Baekhyun had invited him to 'join in the fun'. He can be hapless and hopeless and crazy, but then Baekhyun picks up his pace and sets every part of him aflame. Baekhyun's bobbing his head in a relentless motion, jerking him off with his hand whenever he pulls away. And Baekhyun's staring at him like he wants to see him get wrecked under the pressure of his warmth mouth, his skillful fingers. Baekhyun is wrecking him, making his insides turn with his skillful mouth and turning his whole world around with the way he gives his balls a light squeeze.

Baekhyun pulls away with a dull 'pop', but his hand remains in a tight circle around Kyungsoo's cock. He stares at Kyungsoo a while longer, rubs circles on Kyungsoo's balls, then sucks on them lightly until Kyungsoo says, "Baekhyun, please–" Please, we have other things to do so get this done and over with. Please, touch me. Please, just let me come – the right words for this escape Kyungsoo, stuck and pushed down by Baekhyun's tight grip on his dick. So he repeats, after a deep and shaky breath, "Please," looks at Baekhyun in the eye like in an effort to tell Baekhyun the other things he wants to say, all floating in a pool of arousal at the back of his mind. 'Do me, fuck me, I want to feel you more–'

"You're cute when you're nice. When you're begging," Baekhyun whispers, breathes against the sensitive skin of Kyungsoo's cock. Kyungsoo takes in a sharp breath, lips hanging parted when Baekhyun blows hot breath on his dick. He curls his toe and seethes. "You're really cute."

"Don't you ever call me–" He gasps when Baekhyun presses wet lips on the tip of his dick, but groans when Baekhyun pulls away. He feels a lot like the other Baekhyun, but there's something about the careful and steady grip on his thighs that feels so much like the Baekhyun he's come to live with, breathe with. The one whose voice he can wake up to and can lull him to sleep, just the same. There's none of the uncertainty that the other Baekhyun had, only years of familiarity and having each other's movements memorized like the back of their hand stretched between them. Like Baekhyun has been playing this scene in his mind for hours on end for the past four, five years, but has only ever looked over his shoulder and glanced at Kyungsoo's half-naked figure through the slits of his eyelashes. Like Baekhyun has been practicing SM's decree on never ever falling in love with anyone else but the fans like his very own religion, clinging onto it like a lifeline. (And then following the unspoken rule on office affairs: don't let yourself get caught. You must neither be felt nor seen–)

"Don't call me cute," Kyungsoo repeats. Baekhyun slides his hands up, settling on his hips. The pads of his fingers are cold; his palm, warm. "Baekhyun–"

"Alright," Baekhyun whispers. His tone is soft, almost like he's humming, singing. Kyungsoo tries to hum along with a shaky voice. Baekhyun laughs a little and presses one last kiss to the top of his dick.

Kyungsoo comes with a low groan, hands fisted in Baekhyun's hair. Baekhyun doesn't tear his eyes from his, keeps him pinned to his seat with a focused gaze, and he rolls his hips into Baekhyun's giving mouth one last time before spilling at the back of Baekhyun's throat. Baekhyun drinks it up, licks the remains of his release, swooping his tongue along the sensitive skin of Kyungsoo's dick. Kyungsoo shivers, thighs shaking and clamping on either side of Baekhyun's head, but Baekhyun doesn't complain. If he ever feels like gasping for air, he only presses a light kiss to the inside of Kyungsoo's thigh and sucks a bright red mark right there.

"So, the real meal?" Baekhyun asks, then cocks his head in the direction of the road ahead. The grin on his lips is big, blinding, infectious. It tickles Kyungsoo's insides. So Kyungsoo laughs a little, chest still heaving. He drops his hand on Baekhyun's thigh and slides it up until he can feel the warmth of Baekhyun's arousal against the tips of his fingers. He shakes his head.

"Later," he whispers, then leans forward to crash his lips into Baekhyun's own. The slide of their mouths is messy, inelegant. The vibrations of Baekhyun's laughter crawl down his throat, pound at his chest demanding release. And the fit of their bodies feels right, like they were always meant to gravitate towards each other. Just Baekhyun and Kyungsoo and nobody else.

Baekhyun shakes his head. Kyungsoo snakes a hand up his nape and takes a fistfull of his hair, keeping him in place.

He keeps the hazard signal on.

Kyungsoo gets it, the reason why Baekhyun doesn't want to tell anything else: it's weird. It's stupid, foolish. It's fucking out of this world. What he doesn't understand, however, is why it has to be him. Why does he have to be the one – the only one – to shoulder the burden of knowing Baekhyun's tiny secret? It could've been Chanyeol or Jongdae. They're closer to Baekhyun than he is. They won't kill Baekhyun or think of breaking his fingers every chance they get. And they won't tell anyone else. But it has to be Kyungsoo. If Baekhyun wanted Kyungsoo to forget about the whole thing at the very beginning then he would've shunned Kyungsoo away, condemned him to exile. Talked to him only when they had to work with each other. They are technically officemates, after all, and if Baekhyun so decides to keep things professional between them then Kyungsoo doesn't have qualms with that.

But Baekhyun keeps brushing his knuckles against Kyungsoo's own when they walk beside each other, steps in tandem with their easy breathing.

But Baekhyun keeps resting his head on Kyungsoo's shoulder or resting his forehead on Kyungsoo's back after practice like Kyungsoo's the only immovable rock in sight. Like Kyungsoo offers a twisted sort of relief by just being there.

But Baekhyun keeps touching him, hasn't stopped tugging at his shirtsleeve ever since he got the idea from his double to have Kyungsoo join in on the fun. But Baekhyun keeps fucking his reflection in the bathroom at three in the morning when he knows Kyungsoo has to pee at that hour. But Baekhyun keeps looking at him with a focused gaze and a small smile at the curl of his lips, the same smile that Kyungsoo has imagined, time and again, Baekhyun to wear whenever Baekhyun blew him under the conference table during meetings with the management in his dreams. Baekhyun keeps going to him, seeking him out, like there's nobody else in this house, the company, their industry who can understand the language of his body like Kyungsoo can.

And Kyungsoo keeps giving back, giving in. Giving up until he's spilling at the back of one Baekhyun's throat, until the other Baekhyun – the real one – is going limp against his back, release hitting him in waves of pleasure that make his knees go weak.

And he keeps letting Baekhyun get under the covers after that, clean and fresh from the bath they've shared at three in the morning. And Baekhyun keeps singing him to sleep, face buried in his chest and legs thrown over his own.

Logic eludes him as much as the feeling in his toes, the feeling in his fingers does when Baekhyun fucks him open with four fingers in the shower. So he doesn't hold back, lets out a throaty moans as he comes against the wall, his release riding the current of the water as it hits the tiles in spurts. He reaches from behind, grips Baekhyun's ass as Baekhyun grinds himself to completion.

Baekhyun lets out a hearty laugh that fades into a gasp. Kyungsoo strains his hearing and repeats the sound in his head again and again, until he can memorize the lilts in Baekhyun's voice when release is just about to hit him, or when Baekhyun whispers to him with his lips pressed to the shell of his ear, "You're amazing–" There's no use in doing things half-heartedly, after all.

Baekhyun wakes up the day of their comeback performance sounding hoarse and like a hoarse. His nose is red and his eyes are puffy as he says, "Jesus fucking Christ."

Joonmyun's first reaction is to shut his eyes; his second, to bury his face in his hands. Kyungsoo rummages through his everyday bag, then, looking for medicine. He has a pillbox for almost everything – vitamin C for everyone, a paracetamol for Joonmyun's regular headaches. Mefenamic acid for Jongin and Yixing's muscle pain. Candy for Chanyeol and Sehun. He has a couple of nasal decongestant tablets and antitussives here, too, but he zeroes in on the tiny green pill and a capsule. The ones he relies on the most when he absolutely can't get sick in the middle of promotions. He grabs Baekhyun by the wrist, then, and cranes his neck to look for Jongdae. "Warm water," he tells him, then turns his attention back to Baekhyun. "Take these."

Baekhyun sniffles. "Candy. Yay," he croaks.

"Yeah. Candy. Drink up," Kyungsoo mutters. He mumbles a soft 'thanks' to Jongdae when as he reaches for the glass of water, then hands it to Baekhyun. "All the way down."

Baekhyun snorts. Laughs a little, except the slivers of laughter come out strained and choppy. He coughs. "You're cute when you stop acting like you don't care."

Kyungsoo's breath hitches. He cocks an eyebrow at Baekhyun, then jabs him on the arm. "Stop calling me cute or I'll make you drink cough syrup."

Baekhyun pouts in response and sticks out his tongue. "You are the worst!"

Baekhyun's feeling 'normal' enough by the time they have to go up on stage. He hadn't been dancing much during rehearsals, but he didn't bump into anyone during the change in positions despite all the medicine he's taken. Kyungsoo kept a hand on the small his back whenever he could, but more for his peace of mind and to appease the perfectionist in him groaning at Baekhyun's missteps in distress than anything else. That, and choreography always put them on the same side of the stage and isn't this what teamwork is about? Looking out for each other and making sure the other doesn't screw up? Making each other look good on stage and then pointing out the flaws in each other's performance after the whole storm and whirlwind of events for today's schedule? It makes sense. If anyone ever called him out on being too careful, on caring too much, then he could always say, "I just don't want him to screw us up."

At the very back of his mind now, a voice whispers, 'You just can't bear to see him in pain.' He shrugs it off. Baekhyun's a friend. No friend would want to put his friend through pain, not even people as vile as he is.

Baekhyun isn't part of the intro sequence before the performance of their carrier track, but he stays at the side of the stage, giving the dancers a pat on the back before ushering them to the stage. He pinches Jongin in his side, gropes Sehun's ass. Says 'hwaiting!' to both Minseok and Yixing. To Zitao, he says, "Don't break your back, silly," but pinches Zitao's cheeks against Zitao's wishes. To Kyungsoo, he says, "Make me proud."

Kyungsoo cocks an eyebrow at him. He balls his hands into fists – or at least he means to, but Baekhyun slips his fingers between Kyungsoo's own and links their hands together. Kyungsoo's palms are drawn to Baekhyun's own, like polar opposites finding each other in the thick crowd. Like clockwork. Kyungsoo stares at their intertwined fingers for a while, then asks, "Why?"

"Why what?" Baekhyun says. The last word comes out like a cross between a croak and a burp. He clears his throat. "What do you mean?"

Kyungsoo gulps hard. He doesn't know.

What he probably means is, 'Why should I make you proud? Why do I have to?' He doesn't owe Baekhyun anything. Baekhyun isn't his mom or his dad, and is certainly isn't his brother. Seungsoo's so much better than Baekhyun. And he doesn't need to perform well for Baekhyun; he needs to give a good performance for the company, for the fans, with Baekhyun. They're part of a team; Baekhyun isn't a spectator. Baekhyun is his bandmate, one of those few people whose voice can rival his. The first trainee to make him stop and stare and gasp when he heard Baekhyun's audition piece.

Or maybe he means, 'Why are you doing this? Why do you keep holding my hand? Why can't I pull away?' Why is Baekhyun keeping him from getting up on stage and dancing his heart out there and keeping him here? There are so many questions in his mind at the moment and he knows very well that Baekhyun can answer with just hitch of a breath, a kiss, the warm fit of his body in Kyungsoo's own. But he can't stay long enough for that. There's a performance to be given, a song to be sung. They're here are EXO's D.O. and Baekhyun, not at just Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, two people who want their voices to be heard by people across the globe.

Kyungsoo shrugs after a while. "Just– Forget it," he says. He looks up, scratching his nape, the slope of his neck. They're set to take the stage in two minutes. There's work to be done. "I'll do my best–"

It's Baekhyun's turn to shake his head this time. When he resurfaces, his features are lighter, cheeks no longer pulled down by fatigue and his sickness. Like's he's been pumped with enough energy to last an entire day and maybe more. He looks around for an audience then gives Kyungsoo's wrist a gentle tug, pressing a soft kiss to Kyungsoo's cheek. Kyungsoo can feel the warmth of his touch, the light quiver of his lips, Baekhyun's pulse strong and heavy in the link of their hands.

"What–"

"Blow them away," Baekhyun whispers. He pulls away, a grin stretched across his lips. He finishes with a wink. "Go."

"Okay. Places!" Kyungsoo hears the floor director say, so he keeps his eyes on the path ahead. It's dark and narrow, but he can see the light at the end, can hear the cheers of the crowd just beyond the thin veil between these two worlds. So he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, then clenches his fists.

He touches his cheek, feeling for the part where Baekhyun had brushed his lips against his skin.

He takes one step forward, and then another. He lets the ghost of Baekhyun's touch guide him to the stage.

It's showtime.

The performance is a success. Jongin's grinning from ear to ear when they finish, when they head backstage to retouch their make up and take time to breathe. Joonmyun raises his fist in the air like a battle cry, and they all take it as a sign to converge at the middle. "This will be the best comeback ever," Joonmyun says, promising, then splays his fingers on empty air. Everyone follows suit, bodies recognizing this gesture. They've been doing this every single day for the past three years; it's not easy to forget something that has already taken root in your entire being. "We'll make it the best ever, yeah? What do you guys say?"

"You're ridiculous, hyung," Sehun mutters. Joonmyun cocks an eyebrow at him, perfect and perfunctory smile still on his lips. "Ridiculously correct, I mean. EXO, hwaiting!"

Minseok shakes his head but echoes Sehun's cry. Yixing follows suit, screaming it out in a register higher than his usual voice. Jongdae cackles and says, "Okay, we should really practice our live singing more."

"Hey, if I may say so, myself, that was our best yet," Baekhyun offers later, when they've already pulled away from the circle. He coughs into a folded tissue, then balls it up to shoot it into a waste basket. He whispers 'Byun goes for the threeee–' under his breath, then continues, "Maybe you're the one who needs to practice."

Jongdae tilts his head to the side. It isn't as intimidating as it should be, but this is Jongdae's best attempt at trying to come across as fearsome. Kyungsoo calls it Jongdae flashing his kitty claws but nuzzling his owner's leg. "We need to practice," he says, then, and nudges Baekhyun in his side. "One minute until we go live. You won't fuck up, right?"

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. The make up on his cheeks is uneven, but maybe it's the poor lighting at work. The MCs are still giving an intro to their duet track so they have time – maybe even more than a minute – but why put off something if you can do it now? So he moves forward, steps within Baekhyun's perimeter and inside his personal space, their knees bumping. He pulls down the sleeve of his suit from the inside, then reaches for Baekhyun's hand, the tips of his fingers, through the disguise of two sleeves touching each other.

"When did I ever?" Baekhyun asks, grinning. One side of his mouth is tugged up more than that the other. This isn't just a response; this is a challenge, and Kyungsoo loves challenges. He likes the feeling of being driven up against the wall and then fighting back with his own bag and brand of tricks. He likes going head to head against Baekhyun, testing each other's limits until there's nothing else to do but to relent and to give in.

And he likes it when Baekhyun pushes him against the wall, when Baekhyun slides his knee between his legs, and brushes his knee against his crotch just lightly. Like a gentle nudge jostling him back to life, reminding him to never be complacent and to never let guard his guard down. Baekhyun's good at that, capitalizing on people's weak spots and carving himself a niche there, leaving traces on himself on people's lives – a bright red mark on the skin above Kyungsoo's collarbone, on his nape. A bite mark on Kyungsoo's lips that forces him to wear the strawberry lipbalm that Baekhyun loves tasting on his lips. A dull ache in his jaw from when Baekhyun had kissed him too much or too little, from when Baekhyun had fucked his mouth in easy jerks set to the rhythm of his heavy breathing.

"Besides," Baekhyun whispers. He guides Kyungsoo forward, to a less lit up part of the backstage. The beam of light slithers past their moving figures. The shadows make the light in Baekhyun's eyes glimmer all the more. "I don't fuck up. Maybe I just fuck–"

"Shut up," Kyungsoo says. He reaches south, cupping Baekhyun's cock through his pants. Baekhyun's eyes widen, but soon the tight corners soften when Kyungsoo leans in to give his bottom lip a gentle suck. He wants to say more, but his words get lost in the swipe of Baekhyun's tongue along the cavern of his mouth, the back of his teeth. He tries not to ball his hands into fists in Baekhyun's shirt; they still have to perform. So instead, he snakes his arms around Baekhyun's waist, pulls him closer as he sucks harder on Baekhyun's tongue. Baekhyun gasps, pulls away, and just looks at him, his gaze so startlingly soft. For a moment, he remembers that Baekhyun's sick and contagious and that comeback promotions have just begun. Still, he leans in for a soft kiss, a lick at the corners of Baekhyun's mouth, a suck on his bottom lip. He keeps his gaze right there, where he can see himself reflected in Baekhyun's eyes the clearest, where he can see Baekhyun at the back of his eyelids.

This is Baekhyun, he tells himself. He can hear it in Baekhyun's thrumming pulse in his palms, in the wicked grin on Baekhyun's lips. And he can feel it in every part of him that Baekhyun has touched, every inch of his skin committing the press and slide and brush of Baekhyun's skin against his own to memory. He can't be mistaken. He's spent years studying Baekhyun like a music piece and memorizing all of curls of his voice, the lilts of his tone.

"Baekhyun and Kyungsoo– I mean Baekhyun and D.O.?" the floor director calls out. They look to their side at the same time, laughing a little when their noses almost bump. Slowly, the pull away from each other and straighten their stage clothes.

Baekhyun reaches behind Kyungsoo and gives his ass a light squeeze. "For good luck," Baekhyun reasons, ending with a wink, but karma hits him too hard when he starts coughing. So he jabs Baekhyun on the arm, laughing at the tiny yelp that mixes with Baekhyun's own laughter as they walk up the stairs.

Some things never change.

("So where's your friend?" Kyungsoo asks once they're shuffled in the van.

Baekhyun cocks an eyebrow at him in question, then laughs. "We just won mutizen for our comeback. He's not celebrating with us." A heartbeat, then, "Why, you want him to be part of the celebration?"

"Only if you need him around."

Baekhyun cranes his neck, looking over the backrest of the rows of seats in front of them. Nearly everyone's busy – Joonmyun's on his phone, texting his parents. Sehun and Jongin are playing on their phones. Chanyeol's playing with his PSP. Minseok, Yixing, and Jongdae are busy sleeping. And they're here, looking each other in the eye at the very back of the van. For a moment, he thinks of leaning in to nibble on Kyungsoo's lips, but now is not the time for that. Now is the time to answer a question with words, with a song. So instead, he slips his fingers between Kyungsoo's own and shakes his head.

"Nah," he says, voice dropping to a whisper. He's sure Kyungsoo will hear him, anyway. He tightens his grip on Kyungsoo's hand, then, and swallows the rest of his worries. The small smile on Kyungsoo's lips blooms, tugs at his heartstrings. "I don't need him anymore.")

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