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Chanyeol often thought about how different his life could have been had he not come home from school that one day.
At the ripe age of fifteen, in the mundane hours he spent under florescent lights staring absently at the informative boards in front of him, bouncing his pencil eraser on the desks impatiently as his schoolteachers rambled on about moot things, he had been having persistent imagines of running away. They were not sinister—not vengeful or fearful or angry. When he was younger Park Chanyeol had been obsessed with the idea of life itself and of the incredible world that waited at his fingertips. As a child and teenager he had been characteristically known for his apparent love for life. Wasting his days away at school seemed pointless. He had wanted to travel, to go, to do something. Chanyeol had already been exercising his abilities to not show up to class—not showing up at home or school or work or anywhere near his hometown couldn’t have been too different. He still scored As and Bs. Sure, he was a good student, and he never was concerned about obtaining a future career or any of that; his father had eagerly amended that he had already planned Chanyeol’s career out and a job with a high-paying corporation was waiting for him as soon as he was ready for it.
Chanyeol wasn’t ready for it. He was ready to run, to go, to see the world on his own only to return back home when he needed a break and a good meal.
But Chanyeol’s father, a pseudo-wealthy businessman of sorts was the one who decided that Chanyeol was indeed ready.
After thinking long and hard about it, Chanyeol had marched home after school instead of taking a cab to the nearest airport that night. What had made him change his mind about leaving? He didn’t quite know. But his life would never have been the same after that.
Chanyeol had stepped into the threshold of his family’s home—his sister’s little pink shoes scattered habitually in the doorway nearly tripping him up. He dropped his sweater to the floor, noting his father’s hat was hung up neatly on a peg in a sure sign that the man was home. An odd mixture of excitement and worry began to churn in his gut—his father wasn’t home often, and when he was there was no predicting whether he was going to be inherently stern and reserved, joking and playful, or drunk. Mr. Park was a man of many words, of many opinions, but he kept obvious secrets from his family on a daily basis. Like why being an insurance agent kept him out for so many hours late at night, or why he would spontaneously come home with packs thick with cold cash, or why he kept a pistol by his bedside.
But that night after supper, after Mr. Park had his son sit down beside him in the parlor alone, many secrets were revealed.
The mafia existed. Chanyeol’s father worked inside it. Chanyeol would work in the mafia too.
“This is not up for debate,” his father had said with a raised hand as Chanyeol’s jaw dropped in dismay, protests falling past his lips instantly. “It’s already been arranged.” Then, after a period of Chanyeol sulking and shaking his head in denial, “If it pains you that much then I will not force it upon you.” He put a heavy hand on his son’s shoulder, face laced with emotion that would later prove feigned. Affection from his father was not always rare, but was not always genuine. “You are my only son—I love you Chanyeol. You are my greatest pride, and it would appease me greatly if you did as I say. There’s a lot of money on the table here—you may only be fifteen, but I’m ready and geared to prepare you for your new life.” He squeezed his son’s shoulder, the boy trying to fight off the intense ache of longing in his chest as he looked away from his father—never again would he see his parent the same way. “I love you.”
Mr. Park was an incredibly manipulative man—it made sense that he was a skilled negotiator and close advisor of the mafia Boss himself—a man most people called Mr. B. In mob terms, Chanyeol’s father was known as a consigliere.
At the age of nineteen, finally legal and a ready, ripened adult, Chanyeol joined South Korea’s largest, most menacing underground mafia as a soldier and sold his soul to the world of gunmen, lawbreakers, moneymakers—and Baekhyun.
Chanyeol was standing in the shadows somewhat leisurely beside the closed bedroom door; his stance was stagnant, eased, but poised somehow at the same time. It was at this time of night that danger often began to rise most severely, sure as clockwork, so even though they were relatively safe Chanyeol couldn’t help but be posed at the ready.
Baekhyun was curled up in a chair in the corner, a book in hand and his usual passive expression blanketed over his face. He was bathed in the soft golden light of the lamp beside him, the only source of brightness in the room. Chanyeol watched him from his position by the door; watched his every move and mannerism. But Baekhyun’s face was static and unchanging as he continued to read, the sole sound in the space being only the occasional crinkle of a page turning. Chanyeol’s heart burned within him—every second he watched Baekhyun he swore he could feel his soul falling deeper and deeper into the ocean of love.
It had been seven months since Chanyeol was appointed as Baekhyun’s personal guard. The previous bodyguard had been killed in an attempted kidnapping of Baekhyun—Chanyeol was twenty-one now, and after nearly three years of dancing around this Mafia business he had grown unusually close to the heart of the organization, no doubt courtesy of his foot-kissing father. There had been an oath swearing, and Chanyeol shook Baekhyun’s hand in blood; he had been shouldered into the Byun family and now his life was promised to the Boss’ son faultlessly. But Chanyeol was clever enough to know that the Boss would never in a million years put the life of his son in the hands of someone incompetent—he wasn’t sure what his own father must have said, but Chanyeol was uncertain that he was the one for this job. Baekhyun himself seemed docile enough, but the life he lived wasn’t. Seven months in and there had already been several run-ins with gunmen and stalkers on the streets and discreet poisonings. Chanyeol had stopped them all on a whim, but there was always more to come.
Chanyeol somewhat had his fill of the mafia scene: sneaking Baekhyun around in secret, toying with guns and drugs as long as it wasn’t in Mr. B’s house or in public. Cavorting about in the shadows and picking fights and slinking around behind Baekhyun. He had yet to lay eyes on any real money—he had somewhat expected his experience here to be like his father’s…he knew he was naïve to think that in his first three years he’d be rubbing elbows with the Boss himself, but couldn’t help it.
In truth, Chanyeol was closer to Mr. B than anyone else could be.
But now his days were also filled solely with standing in the corners of rooms and following Baekhyun around like a lovesick bulldog that was supposed to be protecting him. Not that Chanyeol minded very much. He got to be around Baekhyun more than anyone else, and that made him happier than he ever could have been.
Maybe he was being foolish. And selfish. This was no game—one slip up and there would be a bullet lodged between Chanyeol’s eyes. His life was expendable, however much of a brother he was to the rest of the corporation. He, in fact, belonged in the Byun family: the highest-ranking family in this mob. But he knew—he knew he was in love.
And being in love sucked.
Baekhyun’s toes wiggled, dangling off of the seat. Chanyeol noticed this and inwardly grinned. Even though he wasn’t expected to be smiling a lot now, he still loved to do it.
After another fifteen minutes of the same thing, Baekhyun sighed, put his book down, and stood up. He raised his hands above his head and mewled softly as he stretched—Chanyeol took in his soft, athletic muscles below his shorts line and gulped.
Chanyeol had a feeling that Baekhyun stayed up so late just to harass him: the smaller knew that Chanyeol couldn’t leave Baekhyun’s side until he was under his blankets, and also was aware that Chanyeol always seemed to be in his home before he was awake, leaving little time for his bodyguard to sleep. So he stayed up late and pretended not to be pestering Chanyeol by selfishly depriving him of sleep. At least…that’s what Chanyeol imagined. Unlike himself and Mr. Park, Baekhyun was a young man of relatively few words. He hardly spoke at all. But Chanyeol was around Baekhyun enough to begin to understand him. Baekhyun was, in his own way, very playful…if not a little bitter.
Baekhyun proceeded to turn the lamp off and slide under his covers, calling out a simple and commonplace, “Goodnight Chanyeol.” He turned over in his bed, pulled the blankets up to his chin, and sighed with drowsiness again.
“Goodnight, Baekhyun,” replied the taller, gazing lovingly at the smaller’s face with a grin before backing towards the door and slipping quietly out of the room.
That was one of the few regulations Baekhyun did hold for Chanyeol—he didn’t want Chanyeol watching him sleep at night. The Boss’ son was already extremely lenient with his guard (Chanyeol didn’t need to stand inside Baekhyun’s room when he was there, in fact he had been told not to do so by Baekhyun’s father, but the son of the said man never protested or even inquired when Chanyeol began standing inside rather than outside; plus other little things like that), but that was a rule he always upheld.
Chanyeol hummed contentedly as he lumbered down the hall to pace the gold-trimmed Persian rugs. Baekhyun and his father lived royally in a sovereign household, a fine token of their wealth, and Chanyeol spent time there too now, whenever Baekhyun was home…albeit he was only a shadow in the corner, a whisper of a breath that ate his meals standing up in the back kitchen alone.
Chanyeol strode down the halls and down the grand staircases—but instead of exiting the front door, he naturally careened toward the kitchen area, past the dining room, past the basement door towards the servant’s quarters. He sauntered past the laundry room and pantry and wine cellar and finally out the back door. He confronted his own, discreet black Lexus awaiting him parked outside and sighed as he unlocked it and stepped in.
He sat there for a moment, staring out into nothingness and noticing the weight of his gun in the belt holster before turning the key, bringing the car to life, glancing back up at the manor, and then driving away. Back home to where his apartment awaited…along with his cold, Baekhyun-less bed.
~
Havoc broke the following morning.
Chanyeol showed up at the Byun manor early in the morning as per usual. Apparently Mr. B had skipped his breakfast and headed straight to a meeting somewhere on the other side of the city—something urgent.
Chanyeol was there waiting outside Baekhyun’s bedroom door the next morning when the boy stepped out already dressed and brushed up. His hair glinted a sort of navy blue color in the morning shade, looked shiny and soft. There was no trace of fatigue in his face this morning. There was no trace of anything on his face. Just the regular, passive Baekhyun.
“Good morning, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said, smiling.
“Good morning Chanyeol,” Baekhyun replied, holding Chanyeol’s eyes for a moment before striding down the hall with his guard in tow. “Is there a reason you were waiting outside my door?” he asked then, his voice monotone. Chanyeol’s heart leaped—Baekhyun spoke to him! It wasn’t like they didn’t speak at all but…Baekhyun wasn’t really a talker and Chanyeol wasn’t allowed to initiate conversation.
“I’m here to guard you, Mister Byun.”
Mister Byun was said teasingly since he and Baekhyun were now on a first-name basis.
“I’m safe in my own house. I don’t need a guard at this time of day.”
Chanyeol frowned, slowing himself so he was just another pace behind Baekhyun. “Oh.”
When they reached the dining room Baekhyun slid into a chair in front of the ready-made breakfast. He sat properly: back straight, chin level, hands in his lap. Beside him at the position of the head of the table sat his father’s untouched dishes, still steaming. Baekhyun paid it no mind as he asked the servant named Mei to thank the chef for him. The middle-aged Chinese woman nodded, bowed, and turned to walk away…not before grabbing Chanyeol’s sleeve and dragging him along. Once they had retreated into the kitchen she clicked her tongue.
“Mr. Park,” she said in a parental, puckered voice. Chanyeol pouted. “You never leave that boy alone. Come now and let him eat in peace.”
~
“Where are you going today, Baekhyun?” asked Chanyeol somewhat-professionally as the smaller male reached for his coat.
“For a drive.”
“Shall I call the chauffer?”
“You’re not a servant, you don’t do those things. I’m driving.”
That was that.
Chanyeol didn’t miss, though didn’t pay any mind to, the sleek black gun tucked stealthily in Baekhyun’s waistband. It was always there, though Chanyeol had never seen him use it.
Baekhyun owned a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro in black—a sleek car, one that was all business and somehow fit Baekhyun’s personality. They crossed through the garage past a Mercedes and a Porsche and Chanyeol somewhat-begrudgingly plopped into the passenger seat as Baekhyun took the wheel and opened the garage door, rolling the car down the driveway and out of the lot.
Their drive took them around Seoul’s busier streets, more on the outskirts and towards the suburb neighborhoods. Chanyeol continuously stole glances at Baekhyun out of the corner of his eye; Baekhyun’s slim jawline, the way his jaw occasionally tensed, his observant, sharp eyes watching the scenery emotionlessly. The boy’s slim hands curled softly around the thin steering wheel, those pinkish-pale, long fingers and the way they moved and curled as he turned a corner—
A siren began to wail agitatedly from behind the two, a black car turning the corner after them. Alarm immediately leapt up into Chanyeol’s throat, his hand creeping to the gun under his leather jacket. He noticed Baekhyun’s eyes flickering to the rearview mirror, glinting with suspicion. It wasn’t a police car, but it wasn’t something benign. Whether it was the police, the government, or their mafia’s adversaries, this wasn’t going to go over easy. That was just a given. Chanyeol’s eyes flickered between the car tailing them and Baekhyun, protectiveness gathering in a clump in his gut.
Baekhyun slowed the Camaro and pulled off to the side of the relatively empty backstreet, not meeting Chanyeol’s gaze as the taller man got ready to step out. Baekhyun reached for his door handle too but Chanyeol, quick like a viper, caught the smaller’s chest under his palm, stopping him.
“No,” he muttered.
Baekhyun’s eyes burned, narrowed with offense, but he relented and sat back into the seat, staring into the mirror.
Chanyeol nodded and slunk out of the car and into the acidic city air. His eyes immediately locked onto two suit-clad men in black exiting the car behind them, pinning their coats together at their abdomens and approaching in long strides.
Chanyeol closed his door and paced casually towards them, meeting halfway. “Can I help you with something, sirs?” he asked, feigning offhandedness of speech.
“Yes,” one said as they came to a halt. “We’d like to see the driver of your vehicle.”
Chanyeol shrugged. “Why?”
“He was speeding.”
“You have identification?”
There was a hesitation. Then both men reached behind them for their pockets, but Chanyeol’s hand instinctively whipped to his belt holster.
Good thing too.
There was a guttural shout as all three men drew their weapons. A shot was fired. Then two more. One of the suited men went down. People screamed behind them. Chanyeol dove between the two parked cars as the other tumbled behind a trash bin. He raised his head and arm and fired, then ducked again. Two more bullets ricocheted off of the Camaro’s bumper.
“Fuck,” hissed Chanyeol.
The next time he lifted his body a fist was there to greet his face.
He took the hit lightly, whipping the other man’s arm out of the way with a Tai Chi sweep of his wrist. Chanyeol jumped off of his knees and dodged two blows, grappling onto the other man’s arms. They brawled lightly, skills meeting par but ultimately all those hours of weightlifting on Chanyeol’s part paid off. He was stronger. He was about to throw the other man down when the sound of a slamming car door echoed through the tight street, and Baekhyun’s course voice,
“Chanyeol look out!”
At the last second his hands lashed out to stop a flying kick his way, this from a new goony come for a fight. Chanyeol berated between the two opponents, grunting with every few hits and blocks. A third man entered the street. Chanyeol wanted to scream at Baekhyun to “get back in the car!” He took an unexpected blow to his gut and sucked in his breath to stay standing, ripping his arm out of the man’s grasp and back stepping to avoid a kick from the other. He grabbed the collar of one of the men’s suits with his arm outstretched, and with the second hand holding the gun he swung his fist beneath his other elbow and fired under his armpit at the second. The man fell. A fourth black-dressed man entered the scene.
The man Chanyeol held by his coat got an elbow to the throat and collapsed, his head slamming on the tough hood of the car. Chanyeol whipped around intensely, his eyes skimming over the site in split-second evaluation. The single civilian on the street was sprinting away. Baekhyun looked like he was about to turn back to the car to drive away: to do as he had always been told and save himself, the Boss’ son. But his eyes locked with Chanyeol’s for a moment and a clear hesitation stole the moment.
Then two other things clicked into place: a man’s fist was jerking towards Chanyeol, glinting knife in hand, and the fourth man who had stepped in had a gun pointed at Baekhyun’s head.
“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol screeched as he distractedly blocked the first knife blow. Baekhyun, steely faced, whirled around and took a punch to the face from the man with the gun, tumbling down. But before the other man could pull the trigger point-blank into Baekhyun’s nose the smaller, with the face of a lion, whisked out his own pistol from his waistband and shot.
The knife scraped Chanyeol’s cheek. He shouted and cleared the man’s limbs away from his own, planting a foot in his abdomen. Another swipe of the knife at his gut and Chanyeol jumped backwards only to turn in a circle and roundhouse-kick the other man’s head, effectively plowing him over.
Off to the side Baekhyun swore, padding his finger along his mouth. “Ah shit…”
Chanyeol instantly pounced to the smaller, kneeling beside him. Concern wound like a poisonous rose vine around his heart—his eyes did a quick once-over of Baekhyun’s body as he reached out to support him, but the only wound seemed to be the rapidly bruising cut on his lip. “Baekhyun—!”
“Stop Chanyeol we have to go,” the smaller hissed, pushing up off the ground and quickly sidling up to the car, stumbling once. He reached for the passenger door and Chanyeol understood that he wanted his guard to drive, not saying anything as they took their seats…
But as soon as Chanyeol began driving the questions spilled as he glanced to Baekhyun and back to the road with every little dispute. “Are you hurt? How’s your lip? Is it bleeding? Do you need first aid? Are you hurt anywhere else? I saw you take a hit. I’ll pull over if—”
“Keep driving,” Baekhyun grunted through clenched teeth. “I’m dizzy. Just go to the Cho Gale.”
After hearing this Chanyeol switched into the left lane, ready to turn at the stoplight. The traffic now had picked up, already on its swing into the day’s toils. “Why the Cho Gale? Is there a meeting? Who’s going to be there? I thought we were just going for a drive.”
Chanyeol realized his mistake in this sentence as he said it—they weren’t going for a drive, Baekhyun was. Chanyeol was just obligated to tag along. What he had said was an insinuation that he and Baekhyun were…well…doing things together. It may not have seemed like such a big deal, but it was recognizable. Chanyeol and Baekhyun weren’t doing things together, like going for drives. That simply wasn’t true. They weren’t friends. Chanyeol was just his guard.
Baekhyun noticed too and glanced over, but then looked back out the windshield. “I have a bad feeling about this.” He sighed and pulled his hand away from his swelling lip. “We’ll find someone there.”
Confusion welled in Chanyeol. He quirked his lips to the side in thought, then said nonchalantly, “But stuff like this happens all the time to you. What could be bad?”
Baekhyun’s voice was authoritative. “Just drive.”
~
The Cho Gale was a hotel-restaurant near the suburbs of Seoul, sporting amenities like indoor baths, a full wet bar, continental breakfast, and an old arcade room with pieces of chewed up gum stuck to the machines, stray coins scattered under the tables, and dust collecting everywhere (Chanyeol knew this because he checked it out once. It was lame). It also hosted an infamous Men’s Go Club wherein groups of middle-and-old-aged males congregated at little tables to play matches of the classic Japanese board game.
Little fun fact: the basement of the Cho Gale was also a hotspot home base for Seoul’s Mafia.
Baekhyun walked in easily and coolly, aiming straight for the lower-level staircases. The reception area dinged with gray life around them and was serenaded with amicable lobby music—the innocence of it all was almost amusing.
Chanyeol noticed the man approaching from behind them before Baekhyun did and immediately turned around and planted his feet, an arm minimally passing protectively in front of Baekhyun who had just turned as well. “Can we help you sir?” the guard asked, addressing the other man. He too was tallish and sported a white and yellow suit; his face was riddled with acne scars and fake smile lines, lips pinched and eyes wide. His grin looked as if it would snap in half any moment and his suit was shiny from being ironed too many times. He smelled like cabbage.
But Chanyeol, upon noticing whom the man was, dropped his defensive tone of voice, though his arm still lingered to keep Baekhyun back. “Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Cho.” He bowed his head momentarily in respect.
Mr. Cho was the owner of the place and a somewhat-respectable man, known for having a good time, making friends, and for his notorious gambling. He was an associate of the Seoul Mafia and under a tab of the racketeer Mafia taxpaying, in which a mob soldier would approach a business and let them know that they will be protected from attacks by the Mafia as long as they keep paying monthly revenue of one to two hundred dollars.
Mr. Cho grinned that unsatisfactory smile, his eyes landing on the smaller male behind Chanyeol. “Ah, Mister Byun Baekhyun, yes? You’re Mr. B’s son! It’s been a while since I’ve seen you last, dear boy. It’s my sincerest pleasure to welcome you here. How have you been?”
Baekhyun pushed past Chanyeol’s arm, clearly apathetic with the small talk. “Are there any meetings going on downstairs?” he asked under his breath.
Cho’s brows lifted. “Not that I know of dear boy. But there will be one later, at noon.” Baekhyun checked his watch. “Are you looking for someone?”
“When the men get here offer them drinks on me.”
“I can do that. May I entice you with a drink of your own while you wait?”
Baekhyun seemed finished with Cho, and turned back towards the staircase.
“That’s a nasty mark on your lip, Mister Baekhyun,” Mr. Cho called in an attempt to reel the boy back in. “Is there something going on that I should know about?”
Baekhyun just took the stairs and started his descent. Chanyeol had a foot forward, ready to follow, but he grunted and faced Cho again. In a voice just above a whisper he asked, “Can you have a first aid kit brought down please?”
Cho nodded. “Of course.”
~
The meeting room was little more than a small, cold, lifeless cell with a table and chairs inside it and an excess fridge of whiskey in the corner. Baekhyun had positioned himself in the only chair of comfort in a different corner—a dark leather seat which he curled up in like he always did at home in his reading chair, tucking his ankles beneath him. A solemn, rigid expression covering his face immediately seemed to draw Baekhyun out of reality and into the unknown recluses of his mind—the vacant look in his eyes let Chanyeol know that Baekhyun wasn’t really there.
The guard leaned back against the opposing wall across from Baekhyun, admiring the smaller’s modest intensity when there was a slight knock on the door. Baekhyun looked up and Chanyeol went to the door, collecting the first aid kit from the butler that had brought it. The taller then turned back to the Baekhyun with a smile, lifting the box. “Doctor Chanyeol is in session.”
Baekhyun glowered as Chanyeol came closer. “I don’t need that,” he snapped.
His guard tilted his head, meme face on. “Really.” It wasn’t a question. He sunk down in front of Baekhyun and opened the kit, rummaging around it thoughtfully.
“It’s not your job,” Baekhyun stated in a scolding tone.
“My job description doesn’t say anything about not being allowed to make sure you are okay and not hurting.”
“I don’t need that,” Baekhyun repeated as Chanyeol dug out antibiotic cream.
“You do.”
The smaller’s next words were sharp and crackling with spark. “You only want to remedy me because my father will kill you if I’m injured on your watch.”
The room went silent. Chanyeol’s chest clenched with momentary fear—Baekhyun wasn’t kidding. It was true that, unless the Boss’ son’s injury—however slight—was taken care of and on its way to healing, Chanyeol would probably end up dead.
But that wasn’t the reason why he wanted to tend to the smaller. Baekhyun’s assumption of Chanyeol’s motives was misplaced.
As if realized what he’d said, Baekhyun hesitated then leaned forward and reached for the first aid box. “I’ll do it,” he mumbled, not meeting Chanyeol’s eyes. They both held onto the box for a moment—maybe a moment too long on Chanyeol’s part—before the taller eased off and allowed Baekhyun to take it. The smaller put it in his lap and continued the same rummaging as Chanyeol did.
The taller reached out to help but one warning glare from Baekhyun stopped him.
After the boy fumbled for several minutes trying to apply a healing agent to his lip after cleaning it, but stumbling, Chanyeol shook his head.
“There’s no mirror in here. Just let me help—”
“It’s not your place.”
Chanyeol felt himself shrink back, but couldn’t help but glance back up again as Baekhyun struggled.
“A little to the left,” Chanyeol muttered, addressing Baekhyun’s bruise. Baekhyun moved his finger but Chanyeol quickly stuttered, “The other left.”
The smaller glared for a moment, but followed Chanyeol’s direction and successfully applied the cream. The taller watched with glazed eyes as the white, translucent balm was spread wetly over Baekhyun’s lips—
“Clean your face up too,” Baekhyun suddenly said, stretching the box back out to the taller.
“I don’t have to—” Chanyeol fingers dragged down the side of his face, running over crusted blood. “Oh.”
But as Chanyeol struggled to wipe the stuff beneath the knife cut away himself, much to his disappointment, Baekhyun didn’t offer any help. He hastily swiped the blood off with a hint of frustration, as if the wipe itself was soaked in pretension and made of rejection.
Chanyeol hesitated, holding his crouch beside Baekhyun’s chair. There was a sort of patronizing wait within the stuffy silence of the room that made him feel at odds with Baekhyun as if they were two like magnets that weren’t connecting. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Baekhyun wasn’t going to talk.
So with an unsatisfied sigh Chanyeol stood and begrudgingly took his place beside the door, face forward, hands behind his back.
Noon came and went and no one showed. Chanyeol sensed Baekhyun’s uneasiness from where he stood across the room—surprisingly Mafia men were generally punctual and lived by well-groomed schedules, so when the room was empty quarter past one Baekhyun shifted for the first time, switching from sitting on one thigh to the other. Chanyeol would have stood where he was forever, eyeing Baekhyun’s never-changing expression, but true to his nature the tall man’s stomach ached and gurgled with hunger within him, the primordial creature in his intestines and stomach writhing with need. He wondered if Baekhyun was hungry—surely he was. They’d been sitting in avoidant and uncomfortable silence for hours.
Chanyeol cleared his throat and stepped away from the doorway for the first time in the toilsome interval—he was a man bored easily and tempted by action, but Baekhyun’s still energy had kept him calm until now. “Well it’s way past lunchtime, Baekhyun. Would you like something to eat? I’m starving—whatever you like, I’m sure there will be a place for it around the block.”
“I’m not leaving here.” Baekhyun voice was stony and cold.
“That’s alright,” Chanyeol chirped, hands coming to rest on his hips with a smile. “Food can be ordered from the Cho Gala restaurant—you can wait here in case the guys come if you prefer and I’ll be back in a jiffy with—”
“I’m not hungry Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol paused for a moment, eyeing Baekhyun’s nonexistent expression, then shrugged and walked casually back to his position on the far wall, but this time he leaned against it with his hands in his pockets. “Okay.”
Whatever Baekhyun was expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. Chanyeol knew so because the smaller’s eyes turned upward to look at him with the slightest of surprise in his small orbs—it wasn’t a change in his face, per say, but Chanyeol had become adept at recognizing the extreme slights of Baekhyun’s eyes and the reactions they conveyed: a slight narrowing, a twitch of his lashes, a shadow cast over them, or an excited glint. Surprise was an emotion that Chanyeol didn’t see often and so his heart rejoiced a tad on the inside. He pursed his lips to hide his satisfied smirk.
“If you’re hungry Chanyeol you can go. I’m safe,” said Baekhyun.
Chanyeol shrugged again. “Nah. I don’t need to eat.”
“You’re starving,” Baekhyun stated matter-of-factly, reciting the other’s words. This time Chanyeol laughed and shook his head, smiling eyes glancing at the smaller from beneath his chop of bangs.
“My life is sworn to you alone Baekhyun. You are the only person in the world that I must worry about, that I will worry about. I will not eat in your presence—I will not eat at all—if you don’t first.” He flashed a benign smile.
Now Baekhyun’s eyes were unreadable. The taller looked away and shuffled his feet as he was now somewhat embarrassed he’d confessed such a thing so outwardly. It wasn’t like he was about to get a response; Baekhyun was just going to be as silent as ever.
“I’m hungry,” was what Baekhyun blurted suddenly. Chanyeol’s head lifted. The smaller met his eyes unfailingly and a stable authority hung within them. “I like the tomato coconut soup. Sour bread dough on the side. Be quick.”
There was a pitter-patter of butterfly wings fluttering in Chanyeol’s heart as he beamed and stood straight, saluting Baekhyun playfully. “Sir yessir.”
But as he opened the door and was about to slip out Baekhyun’s sugary voice stopped him once again.
“Chanyeol…”
“Yes?”
“You’re not a servant.”
~
It was four in the evening when the Mafia men all showed up at once, floundering into the basement cellar one after the other. They all strode in agitatedly, were all startled by Chanyeol’s immediate presence in the room, and all were moved and challenged by Baekhyun’s serious figure in the corner.
“Oh, Baekhyun boy!” one man exclaimed in surprise, hand over his heart. Chanyeol had gone to dutifully stand behind the smaller as more perturbed middle-aged men in suits stocked the room full. Behind the man in strode another young figure—a handsome, chiseled young lad with a moody, alluring physique. Chanyeol knew him as Jongin, the son of Mr. Kim Jongong: the Capo of mass gambling in Seoul’s Mafia system and lieutenant to Mr. B. Chanyeol had recognized several other important faces here—it drew even further suspicion to Baekhyun’s bad feeling and their reason for being here.
Kim Jongong glanced around at the other attendees before seeing Baekhyun once again. “That drink was well appreciated. How are you son? I haven’t heard of you in a while.”
Baekhyun didn’t reply. He only sat there with his chin perched at the tips of his fingers and his scalding eyes eating up the scene.
And then in stepped another familiar face, one that dropped a handful of heavy pebbles into Chanyeol’s gut.
Consigliere Park entered and clapped hands on the backs of his associates, speaking in muffled tones and taking his place at the table. He didn’t acknowledge Chanyeol, though his son had become used to this by now. There was a reasonable motive for the two of them not socializing with each other.
At 4:11 pm, however, one particular man opened the door and intruded, stealing all eyes and the traces of anxious whispers. Importance radiated from the man’s broad shoulders and he carried an aura that demanded attention. He was stocky and bulky and square-built—he didn’t look like Baekhyun at all. Which was odd since this man was clearly the younger’s father. Their only shared resemblance was in their similar stern expression; the one that Baekhyun carried all the time, and the one that Mr. B carried only when he was upset.
“Welcome gentlemen,” he announced with a thick voice. He nodded in recognition to several members sitting at the table before his eyes then landed on the shadowed corner in which Baekhyun sat, brooding. Chanyeol gulped—the depth and clarity and poise in this man’s eyes were uncannily alike Baekhyun’s and it gave the taller shivers. Mr. B straightened and took a single step towards his son. “Baekhyun—I was not expecting to see you here.”
Baekhyun bobbed his head shallowly once in respect, and his father must have gotten the gist of it. He only glanced at his son and then faced the gathering of men, lips pinched and voice taught. “Well men…we are here now to address the matters following the death of Kim Iljon.” A hushed breath of shock filled the space—but only for a moment. Jongin, who had receded to standing beside Chanyeol, exchanged a glance with the latter. “For those of you who don’t know, he was shot and killed today at 11:42 am by an unknown opposition.”
One man sitting at the table beside Jongin’s father immediately spoke up. “Are we assuming the enemy was made up of more mafia men?”
“The Chinese Mafia,” another exclaimed. “They must be the boys from Shanghai. Oh, they’re ruthless bastards.”
There was a chorus of agreements, but a man sitting to the right of the head of the table—a man Chanyeol also recognized as the Underboss—shook his head and patted the table diplomatically and with supremacy. “That is something we are here to discuss, among other things…” At the tail end of his sentence the man’s eyes drifted in Baekhyun’s direction, but the younger was unmoving.
“There are many things we have on our agenda,” Mr. B asserted as he took his seat at the top of the table under the light of a single exposed, dangling lightbulb. “That is why we must get started.”
And so they did. Chanyeol wasn’t sure where he’d heard the name Kim Iljon before—as it turns out the man managed all drug cartels within the Seoul Mafia and was apparently an outgoing guy with a fancy for expensive cars. Spree spending and splurging was a common ritual; Kim had gone out to buy a new ride and came back with holes in his chest. A shootout in the backstreets, much like what Baekhyun and Chanyeol had experienced, was what took his life.
The questions that remained and that were discussed were these:
Who killed him? Who ordered him to be killed? How much did they know about him and his business? How will the drug deliveries be managed in the near future? Who will take Kim’s place?
And then something bizarre happened: they started talking about Baekhyun.
“I just don’t think that your son is adept enough to manage something as great as this,” the Underboss and second-in-command to Mr. B said first, his hand bobbing with emphasis. “He hasn’t shown any interest in taking position at the head of crime.”
“Have you and your son discussed this?” Do Hansoo, the pimp and illegal prostitution channel asked this question.
Mr. B sighed, frustration and irritation evident on his face. “This is not a matter of choice, but of trust.”
“So you haven’t talked about it.” Mr. Do repeated as a statement. Then Jongin’s father,
“Is Baekhyun aware of the responsibilities and duties that would come with taking the place of Kim Iljon? Does he even know how to manage a drug dealership? Can he handle that much pressure and risk?”
Eyes flickered to Baekhyun in the corner—he hadn’t moved an inch since the start of the meeting, but Chanyeol dearly wished he could see his face, because the expressions on the other men were hilariously intense as if their eyes were begging Baekhyun for something. Maybe a word, a sign that he was listening, recognition that he did or did not want to be a part of this…hope. They were hoping for Baekhyun, suspended in his powerful silence awaiting to hear him speak. Baekhyun had…put himself in a position of power in this room, simply by doing what he did best. Awareness of these men’s desperation coagulated Chanyeol’s senses, and astonishment crossed his face. Oh Baekhyun, he thought. You are a manipulative devil you are.
“He would be the youngest Capo to ever live,” one man at the other end of the table mumbled, shaking his head.
Then another. “I don’t think I’ve even met your son personally before…”
The weapons dealer and mass arsenal manager, Lee Beomnam, spoke up then. “Boss, does Baekhyun even know that this potential placement of him as a Capo has been in discussion for…a while?”
Mr. B sighed again. “He does now.”
“So this is his first time hearing this?”
“I suppose so.”
“Mr. B does your son want to take over Seoul’s drug trafficking?”
This time every man turned in their chairs to observe Baekhyun with challenge and ice and darkness. Chanyeol gulped, hyperaware now that he was standing just behind Baekhyun’s chair and therefore suffered under the looks of power of these men—he was standing in front of some of the most notorious men in the country, guarding one of their greatest jewels. When the student councilors at his high school had gone around asking students what they were going to do once they graduated this wasn’t what Chanyeol had in mind.
But Baekhyun still did not move. His head tilted in a quirky sort of fashion and Chanyeol could practically sense the way his lips were curling up in a smirk. Several of the men’s scowls deepened. It was the prime moment for Baekhyun to open his mouth and deliver some sort of ground-shaking, jaw-dropping statement of surety. Chanyeol waited in anticipation for him to seize the situation and place these men’s heads in his palm.
But he didn’t. His father spoke instead. “At the moment we don’t have many alternatives. These last two months we’ve made nearly twenty-eight million dollars—I expect this figure to continue, and we will not be debilitated by the loss of Kim Iljon. He was a weak link anyway—it does raise concern of who may be keeping track of our movements. We must proceed in a small-scale fashion and keep close tabs on our limbs. In the name of doing so I cannot induct unseasoned trainees into a position of such importance like the Capo of drug dealings. In my eyes my son is the most trustworthy and reliable person to fill this spot. He is an intelligent man, a dependable man of well foundation.”
Beside Chanyeol, Jongin leaned over and whispered, “I don’t think I’d consider anyone in that Byun family to be dependable.”
Chanyeol frowned and a previously silent man, whom Chanyeol knew well, spoke in an informative and thoughtful tone. It was his father: consigliere and closest counselor to the Boss. “In my professional opinion I would advise you to appoint Mister Baekhyun to Capo. It would seem to be the safest and most profitable exchange we could manage.”
“You’re just saying that because you want your own son to be promoted,” someone snapped from across the table. Chanyeol withheld a snort. No, that was ridiculous.
“That’s your son?” another man inquired, gesturing to Chanyeol.
“It matters not,” Mr. B continued. “This is not about him. My son’s guard has nothing to do with this decision. In case you have forgotten, we’re discussing hiring Baekhyun into the rank of Capo. If you haven’t noticed yet, he is a man of few distractions and all seriousness, a passionate and ambitious man. He is my son. We share many like motives. Yet I must confess—my son is even more enterprising than I am. If anyone can handle learning the job and doing it well, it is he.”
“You give a convincing spiel, Boss,” Do Hansoo waved a hand and then turned his firm, evaluating gaze to Baekhyun. His eyes were calculative and investigative and examining. The man himself was a wielder of many fine specimens of humans; being the major prostitution trafficker in South Korea gave him an instinctually picky eye for new recruits. “But let’s see what the man has to say for himself.”
Everyone faced Baekhyun again. The boy’s father spoke. “Well my boy? Would you accept the rank of Capo and take charge of our drug cartels?”
Chanyeol was ready to explode from anticipation—he wondered if his heart was beating faster than Baekhyun’s right now as his mind blazed with all the possibilities and changes that would come if Baekhyun took this job…oh man, they’d be in so deep. No longer would he and Baekhyun be flirting around the edges of evil, but would dive head first into it. Was Chanyeol prepared for that? He felt his father’s eyes on him and gulped.
Baekhyun shifted, lifted his chin, and said lowly, “It would be an honor, sir.”
A pleased smile broke out onto the Boss’ square-jawed face as the others in the room exchanged hurried looks and whispers.
It was short lasted. The Boss turned around with a bite of smugness in his voice as he addressed his colleagues. “Simple as that, men. We no longer will fester over who must take Kim Iljon’s place.”
Some of the associative males in the room were scowling deeply in disapproval, others seemed indifferent, and some looked pleased. Baekhyun didn’t look anything.
“Young Mister Byun has to be sworn in as our drug specialist tonight then,” Chanyeol’s father reminded the Boss with a taste of criticalness. “He must be learned the ways of a drug cartel—of this business.”
“Agreed,” the Underboss mumbled off to the side.
Mr. B nodded and stood from his chair, turning around to face Baekhyun and the boy’s guard. Baekhyun rose from his chair with an ambience of catlike-ness as the Boss’s eyes raked over his son’s face—his eyes halted, however, on the discoloration over Baekhyun’s lip. Mr. B frowned deeply and stepped closer, staring at his son’s lip.
“What happened?” he growled, shifting so that he was facing Chanyeol a bit. “How did you get this injury?”
“There was a shootout,” said Baekhyun, sounding somewhat bored. “I came here to inform you about it. It was a planned ambush.”
Mr. B turned his glare to the guard. “And you—Park Chanyeol—how come you were unable to protect my son from this extremity? Are you incapable of keeping my son from harm?”
The threat was already immanent in the dark, dirty folds of the man’s voice. The other men in the room had tensed—Chanyeol’s father watched at him with wide, worried eyes. Several shadowed figures in the back of the room across from Chanyeol had reached for their holsters. Chanyeol stuttered, “S-Sir—”
“He protected me, saved me,” Baekhyun interrupted, waving a dismissive hand, but his eyes were hard and challenging, daring. Baekhyun was baiting his father—the Mafia Boss. Mr. Park at the table looked as if he wanted to interject, but kept his lips pinched shut. If he was to speak out it would mean the certain elimination of his son: if anyone there felt as if there was even a slight, secret confederacy between the consigliere and his son—who happened to be right up close with Byun Baekhyun—it would look like they were in some sort of alliance or deal. He couldn’t stand up for Chanyeol.
Mr. B grit his teeth. “Park Chanyeol, please exit the room. You too Kim Jongin.”
His tone was coarse and commanding and the two minors bowed their heads momentarily before heading towards to doors—but not before Chanyeol glanced at Baekhyun, concerned. He wasn’t sure what for exactly, but this whole situation didn’t bode well. He wondered briefly if Baekhyun had just saved his life. He wondered what would happen in this room while he was outside of it, what would be disclosed for Baekhyun and not for—
Jongin tugged on Chanyeol’s sleeve and yanked him out of the room impatiently, the door closing behind them.
~
An hour and a half had passed. Jongin seemed tired of pacing the basement hallway and whined, “What’s taking them so long?” He slid to the floor beside Chanyeol, who had been sulking on the ground next to the soundproofed door for the entire duration of their wait. He wasn’t sure exactly if he really wanted to know what was going on in there—the Seoul Mafia was nothing but a cult that worshipped a religion based on consumption, crime, and money. He supposed he and Baekhyun were going to really be a part of that now. There was perhaps an itch of disappointment within him knowing that his little harmless Baekhyun would now be one of the greatest felons in the country…though Chanyeol was reminded of nights when Baekhyun would offhandedly drive downtown late at night and sit in on meetings with his father. Chanyeol wasn’t invited to those but he had always been required to escort Baekhyun. He knew that the Boss’ son wasn’t a saint—Baekhyun participated in many suspicious actions that had Chanyeol wondering. Thinking about it now, he supposed that Baekhyun’s overall lifestyle, embedded with jewels of mischief and shade, was inherent. The state of the mob child’s somewhat wickedness was rhetorical. Chanyeol admitted in his own head that often times he liked to imagine Baekhyun as…well…an angel.
That couldn’t have been farther from the truth and he knew it.
“How have you been, Chanyeol?” asked Jongin. The man whose father was a well-known underground gambling mercenary god looked at the taller curiously. “You look good. I guess life’s been treating you well. That’s a pretty nice scratch on your cheek.”
Chanyeol groaned and his head tilted back, leaning against the wall. “I need a break. Who knew that standing around watching someone all day could be so tiring?” Chanyeol loosely wanted to add “But it’s Byun Baekhyun, so I really don’t mind watching him all day” but decided against it.
“A break?” Jongin chuckled—it was somewhat dark and lazy. His sharp-jawed head turned to look at Chanyeol, crown of slick hair spreading across the wall. The man grinned and the tip of his tongue poked out between his teeth. “Hmm…you look like you could use some relaxation.” His voice was chronically suggestive—Jongin used to express his love for sex to Chanyeol as a conversation topic like it was perfectly appropriate when the latter had first been inducted into the Mafia, but they both knew that the taller was terribly awkward when it came to those things. But…things had also changed. “I could show to some great porn websi—”
“No, I don’t need that,” Chanyeol quickly interrupted, rubbing his face with his large mitt. “That’s not really what I’m into Jongin…”
“Nah, you’re right. The real thing is so much better.” Jongin grinned smugly and brought his arms up behind his head, elbows crooking in a diamond shape around his skull.
Chanyeol scoffed. “Easy for you to say. You’re getting laid.”
“Damn right.”
“How is Kyungsoo by the way?”
Do Kyungsoo’s father, Mr. Do Hansoo, was in charge of prostitution trafficking within the Seoul Mafia. Much like how deception had always been a part of Baekhyun’s life, and gambling a part of Jongin’s, the idea of sex had always been a part of Kyungsoo’s. Chanyeol had never met the boy before, but Jongin had spared photos of him.
Jongin boasted a boisterous laugh and threw his arm around Chanyeol’s shoulder, to which the taller cringed. The two of them probably couldn’t have been considered friends—at least Chanyeol didn’t think to associate himself with someone who bore such bad omens as Kim Jongin. “Vocal as ever!” he cheered.
Chanyeol nodded. “So his singing career is doing well?”
Jongin frowned. “That’s…not really what I meant…never mind. Yeah, he still sings too.”
Chanyeol groaned and slid lower to the floor. “How do you do it? I’m not getting anything around here—but man, the view is still amazing.” His voice was faraway and exasperated…just thinking about Baekhyun made Chanyeol’s head spin.
Jongin was silent for a moment. The taller’s words seemed to churn over in his head, and when he finally put the pieces together Jongin gasped and slapped Chanyeol’s arm. “You shitty bastard! You’ve got the hots for Baekhyun!”
The guard’s fist thwacked over Jongin’s mouth, stomach twisting with worry. “Shut up! Don’t let the whole world know about it!”
Jongin shoved his hand away and exposed a wide mouth dropped in shock. “You’re messing with me. Are you serious?”
Chanyeol shrunk back to the floor and crossed his arms in a pouting sort of manner. “I didn’t say anything…” he grumbled.
This time Jongin burst out laughing. “Damn, I don’t—I can’t even comprehend this! Byun Baekhyun?”
Chanyeol didn’t respond. Jongin slumped beside him and ran his hands through his scalp, disbelieving.
“I mean…damn. He kind of seems hard to get, you know?”
Chanyeol grunted. You have no idea.
“Except his hard-to-get-ness is…I don’t know, permanent? He’s seems kind of quiet too. Today is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak at all. He must be difficult to sweet-talk.”
Chanyeol shrugged nonchalantly, but his heart swayed with hurt and frustration knowing that Baekhyun was a mountain of icy slopes in front of him. “It’s kind of difficult to talk at all. Our conversations are usually pretty short.”
“You converse with him? Actual back and forth?”
Chanyeol shrugged.
“I don’t know man, that Baekhyun seems too cocky to get along with.”
“You’re the one to talk about being cocky?” Chanyeol bit. The other chortled once again, clumps of joyous banter rolling off of his tongue in sunny waves.
“Oh buddy, I’m proud. Cocky in more than one way.”
Chanyeol winced. “You need to stop.”
“Have you seen Baekhyun naked?”
“You really need to stop.”
“I mean that ass is remarkably—”
The taller threw the most aggravated glare he could muster at the male next to him—he was surprised himself to realize how offended he felt by Jongin’s explicit words. Baekhyun wasn’t for Jongin to admire. And…Chanyeol hadn’t even had a chance to think about Baekhyun in that way yet. He certainly wasn’t going to let Jongin beat him to it, though he feared he may have already. Jongin threw his hands up in surrender. “Sorry dude. He’s all yours. I’m sure you’ll have him pinned down pretty quick anyway. He can’t be that hard to get.”
Chanyeol dropped his head into his hands, trying to hide his flushed cheeks. Why did his face feel so hot now? It wasn’t the way Jongin’s husky voice invoked a sense of fertility within him next to the idea of Baekhyun’s—
Chanyeol stood up with a gruff sigh and began hurriedly pacing the hall, suddenly restless. It had been nearing two hours now since he and Jongin had left the room and although uneasiness paddled within him he was not glorious at suppressing his curiosity. “What’s going on in there?” he growled to himself.
“You’re not getting a hard on, are you?”
Chanyeol whirred onto Jongin and pointed a finger at his face. “You need to fucking stop.”
There was a click and a slice and then the door of the meeting room creaked and slid open, revealing the face of Chanyeol’s father. Mr. Park’s brows lifted and he spoke through gritted teeth. “Chanyeol, the Boss would like to speak with you.”
Chanyeol stood anxiously front and center of attention ahead of the horde of mob men, muscles tight as he held back nervous fidgeting. The stares were critical and serious, though many of them were distant and far too thoughtful for them to be analyzing Chanyeol too closely.
Baekhyun had sat down at the table and upheld his straight-backed posture that he sported only when he wasn’t trying to smite or defy anyone…or when he was apprehensive. His guard recognized it: how the smaller became rigid when he was perturbed. That table seated only the king and the king’s men—Baekhyun had been sworn in as head of the drug cartel while Chanyeol was out. In Chanyeol’s eyes, Baekhyun’s face hadn’t changed. Not yet at least. But he was clearly agitated in some way; legs crossed, hands in his lap, shoulders low. He also watched Chanyeol and his gaze was far more intimidating than the others: piercing and evaluating.
Mr. B faced the guard. “Chanyeol, my son expressed his concerns to us regarding the shootout that occurred this morning. Thank you for protecting him—I would like to let you know that your position will not change. You are still in charge of his safety. He is now Capo of drug dealings, and you, his personal guard.” He paused here, and then continued, “Unfortunately our home is compromised—it will not do for the two of you to be there anymore. Where do you live Chanyeol?”
Chanyeol’s mind did a somersault, a double take. The Boss didn’t appear to be angry, at least not with him. And he was…talking to him…he was…asking a question—
“I-Itaewon District in Seoul, in an apartment on the backstreets. It’s real quiet.”
Mr. B’s face was unchanging. “My son will be moving in with you.”
Out of the corner of Chanyeol’s eye he saw Baekhyun blink and even flinch. Chanyeol’s brows furrowed in disbelief—Baekhyun will what? Mr. B went on, striding idly and moodily towards the guard.
“You are not to let Baekhyun out of your sight. I want you to be watching him every minute of every day—sleep in the same bedroom. I don’t want him to have any privacy, not from you. We’ve concluded that he is a target, and until the enemy is neutralized he will live with you so that he will always be under safekeeping—and you will be wary of any danger. I expect you to thwart any and every threat. It is unknown how long this will be required. He moves in with you tonight.”
Then Baekhyun’s voice, soft and yet clear and musky, sliced through his father’s silence. “Sir—”
“There will be no objections. This is my directive.” He addressed Chanyeol specifically again, “Do you understand Mister Park?”
Off to the side, Baekhyun’s eyes narrowed and jaw tensed. Chanyeol could see it—did Baekhyun not want this to happen? Of course he doesn’t, thought the taller with a bitter ache in his mouth. Well…even if Baekhyun didn’t want to…Chanyeol…kind of liked the idea. Guiltily? No. Not really.
My son will be moving in with you.
He moves in with you tonight.
“Understood,” Chanyeol chanted, trying and nearly failing to suppress his grin.
You are not to let Baekhyun out of your sight.
Mr. B turned away, commending, “Good man.”
Baekhyun’s eyes raved with objection, but his glower went unnoticed by all but Chanyeol, whose lips twitched with a need to smile.
I don’t want him to have any privacy, not from you.
The Boss leaned over the table gravely, but with a wisp of relief in his voice as he spoke. “I will be holding another meeting with the new Capo tomorrow morning—there is much to arrange. Associates must be appointed…” Mr. B straightened and announced, “This meeting is adjourned, men. Remember—God will provide, but you must provide until he does.” Then, the signature remark, “There is only one way: ours.”
A chorus of yips and nods echoed the man—he sat down as the others stood, exchanging curt acknowledges, and stepped out of the room until only Baekhyun was left. He had stood as well, but his father mumbled beneath his breath, presumably to his son.
When he was done Baekhyun turned his head, bowed it respectfully once, and strode away and out the door—he threw Chanyeol only one, harmless glare that the latter had trouble deciphering before sliding away. The guard trailed him out, down the hall, and towards the stairs. Chanyeol fidgeted and itched to say something—but what was there to say? He was still having difficulty comprehending what had just happened, what was going on.
Before he knew it Baekhyun was striding through the parking lot on his slim legs in long strides, hands in pockets. The heavy thumping of Chanyeol’s gun holster bumping against his hips was like a drum as Chanyeol walked after the smaller, reflecting the excitement within his own heart.
Baekhyun stepped around the back of the Camaro; his pace slowed only for a moment as his eyes danced over the bullet dents in the polished rear bumper. His lips turned down in a pinched frown before he proceeded to the driver’s side of the vehicle. Chanyeol tip toed inside as well and found himself in a clogged silence, the minimal Baekhyun-scented space between them was stifling in a dizzying sort of way. Once again Chanyeol admired Baekhyun from this view, right beside him. He admired Baekhyun from every view but—
“Where do you live?” Baekhyun suddenly asked.
“O-Oh.” Chanyeol relayed the street name and the newly appointed Capo revved the engine. “—I could drive, you know. Since I know where it is and all.”
Baekhyun just pulled out of the Cho Gale lot and onto the street.
“Aren’t you going to go home first…?” asked Chanyeol as Baekhyun turned in the direction of Itaewon. “Don’t you have to pack stuff?”
“I can’t go back home. It’s on watch now.”
“Oh. Who’s watching it?”
“Someone who wants me dead.”
“Oh…what’s that? Why are they after you though?”
To this, Baekhyun did not respond.
Chanyeol wavered on a tightrope of wariness—he couldn’t tell what the other was emoting at the moment. Was Baekhyun mad? Upset? Frightened? He had just so easily asserted that Chinese mob men were targeting and stalking him. The only thing that expressed his uneasiness was his stiffness: recognizable by his rigid back and hands clenched around the steering wheel instead of their usual casualness.
Ten minutes later Chanyeol couldn’t help but open his mouth again. “Baekhyun?” No response. “Did you know that there was going to be a meeting at the Cho Gale today? So you knew to go there?”
“No.”
“Okay…hey Baekhyun?” No response. “Why did you buy those men drinks?”
At this the smaller seemed to step back into a puddle of thought. He paused, blinked, and then replied in a low, moody tone, “So they would notice me.”
“…what does that mean?”
The darkness in Baekhyun’s pupils shimmered like a star-speckled night firmament under the city lights. The multicolored and neon reflected off of his skin in an artistic mosaic of shine and saturation—the sight painted an alluring mist about Baekhyun’s face. He said simply, “He who pays well is well served.”
He who pays well is well served. The words massaged over Chanyeol’s tongue. His brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”
Baekhyun’s response was only but another encrypted comment. “Good medicine is always bitter.”
“Well…what does that mean?”
This time there was no reply.
~
Chanyeol directed Baekhyun to a parking garage several blocks away from his street.
“You can park in my spot,” he said. “My car is still at your house…”
The walk down Itaewon’s main shopping street basked both men in an awkward indifference. Chanyeol had seen these sidewalks enough times to find it mundane, but even though Baekhyun had probably been to this place before, his eyes still flickered around them in mild interest.
When Chanyeol slowed his pace to allow Baekhyun to enjoy the views longer and with ease, the smaller bit at his heels to propel him forward. The message was clear.
Chanyeol led the two of them down a side street and through a course of maze-like back streets. The pavement was caked with matted garbage and the cracks were stuffed with cigarette butts and wet paper. But these things made his street what it was and were as charming to Chanyeol as the potted plants that lined his neighbor’s windowsill.
Chanyeol’s apartment was squished in a back alley and shrouded in the shade of the hill growing behind it. Somewhere nearby a dog’s raw bark rattled the stilling night air and reverberated off of the close-knit homes. As the taller led Baekhyun towards his front door he became uneasy: did he pick up his clothes before he left for the Byun’s manor today? How clean was the bathroom? Was there any food in the fridge? Should he change his bed sheets for Baekhyun?
He gulped and stepped up to the threshold, sticking the key in its lock as Baekhyun’s eyes scanned the houses around them. “I—I don’t know if it’s clean on the inside—”
Baekhyun didn’t seem concerned. They stepped inside and the smoky, fruity musk of Chanyeol’s home invaded them. Chanyeol stepped away from the door in the dark, stumbling over piles of old mail and magazines he never read. “U-Uh just let me find the lights—” His knee banged against the coffee table. “Ah—shit—hold on a second Baekhyun I’ll just—”
Chanyeol’s hand found the switch and the lights came on. He turned to face Baekhyun, cringing.
Byun Baekhyun was…in his home.
Baekhyun’s eyes skirted about the room not in a judgmental way, only perceptive. The main room was a parlor sort of space with a futon and low coffee table, stacks of books in the corners and a tv on the floor with mounds of videogames scattered around it. Through the next doorway was the single, tight hall, to the left the kitchen, to the right the bedroom, and further down the hall, the bathroom. Chanyeol clutched his keys in his fists and pursed his lips only now wishing Baekhyun would say something. He figured he must have looked pretty pitiful in the other’s eyes—the smaller lived in a valiant manor in one of the richest parts of Seoul, and now here he was hiding out in Chanyeol’s little apartment in the shaded backstreets of a former red-light-district playground.
“It’s…not much. But it’s home.” He waited for Baekhyun to respond, but he didn’t, so Chanyeol turned and headed slowly for the kitchen. “Uh…I don’t have a lot in the way of food but I’ll cook something…so…uh…yeah…”
Baekhyun didn’t follow him. Chanyeol poked his head back into the parlor and witnessed the smaller standing at the door still, hands hanging in his pockets and his shoe-covered toes at the edge of the welcome mat. Baekhyun watched Chanyeol with inquiring eyes.
Then it hit Chanyeol. “O-Oh! Uh…come in! Oh uh…hold on…”
He strode towards the coat closet beside the entrance and dug around for an extra pair of slippers he had stashed away there when he’d first moved in. After sifting through piles of shoes he pulled out two mismatched-sized slippers and presented them sheepishly to Baekhyun, then thought better of it and quickly placed them down at the other’s feet. “I’ll find a better pair later…uh you can hang your coat up right there…” He gestured to the pegs on the wall, wondering if he should be removing Baekhyun’s coat for him. But, knowing already what the smaller would say, Chanyeol just turned and headed back to the kitchen.
Minutes later Baekhyun drifted into the kitchen after Chanyeol on shuffling feet and the larger of the two slippers scraped the ground when he walked. The taller man was buzzing at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables and throwing beads of rice into the cook pot. He peeked over his shoulder at Baekhyun—the smaller was again gazing at the space, sniffing, before he took a seat at the tiny, square table behind. His face didn’t look as if his thoughts were devoted to criticizing the small apartment, more like he was allocated to watching Chanyeol cook.
“I hope you like stir fry…” he mumbled.
“Pizza would have been fine.”
Chanyeol frowned. “Well I’m glad pizza is fine for you because that’s what we’re having for breakfast, lunch, and dinner tomorrow.”
It came out more bitter than he had intended. He hoped that Baekhyun didn’t catch the sour tone in his voice, but Baekhyun didn’t miss anything.
While shredding the oddly shaped, distorted ginger root into the pan, exploiting the haughty, sickly sweet scent of fresh ginger, Chanyeol casually said,
“You know I’ve been thinking…this morning we were ambushed in the streets. I guess those were the people that want you dead? Well, I mean, why the heck would they have attacked you then? It’s not like you’ve ever been directly involved with the Mafia. Sure, your father is the Boss, but you weren’t strictly associated with any crime. I mean…well now you’re involved. But this morning you would kind of had seemed like a lame target, you know? Why do you think they attacked you?”
“That is none of your business.”
“No but really, there was no reason for you to be a target for—”
“Watch it.”
Chanyeol faced him, incredulity crossing his eyes. “What? Baekhyun we need to discuss—”
“The rice is going to be overcooked.”
“O-Oh!”
Chanyeol spun around and switched off the steaming rice cooker as his cheeks flushed. He pulled a pair of dishes close and began divvying up the food and tried to make the meal as presentable as possible. Most days Chanyeol didn’t spend much, if any, time preparing meals. Usually he picked up some takeout on his way home or ate cereal out of a coffee cup while he gamed in front of the TV. The sensation of having his greatest infatuation sitting at his dinner table telling him, of all things, that he was overcooking his rice was beyond bizarre. The silence that accompanied the homestead was also unusual: Chanyeol commonly played music or had the radio going, talking or singing to himself. When it was quiet in his apartment it was Chanyeol-silence…meaning it was never completely soundless.
It was similar now, except the taller could discern Baekhyun’s soft breaths too.
“I’ll lay some lines down for you Chanyeol,” Baekhyun mumbled from behind. Chanyeol turned to face him, wooden cook spoons still in hand. The smaller’s arms were crossed over his chest and his brows in a glower. “Things will be different now. I am a drug Capo.”
Chanyeol gulped. “Yeah. I know.”
“I do not reinforce failure. I never marry a losing hand.”
“W-What? Wh-What are you saying?” Chanyeol cursed his stuttering. An inferno came to his cheeks.
“Metaphorically, Chanyeol. I’m saying that I forge bridges with other people made of stone and steal, not wood. I need associates made of cement, not putty.” Their eyes met. “I need proof that forging a bridge with you will be one of cement, stone, and steel.”
“Are you saying that I’m not a worthy ally?” His tone rang with betrayal.
“I’m not here to make friends. This business is about money.”
“I didn’t ask you if we were friends, Baekhyun. Do you consider me an ally? Because I am.”
Baekhyun didn’t respond.
Chanyeol took hold of the two bowls and balanced a dish of sauce on the crook of his elbow, then shuffled over to where Baekhyun was laid back at the table. Setting the hastily put together meals in front of them, Chanyeol smiled, standing behind the chair opposite Baekhyun.
“Baekhyun,” he started, his voice taking on adoration and patience. “I’ve said this before. I swore my life to you in blood. I pledged my every breath and action to you. What’s mine is yours.” He tilted his head. “It’s kind of like a marriage actually. You’ve already taken my hand.”
Baekhyun paused, then scowled. “We’re not married.”
Chanyeol laughed, but it was forsaken and held back as if gauged. Always gauged in Baekhyun’s presence. “I didn’t say we were. But the promise is the same. You may not have sworn yourself to me, but my contract clearly states: till death do us part.”
Baekhyun frowned.
Chanyeol supposed he wasn’t going to get a reply. He took his plate and chopsticks in hand and began striding away from the table and out of the kitchen. He plopped down on the floor beside the coffee table in the parlor and stirred his vegetables thoughtlessly. From his vantage point he could still see Baekhyun clearly—he had to. He wasn’t to take his eyes off of him. He observed as the smaller picked up his chopsticks and clumped a bundle of rice and vegetables on the end, then sniffed it and placed the food in his mouth pristinely and neatly. His face didn’t change.
An odd sense of displacement and uncertainty swirled in Chanyeol’s stomach with having Baekhyun around. Already he’d spent more time next to the smaller today than he had ever done before—Byun Baekhyun was in his kitchen! Imagine that!
But it wasn’t something to imagine. Baekhyun was really there.
A quarter of an hour later when Chanyeol noticed Baekhyun slowing his eating, and then standing, he jumped up and leaped into the kitchen to take the smaller’s eighty-percent empty bowl. “I’ll wash this…” the taller mumbled.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
“Uh…down the hall.”
Baekhyun turned away and strode towards the hallway, but when Chanyeol fidgeted and took a step to follow, he stopped. “I’m taking a shower,” he stated, as if that would deter Chanyeol from following. All it did was successfully make Chanyeol flush again.
But the guard followed his master down the hallway. Every creaking step echoed for thousands of miles within the taller’s head, every inch they came closer to the bathroom.
Baekhyun slid inside, but before he could turn around and reach for the door Chanyeol stepped in as well and shut the door behind him, lips pursed.
Baekhyun scowled.
Chanyeol blinked. “Your father said I wasn’t allowed to let you out of my sight.”
The smaller male stared at him.
Chanyeol sidled away from the door and took his usual stance, hands behind his back and feet comfortably apart: a clear sign that he wasn’t going away. Truth be told, Baekhyun’s unfriendly glare almost scared him out like a kitten in the face of a seething bulldog.
But Baekhyun turned and stepped up to the shower, fingers curling around the squeaking handle as he started the stream of warming water. The frisky pitter-patters of water droplets colliding with the shower wall and curtain were like pinpricks in Chanyeol’s ears.
Baekhyun, back to the other, slowly began shrugging off his coat. The fabric fell away from his neck and back and pooled in a black pile on the tile beside him. Chanyeol gulped, tongue suddenly dry.
The socks and shoes came next. Chanyeol knew he was imagining things, but he thought that maybe Baekhyun bent down pretty suggestively and probably didn’t have to quirk his hips that much or…
He was standing again. Baekhyun’s fingers crawled around his own waist and gathered the fabric at the hem of his black t-shirt in a bundle. Again, Chanyeol was imagining things. He was sure. It was just that…well, did Baekhyun have to take off his shirt inch by inch like that, so slow…
His almond-milk off-white expanse of his back became exposed at last as the shirt was lifted over his head. He stretched his arms a little, displaying the rippling of lean, smooth muscles beneath his wonderfully hazel, unbleached skin. The shirt fell to the floor and Chanyeol’s mouth parted—Baekhyun’s shoulder blades protruded like the hilts of sawed-off angel wings, his spine a ridged column up between bands of muscle.
Baekhyun’s pants and underwear felled in one swift motion, leaving him stark naked in the middle of the bathroom in a puddle of black clothing. He sighed and pulled one of his arms in front of his chest in a stretch, shifting his weight over one hip. He turned his head and out of the corner of his eye he glanced at Chanyeol. His lips curled in a smirk.
“Enjoying the view?”
Chanyeol bit back a grunt of approval, a guffaw of astonishment. There was Baekhyun, just standing there in a statuesque display of his backside. He could have been a Greek sculpture of a model figure—he wasn’t tiny. His body was rounded, but also lean and athletic.
But…Byun Baekhyun.
He was…naked.
In…Chanyeol’s bathroom.
And…Chanyeol was there too.
Chanyeol had never seen another naked boy before. Not a completely nude one. Changing in the locker rooms at his high school didn’t promote modesty, but there wasn’t any intimacy between a bunch of mostly-straight near-naked guys changing together after gym class. That was just normal. No one ever really looked at each other, so to say.
Chanyeol was looking now. He tried not to—he really tried not to!—but it was difficult not to see the few moles that dimpled Baekhyun’s skin, the curve of his lower back into his buttocks, and the stretch of the reverse side of his full thighs.
No, Baekhyun was flaunting it.
He sniggered darkly and turned away, then stepped behind the shower curtain under the hazy fog of the steam.
Without Baekhyun standing right there, Chanyeol expelled a breath he’d been holding in his pinched chest. He patted his cheeks swollen with blush. He really needed to calm down.
A moment later the taller placed a fresh soap bar, wash cloth, and razor at the edge of the shower-tub and took a sheepish step back. Baekhyun’s hand, dripping and slick with shampoo, poked out behind the curtain and took the gifts back.
When Baekhyun stepped out of the shower it took every bit of Chanyeol’s willpower not to look. The taller had a towel extended out in his fists, eyes forcefully glued to Baekhyun’s face.
The smaller looked different having come right out of the shower. It was sight Chanyeol had never seen before: on top of his head was a soggy, dripping mop of spaghetti hair, and his cheeks, nose, and chin were rosy read. Crystalline drops of water trickled off of his bangs and eyelashes, over the curve of his nose and down the slopes of his cheeks. His shoulders and collarbones glistened, wet.
At first he looked…normal. Like a real human, someone that couldn’t and wouldn’t pull out a pistol and shoot him at any moment. Though that wasn’t really Baekhyun’s style. He’d probably poison Chanyeol before he did anything violent, thought the guard absently.
Chanyeol blinked. Baekhyun’s regular suspecting face was back as he took the towel from the other and wrapped it around himself.
They both waited for the other to say something.
“I need clothes,” Baekhyun declared a minute later.
“U-Uh. Yeah.”
Chanyeol whirred out of the sauna bathroom and across the hall with Baekhyun pacing in tow. He rejoiced momentarily in his head—his room wasn’t all that messy. This morning had been one of those days that he decided he wanted to make his bed, and his dirty clothes weren’t strewn all over the floor, but rather they were stuffed in his laundry basket. His house overall was more clean than dirty. Maybe it was a little cluttered and smelled a little dusty, pocketed with bits and pieces of memorabilia from everyday life. But at least Chanyeol couldn’t be embarrassed by its state.
Chanyeol ravaged through his closet. Nothing he owned would fit Baekhyun perfectly, not unless one considered droopy second-skin pajamas perfect. He dug through the back of his clothes and his fingers dragged across his sister’s Museum Of Modern Art New York t-shirt. It was a women’s small—his sister had forgotten it at his place from the last time she stayed with him over the holidays before she would travel back to America for studies.
He pulled it out along with a pair of underwear, sweatpants, and also a sweater that his sister had also brought back from New York for Chanyeol that was printed in bold with I <3 NY.
Chanyeol presented the clothing for Baekhyun, who was still dripping wet behind him.
“It’s all clean,” he said.
Baekhyun’s hand wrapped around the bundle. “You must like New York.”
Chanyeol shrugged.
Baekhyun dressed, but not under Chanyeol’s watchful eye. The taller busied himself with changing the bed sheets with fresh ones that smelled like lemon detergent.
When he turned again Baekhyun—dressed in his New York lover attire—was in the corner chair, legs tucked beneath him like how he always sat at home. He was paging through the book that Chanyeol had set there a million years ago that he didn’t even remember the title to. He cleared his throat. “Uh…well…I’ll take the floor.” He checked the time to make sure that it was really time for bed. 11:24. “Okay…yeah.”
A few minutes later they were both respectively tucked in their own beds: Baekhyun, in the queen, Chanyeol on a stack of blankets beside him on the floor. The room filtered a sense of stranger-ness; Chanyeol was reminded of Baekhyun’s rule that the taller wasn’t supposed to be around when the smaller was sleeping. That rule was inevitably broken now. Chanyeol fidgeted often and shifted on the hard floor, anxious. Baekhyun’s breaths feathered over the air above his head in soft bouts and occasionally he would squeak faintly, or knead his tongue and lips and make quiet smacker sound. Each time he did Chanyeol squeezed his eyes shut and grinned. After all, Baekhyun was only human.
Somewhere around midnight when Chanyeol was nowhere near sleep, Baekhyun’s voice floated over the mattress and down to the larger’s elf ears.
“Why didn’t you eat at the table tonight?” he asked.
Chanyeol shifted again. “Because I never ate with you at the table in your father’s house.”
No other words were exchanged for a long time. Chanyeol itched to say something else, anything. Ten minutes later he settled on, “Goodnight, Baekhyun.”
There was no reply. The man hiked himself up on his elbows and peeked over the blankets, checking to see if Baekhyun was still breathing.
He was. But Baekhyun had already fallen asleep, hands curled into little fists and tucked by his chin. His hair was scruffy and only his nose and above poked out behind the fluffy comforter. His eyelids were shaded and looked pink and blue in this light, eye lashes fluttering every now and then. The covers lifted with each of his breaths and…dang, those eyebrows looked really soft. Chanyeol really wanted to feel Baekhyun’s eyebrows.
For a moment the taller was tempted to reach out and actually touch Baekhyun’s face. He didn’t. But he stared.
He stared all night long.
~
It was as if Chanyeol had a special Baekhyun-Gay-dar that let him know right when Baekhyun awoke. As the smaller was sitting up and rubbing his jaw, Chanyeol sat bolt upright on his bedding and his sleepy eyes landed on him in an instant. Dizziness and a headache rushed to the taller’s head, having sat up so quickly after a rather sleepless night. Baekhyun ignored him and slid out of Chanyeol’s bed, the I <3 NY sweatshirt hanging loose off of his shoulder and exposing the Museum of Modern Art t-shirt instead.
Baekhyun is modern art for sure, thought Chanyeol.
They found clothes for Baekhyun in the back of Chanyeol’s closet on the top shelf—old sweaters and skinny jeans the taller had grown out of. Of course, the smaller turned Chanyeol’s grandmother’s Christmas gifts into fashionable statements whereas Chanyeol had spent years refusing to wear them.
It was astonishingly odd having Baekhyun around all the time—certain things became apparent and flabbergasted Chanyeol moment after moment. They were always little idiosyncrasies that the guard had never thought about, like how long Baekhyun took to brush his teeth, and where he put his toothbrush when he was finished. Does he floss? Yes. Did he make his own bed? Yeah, sort of. Did he drink coffee? Yes, but only with lots of cream. He folded over the tops of his socks and double-knotted his shoes. Chanyeol ate breakfast alone on the floor in the living room for a second time, eyeing Baekhyun closely as they both gnawed on tough pizza.
Baekhyun didn’t wash his dishes right away. He drank a quarter cup of two-percent fat milk after breakfast. He ate his pizza crusts, but only after tearing them in half the long way. His eyebrows still looked very soft and Chanyeol still wanted to pet them.
There was a meeting that Baekhyun had to attend that morning in a complex high-rise hotel that was inhabited chiefly by mob men. Chanyeol had attempted conversation on the drive there, but Baekhyun’s responses were muted and shaded and rare.
Baekhyun pulled the car up to the carport, though after spotting a trail of dark-suited men he continued behind the building and the break hissed to a stop at the back door where a pair of soldiers was waiting, hands on their holsters. After slipping out of the Camaro Baekhyun slid past them easily, trailed by Chanyeol who exchanged an akin look with the other guards as he passed. The graveyard of too-perfect white doors stood like numbered tombstones, the dimmed isle between rooms of foreign scents and familiar antiseptic carried a draft of eeriness, and Chanyeol stepped forward with raised vigilance ahead of Baekhyun. The smaller didn’t protest.
“On which floor is the meeting being held?” muttered Chanyeol over his shoulder.
“Fourth. The elevator is at the end of the hall.”
“Yes I see that Baekhyun thank you.”
They hurried down the hall under a sinking cloud of roguishness, though as they turned the corner there were men waiting for them beside the metallic lift door—security. They observed Baekhyun warily as he casually pressed the upward arrow and stepped in, but Chanyeol curtly sent their eyes away with unfriendly, threatening glares that he’d acquired after years of working on the streets with his father and Jongin. The first time the men avoided his gaze, it took Chanyeol aback quite a bit—they actually looked away. His chest swelled with a bite of supremacy, and something satisfyingly powerful. That’s right. Look away, he thought.
At the end of the ride they stepped through a doorway and at this point Baekhyun took the lead, stride more confident as he stepped up to a single door labeled with a glittering 49 number and knocked a few times.
Like a gateway to hell the door opened for him and the hands of demons tugged him inside, swirling with cigarette smoke and the smell of liquor—and Baekhyun himself was the king.
“I’ll…I’ll just stay out here…” mumbled Chanyeol as he stepped away from the doorway, but Baekhyun’s face appeared in front of his again, bows furrowed.
“Come in, Chanyeol.”
The taller’s eyes grew. “Huh?”
Baekhyun nodded towards whatever was behind the door. “I want you to be in here with us.”
His eyes were unwavering, and as if Chanyeol was tethered by invisible ropes, he dutifully followed Baekhyun in under the smaller’s darkened gaze, and felt his heart empty when Baekhyun looked away finally.
Inside it was darkened and swarmed with the smell of pot, and in the corner sat the recognizable figure of Mr. B, and surrounding him were three middle-aged men adorned in sultry looks and crisp suits—upon Baekhyun’s entry they glanced up and immediately stood with the exception of Mr. B himself.
“Please sit, Baekhyun. Vodka?”
“Yes, please.”
As another servant came forward and uncorked a shimmering bottle within which a bronze-topaz liquid swished, Mr. B’s eyes caught Chanyeol’s and a flash of cold blew through him—those eyes were wary. Chanyeol slid to the side of the room as Baekhyun’s eyes glazed over the three other men in the room, his glass in hand.
“Associates,” Mr. B blurted. “For you to choose from. This is our first business that must be addressed.”
Baekhyun’s eyes flitted away from his father and he spoke to the other men. “You are all dismissed. I have no need for associates of your likeness.”
An audible pause filled the space. Mr. B’s face contorted and he leaned forward with a knit brow. “Baekhyun, you will take an associate—it is a wise tactic.”
Baekhyun replied, “With all due respect, father, I am a man of my own tactics.” His hand flittered briefly in Chanyeol’s direction. “Mister Park Chanyeol is the only confederate I desire.”
A burst of pride imploded in Chanyeol’s chest.
“Mister Park Chanyeol? You’re sure?” asked Mr. B with obvious skepticism.
Baekhyun did not have to reply—the three men exited the room with a single wave from the Boss. Only as they were stepping out and closing the door did Baekhyun slide cat-like into the seat at the head of the table opposite his father, his skin turning an ashen orange color under the lights. Mr. B grunted and ran a finger under his eye, over particularly sagging eye bags. He rubbed the dead skin and crusties between his fingers and mused,
“Not a move I would have made, my boy. I acknowledge your certainty. But you’re still young and new to the business. Perhaps it will be futile to try to persuade you to adhere to my counseling…” The look on Baekhyun’s face was enough to confirm the Boss’ suspicions. He met eyes with his son. “I would question your choice of consultant—Mister Park is hardly an intellect.”
At this, Chanyeol was ready to go up and smack Mr. B in the face.
“It is maybe not a matter of intellect,” Baekhyun added smoothly, taking a sip of his drink.
“Whatever.” Mr. B dismissed the topic. “This is a matter of business planning. I’d like to be aware of your initial entrepreneurship plans. Are you familiar with the situation you have been left in Kim Iljon’s name?”
Baekhyun turned his head. “I would like to be informed of the trades and names of those who Kim sold to. It will be my decision whether or not to enhance or discharge those bonds. Other than that I will take charge of the drug bracket with a clean slate. Everything will be changed and decided by me, by how I will rule the drug cartels in Korea. Kim Iljon’s ways are dissolved as of now—I am in charge of my own bracket. I have my own plans.”
Mr. B didn’t look too impressed—either that or Baekhyun’s commanding tone ticked him off, thought Chanyeol.
“And what are those plans, Mister Capo? You must know that the drug culture in South Korea is remarkably small. There is little consumption—how do you plan to sell as much as Kim Iljon did? He did rather well in a country that doesn’t do many drugs.”
“You’re small-minded. I have bigger imagines for the drug business. I plan to make Korea a bigger world player.”
“That,” Mr. B said, leaning forward with a dangerous glint in his eye, “is not for you to decide. This gang is under my thumb. Remember that.”
“This business is about money.” Baekhyun’s voice snapped through the air, cutting through Mr. B’s dominance like a hot knife through butter. “So money I will make.”
“So at least you understand the purpose of your position…” Mr. B eyed his son. “How would you like to run your drug business then? From where will you operate?”
“There is an old storehouse in the Dongdaemun district I would like to purchase. It will need to be renovated for my conveniences and until then I will be staying with my personal guard.”
Mr. B glanced at Chanyeol from the corner of his eye, grumpiness simmering in his irises. “And what exactly is Mr. Park’s role in your bracket, hm?”
“He is my guard. That is all.”
Chanyeol felt his ears clatter—He is my guard. That is all.
Something burned in his chest, something disappointed. It was a feeling of betrayal he had been feeling for months now with every one of Baekhyun’s dismissals and avoidance of gazes. Chanyeol was a guard.
That was all.
The meeting went by amazingly slow. Midway through Chanyeol zoned out and only spent his time watching Baekhyun’s lips move and memorizing the curve of the smaller’s thighs under the table. There was also a tuft of his hair that stuck up at an odd geometric angle at the back of his head, and Chanyeol had the inclination to go and pet it down.
An hour and a half later Chanyeol heard his name. “Mister Park Chanyeol.”
He glanced to the corner where Mr. B sat with a stern eye trained on him. “Yes sir?”
“Do you understand your place, boy?”
Chanyeol’s teeth clenched and he felt a certain, foreign sort of anger seethe past his lips. He cleared his throat tersely. “Yessir.”
“And what is that place, do you think?”
The guard had a special inclination to want to shoot the Boss at the table—he most certainly was not a child, and it burned his pride to be talked down upon.
“I am Mister Byun Baekhyun’s personal guard. I obey my commands and take initiative when needed.”
“Good. Do not forget, Mister Park, that it is not your job to be an advisor. You are not to befriend anyone here—you are not a player, but someone on the sidelines. As long as you keep the score in my son’s favor you are doing your job correctly.” He paused here, and then leaned forward. “And Mister Park, do not get any radical ideas. If anything…else goes on between you two, I will hear about it. You can be sure of that.”
Despite Chanyeol’s simmering temper he thought that maybe it would be best not to read too much into what the Boss was saying—unless it was meant to be read into. Chanyeol was pretty sure he understood, though in his mind he couldn’t make any promises.
“Yessir, Mr. B.”
Contrary to the five-star hotel Baekhyun and Chanyeol had just come from the warehouse in Dongdaemun-gu loomed like a desolate castle hidden in plain view. It took Baekhyun little time at all to approve of the industrial structure that swayed with fatigue and dilapidation, and after walking along the building’s railings and inspecting the levels Chanyeol found himself standing behind Baekhyun looking out an impressive wall of windows.
Baekhyun stepped up and peeled away the paper on the glass, exposing the light of the midday sun.
“What do you think, Mister Byun?” asked the realtor from behind. “I’m sorry about the graffiti—that can be painted over, of course.”
“Would you leave us for a moment please?” Baekhyun responded, which the realtor took as a command and quickly scurried out of the second-story floor. Chanyeol eagerly took his place beside the other.
“It’s cool here. There’s so much space – ah, and look at that view…”
Baekhyun finished snuffing out a still-smoldering cigarette on the ground with the toe of his boot and said, “It’s just what I need. What we need.”
“We?”
“You’re my only partner, Chanyeol. You’ve watched over me for months and are the only one that understands me.” He ran his hand over bright spray-paint word art on the nearest wall, words that read To Hell Or To War.
“What are you going to do with this space up here?” asked Chanyeol as he looked around. It was the second floor of the warehouse and looked much like a studio of some sort. “It looks like an apartment.”
“That’s what it will be. We’ll move here once it’s renovated.”
“We?”
Baekhyun’s hard gaze slid up to him. “If you want to.”
“Of course!” choked out Chanyeol. “Anywhere for you.”
The smaller male pushed the taped paper back up onto the window with a sigh. “Let’s go out for a drink.”
Chanyeol turned to follow him out of the room. “What kind of drink? Like, I’m thirsty I need some water, or, er, a real drink?”
The realtor stepped up to them with an eager smile on his face. “How do you like it?” he asked, files in hand. “Have you made a decision?”
“We have,” Baekhyun responded. “Where do I sign?”
The elder man there beamed and presented the paperwork, a pen already handy and ready. He quickly directed Baekhyun’s hand across the page to sign, as if at any second the younger would walk away and take all his money with him.
Once the dotted lines had all been tended too the realtor tucked his papers away and said to the two, “Congratulations on your purchase! Perhaps there is reason to celebrate.”
“I think…” Chanyeol glanced down at Baekhyun. “…I think we will be.”
Baekhyun didn’t input anything after that—he only tugged Chanyeol’s sleeve, nodded to the realtor, and began heading down the stairs.
“We are, aren’t we?” the taller asked.
“Sure, Chanyeol.”
~
Baekhyun’s version of going out for a drink was going to the drug store on the corner and picking up a bottle of cheap soju to take back home.
“You’re very modest, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol mused as they sat down on the floor, cracking open the fresh bottle.
Baekhyun remained emotionless as he took a glass from Chanyeol and sipped it lightly. “I’d rather be here than at a bar.”
Chanyeol finished guzzling half of his glass, deluding the stress that had built up in his shoulders, and then asked, “Why? My house is so cluttered.” He chuckled a bit nervously.
Baekhyun took another sip, eyes flickering around the room. “It’s comfortable clutter. Bohemian kind of. It’s natural clutter, it’s like a state of human condition. It proves that there’s really someone living here. I like it. It’s welcoming.”
The taller set his soju onto the low table. Baekhyun held his glass in his lap and his face wilted in a pensive pinch, his long jaw, large ears, and sullen cheeks gray and dark under the unlit hue of the house.
“I…thank you, Baekhyun.”
The smaller was silent, and then he suddenly lifted his drink and downed a large gulp of the liquid, not once flinching. Chanyeol observed with a hint of worry, aware that he and Baekhyun were really having a conversation, but also aware that the other had been drinking. The other ran his tongue over his lips briefly, silently, like a kitten licking his chops.
“My father always serves the best of his liquors to guests like me,” he said, his gaze lidded and strayed to the corners of the room. “And yet I’ve never tasted anything so foul. I hate drinking with him.”
Chanyeol watched him intently before raising his own glass and floating it over the table to Baekhyun. The smaller looked up warily, and Chanyeol combated his hard look with a grin.
“You can always drink with me.”
“Why? Because my father wouldn’t want me to?”
“Because you like me.”
Baekhyun remained still, and then after a moment of contemplation he took his own glass and clinked it against the other’s, and they both brought their cup to their lips. But just before Baekhyun drank, Chanyeol heard him speak over his own gulps.
“I don’t like you. Not in that way you’re thinking.”
The taller let out a gasp as he finished swallowing, and with a besotted smile he said, “I know. I’m just a guard, right?”
Baekhyun finished his own drink before replying, “A drunken guard.”
“Nope. I don’t get drunk after a single glass, Baekhyun. Unlike you, I’m not a lightweight.”
Baekhyun leaned back onto his hands with a grueling stare. “You’ve always been taking note of my drinking habits. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Of course.” He peeked at the clock on the wall. “It’s only noon. What else do you have planned for today?”
“Nothing,” Baekhyun grunted, eyes looking dazed, but controlled as usual. “I need something to eat. I hate being drunk.” He glanced Chanyeol’s expression. “Why do you look so troubled?”
Chanyeol’s eyes drew to the clock again. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any food left in the fridge. Usually I go grocery shopping on Sundays.” The smaller’s deathly glare was back in action then, and Chanyeol quickly amended, “I would go out, but I am under strict orders not to let you out of my sight.”
Baekhyun’s frown deepened and he sat upright. “Chanyeol, you follow my orders.”
The taller man felt a lump form in his throat. “I will not leave you unattended.”
“Those are my father’s orders. Not mine.”
“It’s not your father’s orders that I’m following. It’s my conscience.”
“Your conscience says I need protection?” Chanyeol didn’t respond, and Baekhyun’s voice darkened. “You think I’m weak?”
Chanyeol began shaking his head; his entire soul pinned under the smaller’s predatory stare. “I think I should listen to my conscience.”
There was an undecipherable, meditative passiveness that came over Baekhyun, and then the boy sat up onto his knees and slowly, decisively leaned over the table, his hands crawling over to Chanyeol’s side. The taller’s breath got caught up in his throat as Baekhyun leaned ever closer until his chin was right over Chanyeol’s shoulder, his throat a centimeter away from Chanyeol’s nose, and his lips brushing dangerously close to Chanyeol’s temple. From such proximity the guard could smell the orange scented soap on Baekhyun’s skin and the dustiness of his shirt, he could hear Baekhyun’s breaths and could feel those same breaths against his eyebrow.
Baekhyun stayed there perhaps a second too long before he gently whispered, “Please? For me?”
A violent shiver ran down his spine and without thinking he blurted, “Anything for you.”
He felt the corner of Baekhyun’s lips brush up against his brow in a smile, smug. “Good.”
Chanyeol licked his dry lips. “You’re i-inebriated.”
“I’m hungry,” replied the smaller as he slunk back to his side of the table, wearing that patronizingly victorious smirk.
Chanyeol felt his legs moving beneath him, felt his feet shuffling towards the door. He hesitated mid-threshold and sent a frown Baekhyun’s way. The smaller was absolutely and most certainly unhealthy for Chanyeol, but his heart overruled his conscience by a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand miles.
“I’ll be back,” he mumbled.
“I hope so,” the other replied.
Chanyeol didn’t think he’d ever made such a fast trip to the grocery store before.
The lady at the local organic market, an aged woman that was there at the checkout counter nearly every single time Chanyeol was (on Sunday) scrutinized his choices of products.
“Wow, Park Chanyeol,” she said with a motherly smile as she slid the produce and packages under the scanner. “Have you really begun to branch out? Usually you only buy pizza and ramen.” She lifted up a cabbage. “Real vegetables! I’m proud!”
Chanyeol bounced restlessly on the balls of his feet. “I have a guest over—I figured I could make all his favorite dishes while he’s around.”
By the time he was signing the electronic tablet with his finger he was already skidding away, bags in hand. Though his internal senses didn’t feel as if anything was wrong with Baekhyun while he was away, he couldn’t deny the incessant need to always want to be close. He was already halfway home when he realized that, with Baekhyun being in his house while he wasn’t there, there were many things the mafia boss’ son could do in the meantime. Chanyeol was sure that the other would at least search his house once and scout out all the weapons and stuff. That was certain.
But when he unlocked the front door and quickly slid inside, be-lining straight for the kitchen, what he found there was not at all what he expected of the syndicate boy.
Chanyeol stopped still in his tracks, grocery bags still dangling from his fists, and stared. There was Baekhyun, standing in the middle of the kitchen with a Nutella jar in one hand, and a spoon in his mouth with the other. He stared back.
Neither was sure how long they stood there, with Baekhyun caught in that extremely compromising position.
Chanyeol cleared his throat as he fought back a smile. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
The smaller carefully extracted the spoon from behind his lips, his tongue still attached to the curve of it to lick off the Nutella still on the utensil. He seemed hyperaware of Chanyeol’s eyes on him as he awkwardly turned around and twisted the top of the container back on and opened the cupboard by the stove, stretching up onto his tippy-toes to slide the jar back onto the top shelf in the back.
Oh, he was definitely snooping around.
“What would you like me to make you—?” Chanyeol tried to ask, but Baekhyun skipped past him. The grinned despite himself and shouted over his shoulder, “Next time I go to the store I’ll get another jar!”
~
Renovations on the warehouse in Dongdaemun began immediately, and few questions were asked about the construction.
“Where are we going today?” Chanyeol asked a few days later, eyeing Baekhyun driving. They had come to an unspoken agreement that they would switch turns as to who got to drive when. It was Baekhyun’s day.
“Incheon. To size up the shipments that have been coming in to Kim Iljon’s old site of operation. There’s a shed down by the marina and I have a meeting set up with a captain there.”
“Covering all your bases?” Chanyeol asked, grinning.
Baekhyun didn’t respond, but the barely noticeable twitch of his lips was enough to give the other his answer of satisfaction.
They made it to the harbor within an hour, and Baekhyun was quick to spot his target. Chanyeol trailed slightly behind as they strolled beside the Han River and to the port on the ocean, and the air quickly filled with the scents of the harbor: the gasoline, the seaweed, mold.
Just as the smaller had said, an industrial shed sat on one of the far banks just beyond the docks, and that’s just where they headed.
It appeared that a new shipment had just come in, as there were men crawling about the near dockyard and shed, and a massive crane was swiveling around with a marked crate swinging from its arm. Baekhyun wasted no time and walked right in, his pace slowing as his eyes took in the place.
“Wow,” Chanyeol mused. “Look at all this stuff.”
The entire space was packed full of unopened boxes, all of which were presumably filled with drugs. The stacks of packages created a sort of maze, and behind one corner the two spotted a congregation of men. They stood in a pack and laughed at something, their stances relaxed and lazy, perhaps because of what they were very obviously smoking.
One of them spotted Baekhyun’s approaching figure, and stepped away from the circle.
“Excuse me, you can’t be here. This is private property—”
With a sweep of his arm Baekhyun was then holding a pistol in his hand, aimed at the man obstructing his path, and then the trigger snapped beneath his finger and a shot rang throughout the space—Chanyeol’s breath hitched in his throat, paralyzed with shock.
A scream wailed through the room, the man bent over hugging his maimed hand to his chest. Chanyeol watched with an empty stomach as blood oozed out of the now semi-fingerless hand, the coil of paper which he was previously holding forgotten and on the ground, drenched in red.
They all stared.
Baekhyun’s icy eyes slid over to them and they all hitched back, hands searching for weapons they all should have been holding.
“Enough,” Baekhyun seethed. “Kim Iljon is dead and I am his replacement. I am the head of this bracket now; his name is never to be discussed again.”
The man who’d been shot glared Baekhyun’s way, eyes watering. The surprise was unmistakable, particularly as the younger began to slink towards the group of men clouded in smoke. They parted for him.
“You’re the guards, aren’t you?” he asked beneath his breath. “And you’re here…” He reached over to a ledge on one of the crates, dusted with a darkened substance that stuck to his fingers as he rubbed them together. “…smoking.”
No one moved, seemingly petrified by his presence. He turned his head. “Do you all want your hands shot off?”
The men quickly shook their heads, shoving their rolls and packages away. Baekhyun spun away and began walking back towards Chanyeol, his gun disappearing beneath his coat. “If you want it you buy it. Anyone who performs this sort of misconduct again can consult your friend’s missing fingers. Is that clear?”
There was a round of “Yessir”s and “Understood”s as the men looked away bashfully. Baekhyun faced them once again.
“My name is Byun Baekhyun. If there are any issues you ask for Viper. As for now, I walked right in here without anyone blinking an eye, so get back to your posts right now.”
He stood there beside Chanyeol and waited until the men began to move, dispersing throughout the room and to the entrance before he shifted. He approached the man who was still trying to wrap up his hand with difficulty.
“How many shipments are stored here?” he asked.
“Four,” the man hissed.
“Start shipping them to the new address in Seoul by the end of the month. These can’t stay here.”
“Yessir.”
Baekhyun turned on his heel and stalked out.
“Who’s Viper?” asked Chanyeol as they strode out of the shed and back into daylight. The smaller’s eyes scanned the wharf.
“You, Chanyeol,” he replied.
Chanyeol began to follow Baekhyun down to the docks. “You’re absolutely terrifying when you’re angry, you know. I think to most people you’re terrifying all the time.”
“Even to you?” Baekhyun asked, glancing at the other.
“I’m not most people.”
“Why does that change anything?”
“Because you like me.”
The conversation ended quickly and awkwardly after that.
Baekhyun directed them to a small boat at the pier, one that looked as inconspicuous as was possible, and was easily overlooked. The taller stepped up onto the stern of the boat first, hands instinctively shifting to his holster when he saw no one there to meet them.
“Wait here,” he mumbled to the other, his protective self churning and coming out. He inched forward towards the cabin, fingers curling around the handle of his pistol—
“Good morning!” The man that came out of the cabin halted when he took in Chanyeol’s face. He was shockingly young: perhaps around thirty, slim, and with a long, clean face. He tilted his head and said tentatively, “You must by Byun Baekhyun?”
His Chinese accent was also apparent. Chanyeol felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. “No. I’m Byun Baekhyun.”
The taller, fingers only barely relaxing from his holster, stepped aside and allowed Baekhyun to pass. The smaller bowed slightly and extended his hand. “Zhang Yixing?”
“Captain Zhang, please,” the Chinese replied as he shook the other’s hand. “I must admit, you’re a bit younger than I pictured.”
Baekhyun ignored his second comment. “So you charter the waters here?”
Zhang nodded. “That’s right. Sometimes I pick up the cargo in China to bring here, like last night, but mostly I deliver by water locally.”
“And you’re the dockmaster?”
“For your cartel, yes.”
Chanyeol took notice of the shiny, very expensive looking ring on the Chinese man’s finger. Brazen engraved gold. He was definitely making a pretty penny.
“Do you spend a lot of time in China?” asked Baekhyun.
“I’d say so.”
“How long have you been working for Kim Iljon?”
“A year or two, I think.”
“How much money do you make?”
“Enough.”
It was starting to sound like an interrogation.
“The drugs in this port: where are they being bought from?” Baekhyun asked.
“From China, Mister Byun.”
“Not from the Bahamas?”
“No.”
“Where in China?”
“Shanghai mostly.”
“Are you the one that does the transactions?”
“Only sometimes.”
Baekhyun reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros and passed it to Zhang’s hands, to which the other raised his brows and smiled slightly.
“You answer to my attendant, Chanyeol, now.” He gestured to the taller. “He reports directly to me.”
“Will do.” The Chinese man broke open the package in his hands, extracting one of the pale sticks and placing the cigarette between his teeth.
“Before we go,” Baekhyun interrupted as he lit his cigarette. Zhang looked up. “What do you know of the firearms shipments that come through here?”
The Chinese’s brows lifted further as he took a drag of the smoke. He let the toxins exhale past his lips and said, “Not much. No one does a lot of talking around here. I do know that there isn’t much happening: maybe one or two crates of guns every few weeks, but that’s about it. There have been a lot of older firearms coming through here: stuff from the seventies and eighties. Other than that…” He sucked through his cigarette again.
Baekhyun nodded. “Keep up what you’re doing. Expect business to grow in the next few months. I hope you don’t have anyone waiting at home for you.”
Yixing bowed his head. “It’s a pleasure, Mister Byun.”
Chanyeol and Baekhyun swiftly departed after that, traipsing back up the landscape where Baekhyun’s car was parked.
“Shanghai, huh?” Chanyeol said as he approached the driver’s side. Baekhyun quickly let out an “I’m driving” to which Chanyeol leaped away and apologized, before continuing, “That seems a bit suspicious, don’t you think?”
They both slipped into the car. “The Shanghai mafia is definitely involved here,” Baekhyun said lowly as he turned on the car.
“Ah—” Chanyeol gestured to the other. “—Seatbelt.”
Baekhyun scowled, but put it on. “I wasn’t told that we were buying from China—I refuse to supply their syndicates with our money and be put in a vulnerable state by their superiority. No more buying from Shanghai: we get our drugs wholesale.”
“Wouldn’t it be cheaper from China?”
“One would think so,” Baekhyun grumbled. “But I went through all the paperwork and figures. The Shanghai mafia ups their price. We’d make a lot more money if we didn’t buy through them.”
“Agreed.”
“Chanyeol.”
“What?”
“Seatbelt.”
~
That night Chanyeol’s house felt unnaturally claustrophobic. He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink, his mind dashing to unexplored places. He still slept on the floor by his bed—or more, Baekhyun’s bed now—but tonight he figured it was a good thing that they weren’t on the same mattress since he’d just come back from the bathroom after masturbating to the idea Baekhyun’s legs wrapped around him, their bodies naked and pressed together.
He didn’t intentionally have a wet dream. At least he woke up before it was over: having to explain a change of clothes and covers to Baekhyun would have been terrible. But now that he’d awoken he couldn’t stop. Imagining having sex with Baekhyun was enlightening, exasperating, exciting. It felt like a magical home away from home, this dream of getting laid by his favorite person in the whole world.
Not that he cared much for sex in the first place, at least not with women. He’d tried his hand at it, but it didn’t meet his fancy. Now when Baekhyun was involved all it took was a dream and he came. Although the thought of shedding his clothing with Baekhyun and kissing him, making love to him was exhilarating in every way, the thought of doing it without Baekhyun loving him back was draining. It killed his mood instantly knowing Baekhyun didn’t love him in return. It really sucked.
But lying there alone, tucked beneath his covers and deep in thought, it reminded Chanyeol of his earlier months with Baekhyun when the smaller barely even looked at him and only gave him the slightest of recognition. At least now Baekhyun was engaging with him, conversing with him, confiding in him. The two of them had only just realized how intimate it was to move in with another person, to share the same rooms, food, and television channels. How mundane it had seemed when Baekhyun came up to him and said, “What’s the wifi password?”. It made Chanyeol wonder if the other was really opening up to him, and if it was genuine. It gave him hope.
And then he thought about one of Baekhyun’s foremost rules from the past: Chanyeol was not allowed to watch him sleep. He puzzled over why that might have been. Was Baekhyun just wanting privacy? Was it because Baekhyun was aware he looked so, so, so soft and cuddly and sweet when he was asleep? Or was it something else? Something more personal?
Just as the thought came to mind, there was a rustling from above, from the bed, and then a little squeak.
Chanyeol sat up from his covers, head peeking over the side of the bed.
Baekhyun was sitting up, eyes dazedly opened and glossy.
“Oh, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol mumbled, brows furrowed. “What’s going on?”
The other didn’t respond. He only sat there for a moment and then turned away, placing his legs over the side of the bed opposite Chanyeol. Slowly, almost robotically, Baekhyun stood.
“Are you okay?” Chayeol breathed and got to his feet. “Baekhyun? Baekhyun?”
The smaller wasn’t responding. He only turned and began walking around the bed, not meeting Chanyeol’s eyes. The taller stepped aside and made room for him to pace, unresponsive. Chanyeol’s heart pounded in his chest—he brushed his hands under Baekhyun’s elbow, worried. “Baekhyun? Baekhyun, are you okay? What’s wrong?”
The boy didn’t stop but continued to walk. Chanyeol trailed him slowly, following Baekhyun as he opened the door of the bedroom and quietly strolled into the hallway.
Had someone slipped something into his drink? Or a meal? Chanyeol worried, had he breathed something in when they were at the marina? What could it be?
Halfway through the hall Chanyeol decided he’d had enough. He stepped around Baekhyun and stood in his path, grasping his shoulders. “Baekhyun! Are you—” He hesitated, a thought coming to mind. It was impossible, Chanyeol thought. It was so unreal. He leaned down, eyes level with Baekhyun’s unresponsive ones, and whispered, “Are you…sleepwalking?” Then after a moment he said louder, “Baekhyun!”
The boy’s eyes widened and he jerked with a shout, and screamed, “I said let me go you—” He paused, eyes landing on Chanyeol’s startled face. “Chanyeol?”
“Baekhyun? Are you okay?”
The smaller man’s face fell into one of anger, and he pushed the taller away. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Chanyeol back stepped quickly, but he still voiced his concerns. “Baekhyun, you were sleepwalking!”
“I know,” he growled, turning away. “I’m going back to bed.”
“Wait!” Chanyeol refrained from grabbing the other, but he skittered in front of him instead, his pretty, chocolate eyes glistening with nerve. “Hold on, do you do that often?”
“I don’t usually leave my room,” the smaller muttered in response.
“I…I had no idea.” His eyes flitted over Baekhyun’s face, which was tainted with shame, though almost unrecognizable. It was Chanyeol’s special ability to read even the slightest of changes in the other’s face, and he’d become even better at it since Baekhyun moved in with him. “Is that why you never wanted to let me watch you sleep? You didn’t want me to know you’re a sleepwalker?”
“Don’t say it like it’s some other species,” Baekhyun snapped.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Chanyeol said gently. “It just is what it is.”
“Fine then I’ll go back to bed,” Baekhyun said, storming past the taller back into the bedroom. Chanyeol followed him, feeling a bit disoriented.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked, loitering in the doorway as Baekhyun climbed back into bed. “Get you a glass of water? Something to eat? Call a doctor—?”
“No.”
Chanyeol frowned and stepped up beside the bed as he turned the bedside lamp on, with Baekhyun glaring up at him with dragon-like eyes. He kneeled at the bedside and reached his hand out towards the smaller’s forehead, but the latter caught his wrist before he could touch him.
“No.”
“Are you feverish?” he asked, taking note of Baekhyun’s searing hot grip.
“No.”
“I read once that fevers can be the cause or the repercussions of sleepwalking.”
“No.”
“Baekhyun—”
“Chanyeol.”
They had a standoff there and then, a battle of wills. Then Chanyeol stood and stalked out of the room, disappearing for a few minutes. He returned and opened Baekhyun’s palm again, sticking into it a spoon mounded high with Nutella.
“Have some chocolate,” he declared ceremoniously. “Feel better.”
Baekhyun just stared at him.
Flushed out of his mind and adrenaline pumping, Chanyeol dropped to the floor and tucked himself in, turning away from Baekhyun to hide his face. Had he really just done that?
It took a moment, but after a short while he heard the little nips and licks of Baekhyun eating the Nutella, and smiled to himself.
~
The next week, Baekhyun decided, they were going to start their syndicate-related operations ahead of schedule. Though the construction on the warehouse hadn’t been completed, Baekhyun began working out of the basement of the building as it went on. Immediately the dope shipments arrived, usually in the early mornings, and Baekhyun sent convoys out in the evenings to sell. The space was cramped, and it wasn’t showy by any means, but it seemed to satisfy Baekhyun just as well.
Soon he began to have visitors: other Capos and leaders, investors, advocates of the rich and wealthy, and so on. Chanyeol was always there, of course, standing behind Baekhyun and keeping watch. Baekhyun had also put him in charge of just about everything, much to his surprise: he was the immediate consultant of almost every second-hand mafia associate or workman. The drugs that came in from the sea, from the airfields, and by foot, all made it through him before reaching Baekhyun’s ears.
Nothing much went on between the two of them after that one night. Chanyeol had tried to bring up a conversation about the sleepwalking, but the smaller dismissed him immediately. Their conversations were short and business-related.
The one thing that did change, though, was that Chanyeol felt as if he was more than a guard.
He felt like something more, something powerful, something influential.
He was on his way back to Baekhyun from the Incheon port, where he’d been ordered to meet with Zhang Yixing once again. Even just being away from the other boy for two hours made him sick with longing and worry. Baekhyun often didn’t seem too concerned with his protection, assuming that he was safe and fine most of the time. It bothered Chanyeol not being there beside him, but perhaps that was because of more reasons than one.
He hurried down the flight of stairs leading down to the basement, and strode hurriedly past the main storage area, and down one underground hall where he knew that Baekhyun kept a private office. The excitement began to build the nearer he got, until he was practically smiling when he opened the door and—
His heart fell.
Chanyeol’s smile immediately ran away from his face, and he scowled, confused, as he stepped into Baekhyun’s workroom and closed the door behind him.
Baekhyun was sitting on the edge of his desk, and there was another man standing between his legs, holding his waist, kissing his neck.
Chanyeol’s blood roared in his ears.
“Hello Chanyeol,” Baekhyun said casually, looking almost benign to the kissing man’s antics.
The taller stepped carefully around the room, watching the other man there with a deadly stare. Something churned in his gut, something possessive, something angry. “Who’s this?” he asked between gritted teeth.
“I don’t know,” Baekhyun replied, leaning away from the man in front of him. Chanyeol noticed that the smaller didn’t seem particularly invested in what was happening: all the groping and the kissing… “A gift from Do Hansoo. A prostitute. A housewarming gift, he said.”
Chanyeol’s fists clenched, fingers itching to grab the pistol at his belt. But before he could say anything else, Baekhyun rolled his eyes, sighed tiredly, and shoved the man away from him. The assumed prostitute stumbled back as Baekhyun jumped off the table, grabbed a gun off of his desk, pointed it at the man, and pulled the trigger. Chanyeol’s stomach lurched as the man fell to the ground, now nothing but a corpse.
“A spy,” Baekhyun finished with a sneer. He huffed and began smoothing out his shirt. “That was the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever experienced.”
“A-A spy?” Chanyeol stuttered, confused.
Baekhyun placed the gun back onto the table and looked Chanyeol’s way. “Do Hansoo is onto me. He knows I’m refurbishing my father’s mafia. His spies are everywhere on the streets…all prostitutes, of course. Kim Iljon was too conservative, now I’m beginning to worry the other Capos in the field.” He ran a hand through his slightly messed hair, and Chanyeol sighed with adoration, his anger already filtered and gone. “If he wanted to spy on me he should have sent his son for a lunch date—I like Kyungsoo. This is just insulting.” He gestured to the dead man on the floor passively, without much reaction.
Chanyeol shifted on his feet, slightly unnerved.
“What news from the waterfront?” Baekhyun asked.
“Zhang Yixing said that a shipment of weapons showed up at the docks, also from Shanghai.”
“Hm.”
“Is there something I can help you with, Baekhyun?”
“There is, actually,” said Baekhyun as they faced each other once again. “It’s been on my mind for a while now.”
Chanyeol raised his brows. “Anything.”
He immediately knew that he wasn’t going to like what Baekhyun wanted of him the instant the smaller began moving. He slid around the side of the table, gait slow, chin high, lips parted, a sort of sultry look to his eye. It was Baekhyun’s way of getting Chanyeol to do whatever he wanted: the taller simply could not resist the moments when the other climbed right up to his body, faces close, whispering in his ear. It was his kryptonite: Baekhyun’s closeness. The smaller had figured out this little trick, he supposed, that one day he asked him to go to the grocery store. Since then he used this technique whenever Chanyeol hesitated or questioned his orders, supposedly because it worked faultlessly.
Chanyeol held his breath as Baekhyun circled him, the tips of his fingers brushing against his arm. “I have a job for you,” Baekhyun said.
“Yes?” He felt the smaller’s proximity to his back, felt it when he brushed the nape of Chanyeol’s neck with his fingertips, when he leaned up and whispered in his ear,
“I want you to kill Kim Beomnam.”
The guard felt himself flinch, his muscles contorting. His blood felt cold suddenly, and Baekhyun’s touch on him was ghostly. He gasped, “The arsenal Capo?”
Another stroke of a touch on his neck. “Mmhm.”
Lee Beomnam. The man that ran the trafficking of weapons and firearms.
“B…Baekhyun…”
“Today I officially severed ties with Shanghai’s drug business,” Baekhyun muttered as he took a slight step back. “No more trading with them in my bracket. But that being said, I’m going to need extra protection now. They won’t like me very much. But Lee Beomnam uses the Incheon port as well, and we have reasons to believe he’s associated with Shanghai in more ways than one. If I can control that entire port I can manage more shipments at more strategic times. Not only that, but thanks to Captain Zhang I will already have a hold on the weapons trade—it will be too easy to step in as the arsenal Capo.” Chanyeol turned to meet Baekhyun’s eyes. “At that point I’ll have my hands on two branches of the Seoul mafia. Higher paycheck.”
Chanyeol’s breath had been robbed from his chest. “And you want me to remove Lee from the picture.”
“Yes.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“I know,” Baekhyun said monotone, as he paced back towards his desk. “You don’t have to do it now. Just sometime in the near future would be helpful.”
Chanyeol watched the other sift though files on the desk, admiring the easy beauty of his features. Dazedly he mumbled, “Of course…” He tore his eyes away from the one he loved and dropped them onto the corpse in the middle of the floor, still bleeding. “I’ll…get this out of here for you…”
“No.” Baekhyun’s voice was resolute. “That’s not your job. I’ll call someone else in here to clean it up.”
“And what would you rather have me do?”
“Take me to lunch,” Baekhyun said. “Let’s go for a drive.”
Chanyeol felt the smile break out onto his face. “It’s my day to drive, then.”
“It’s my turn to choose the restaurant.”
“Touché.”
~
“We’re going out tonight,” Baekhyun announced one evening, about a week later as he began closing up his workroom, locking the files away. He sounded relatively bored with the idea, as per usual, but Chanyeol immediately sat up, eyes twinkling.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
The taller jumped up from the chair he sat in in the corner of the room where he’d set up for the whole day. “I’ll get my wallet.”
“I already paid for it,” Baekhyun mumbled, attention still focused on a letter he held between his fingers.
Chanyeol paused. “How did you do that? Did you already order the food too?”
Baekhyun didn’t respond. He just waltzed past the other and out towards the staircase under the blue and orange fluorescent lights. Chanyeol, like the lovesick puppy he was, followed closely behind.
Baekhyun drove the two across Seoul, past dozens and dozens of restaurants that Chanyeol would have deemed perfectly fine to dine at. After half an hour in the car, Chanyeol couldn’t help but ask.
“Baek, where are we going?” The smaller just turned on the radio. “Oh. Okay. That works too.”
He was soon silenced, and the radio turned down, when he realized their destination.
“Everland Speedway?” he read aloud the sign as they drove into the vacant parking lot, darkness evading them and broken only by the nearby floodlights of the obvious racetrack. He glanced around, noting only the one other car in the lot. “I don’t think there’s a race tonight Baekhyun…”
“Maybe not,” the smaller said as he unbuckled and stepped into the open night air. Though confused, Chanyeol followed behind.
A handful of people were there to meet them when they passed through the main building. Everland Speedway was a lowkey racecar outlet, but hadn’t been used much since it was built. Racecar driving hadn’t been a really popular Korean spectacle ever, but that didn’t mean Chanyeol wasn’t a fan of fast cars.
“Mister Byun,” one of the men greeted, extending a hand. Baekhyun shook it with a bow of his head. They conversed briefly words that Chanyeol didn’t quite hear from his place farther away, and then the smaller signed a sheet the stranger held out for him. The elder man there straightened and turned away. “Right this way gentlemen.”
Baekhyun turned back and raised his brows, as if challenging Chanyeol to follow. “What are we doing?” the taller whispered as he stepped up to the other’s side and they started after the stranger.
“You’ll figure it out.”
They were led down a private-looking hallway, turning this way and that, and then through a doorway that exposed them to a sort of garage.
“We’ll take it from here,” Baekhyun told the stranger. The man frowned, nodded, and left.
Chanyeol, however, squealed.
The sound that came out of his mouth was girly and inhuman, but he didn’t care. He pressed closer to Baekhyun, his mouth dropped wide open in disbelief.
Parked there in the garage facing the cavernous open garage door that expanded out onto the circuit were two stunning vehicles that took his breath away. “Baekhyun…” he said, his voice giddy. “We’re not going to drive these, are we?”
The smaller pulled away from his close self, crossing his arms. “We have an hour on the track if we want it.”
Chanyeol approached the cars, though avoided them as if they could shatter at a single touch of his. “You didn’t buy these, did you? They’re…they’re priceless!”
“Of course I didn’t buy them. I rented them for the hour and had them delivered here.”
Chanyeol’s eyes went up and he saw Baekhyun’s smirk. His heart quivered with delight and excitement. “We’re racing!” he gasped, jumping onto his toes. He turned to one of the two cars. “The McLaren P1!” he cried, ready to faint. He spun around to face the other. “And the Porsche 918 Spyder!” He barely believed his own eyes—Baekhyun definitely had taste and a tangible need for speed. He met Baekhyun’s gaze again. “You can’t possibly make me choose between these. You can’t.”
Baekhyun snorted. He strode up to Chanyeol and the taller spun out of his way. “I’m not,” he said as he opened the dihedral door of the McLaren and slid inside with the grace of a steadfast lion. Before closing the door he leaned back out and stared at his companion.
Chanyeol didn’t need to be told. “Fuck,” he cursed and leapt around the Porsche, entering on his own. As soon as he closed the door there was a brief crackle and then Baekhyun’s voice came through an intercom.
“You like?”
Chanyeol chuckled. “Hold on.” He started the car, and his entire body erupted in tingles as the car began to purr, buzzing his whole frame. “I love.”
Baekhyun had started his car as well. “Do you know how to drive it?”
“Hell yeah,” Chanyeol responded, too thrilled for his own good. “I’ve researched this car.”
“Glad you like it.”
Baekhyun led the two of them onto the track, the two supercars humming with power. They crawled up to the starting line amongst the achingly beautiful fluorescent lights from above, and Chanyeol couldn’t help the excited laugher bubbling up from his chest.
“So are we racing racing? Or just driving?” he asked.
“What do you think?”
God, he loved Baekhyun.
“Is there any particular reason why you decided to set this up?” Chanyeol inquired, running his hands over the ridges on steering wheel.
“Let’s just say I’m testing the waters of wealth.”
“New paycheck?”
The silence was his affirmative.
“We’re not going to get arrested for this, are we? Don’t we need to at least wear helmets or something?”
“Only if you plan on crashing.”
“Which I don’t.”
“You’d better not. I need you by my side.”
At his words Chanyeol’s heart got caught up in his throat. He grinned. Baekhyun’s voice came through the speaker again:
“Money can’t buy happiness.” His words came out as sounding thoughtful, intense, but Chanyeol was too much into the world right now to really notice.
“But it can give you privileges like these, and that’s pretty awesome.”
He heard a dark chuckle. “Did you know that driving fancy cars boosts testosterone levels in men?”
“Oh, there’s more than one thing boosting my testosterone right now.”
The intercom went silent for a moment, and then he heard the revving of the McLaren’s engine. He turned his head and looked out the window to his right where Baekhyun’s car growled with each push of the accelerator, and Chanyeol found that Baekhyun was watching him too. The taller grinned and disengaged the clutch and pressed on his own gas pedal, allowing the car to bay and vibrate around him.
“Have you got your seatbelt on?” he teased over the radio.
And then Baekhyun disappeared, his car thrashing forward with a guttural purr. Chanyeol immediately zoomed after, letting out a cry of shock as the accelerator sent him forward with massive speed.
“Oh my god!” he shouted. “Oh my god! Oh, listen to that engine!” He cried out with glee as the speed climbed and climbed and Chanyeol was pushed back into his seat with the force. The first turn came up on him much faster than he thought it would, and he’d caught up with Baekhyun in just seconds, so much so that on the first curve he surpassed the other and took the lead. “WhoooOOOoooOHOOOOOOO!”
Chanyeol understood exactly why there was so much pleasure involved with cars—the speed itself took his breath away, and if he wasn’t so tense making sure that he stayed on the track he would be bouncing up and down in his seat. The two of them took the second, third, fourth, and fifth turns in a jiffy, and then they were onto the lengthy straight.
Immediately the speedometer rose and rose—and then Baekhyun flew by him in a flash. “More horsepower!” he heard the other shout over the intercom. Chanyeol didn’t even know why they were shouting. They didn’t need to; but they had to. It was a release, an alleviation of stress.
Chiefly Baekhyun’s car was faster, but Chanyeol knew where he could take him. Baekhyun held the lead for most of the lap, but Chanyeol swiveled up and passed him around the thirteenth turn.
“More torque!” he retorted.
“Careful, you bastard,” he heard Baekhyun mumble. But Chanyeol recognized the pleasure in the other’s voice. “Don’t scratch these cars, that’s a multi-million dollar mistake.”
Chanyeol just laughed.
Their race went on an on, lap after lap, and they became increasingly more enthralled, their voices raising until they were hollering at each other through the radio.
“You’re so fucking hot Baekhyun!” Chanyeol shouted as he was thrown to the side at a particularly sharp turn, the speedometer rising to 220 kilometers per hour.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t name the car after me,” Baekhyun growled as he overtook Chanyeol in another turn.
“I’m not talking about the car!”
Somewhere around the twentieth lap, Chanyeol couldn’t help himself. Baekhyun had started laughing—actually laughing, which made Chanyeol’s heart race faster than the two hundred kilometers per hour he was soaring at, and it just came out.
“God, I love you so much Baekhyun!”
The other end of the line went silent.
They took one last lap, and in the end Baekhyun did win with a guttural, “You devil”. Not that Chanyeol minded. In fact, he was just about out of his mind by then.
They both drove and made it back to the garage they’d started in where the crew of men waited to receive the expensive cars. The two men emerged from their vehicles, and once he was back on his feet Chanyeol had to lean against the car, dizzy with adrenaline. He met Baekhyun’s eyes from across the garage, and burst out laughing, because he was surging with joy. He’d heard Baekhyun laugh. He’d confessed his love. What more was there to say?
Especially because when they left, and he measured the smaller’s face, Baekhyun wasn’t upset. If anything he looked contemplative or even confused.
They talked about the race all the way home.
~
Weeks passed.
Indulgence was the theme, particularly after the car race stunt. As the money began to wrack up in Baekhyun’s account he decided on spending just a little too: front seats a Louis Vuitton fashion show, a series of lowkey of pool hall scams, fine wines delivered to the front door, and so on.
Chanyeol was beginning to understand the luxury of the mafia leaders, and couldn’t deny that it tasted a little sweet.
One night he tromped down the metal stairs after the pair of dark-clothed men, dangerous heat sizzling low in his abdomen as was usual now—Chanyeol knew what it was: two easily explainable things that had taken over his life unexpectedly. Power and lust.
Power.
And lust.
He still saw within himself the fifteen-year-old boy who had dreamed of seeing the world and running away just for the sake of it, but the boy’s smile had changed, had become something somewhat sinister. Chanyeol saw it in the mirror every day now; the ragged bed-head of hair and regular smirk that jousted the idea of law as if it was an ant he would step on. Baekhyun gave him that power, that power to overrule, to weigh something in this world, to have a real choice. That little teenager of Chanyeol’s past would have stood no chance—but this new Chanyeol that had been very slowly cultivating over the past months now looked down upon the law, had a fist around government’s throat and Baekhyun’s lips whispering evilly in his ear over his shoulder.
Then there was that other thing…lust. Baekhyun also gave him that. Intensely. There were many reasons other than sexual attraction that had Chanyeol falling head over heels for that beautiful little man…but after nearly a year he could no longer deny that he wanted to see inside Baekhyun’s pants. It was inevitable—he wasn’t weird that way! He promised! It was only natural, he told himself. The way Baekhyun moved, always so knowing and with ease and with that sensual darkness of his aura...oh, he was no angel. Baekhyun was a master, an encyclopedia of dominance and sin.
But boy, if Chanyeol could make Baekhyun submit for him just once.
If he could top Baekhyun and see him pliant and sensitive just once…
The two goonies in front of him carried a large crate that Chanyeol knew was packed to the brim with drugs. As they descended into the den of Baekhyun’s drug bureau, beneath the nearly completed warehouse under construction, Chanyeol picked up an odd, bitterly sweet scent in the air and wrinkled his nose. He knew what that was. Jongdae’s muffled voice and then Baekhyun’s succeeded the smell and became more apparent as Chanyeol stepped down into the cellar-like area under the saturated blue hue of the colored florescent lights. The two men set the crate down and left with hurried steps.
There, leaning on the table was Byun Baekhyun; arms crossed, hair slightly scruffy, and Jongdae standing in front of him. They appeared to be discussing something tensely, Baekhyun’s eyes hard and Jongdae casually holding an M16 in his right hand.
An M16.
It shouldn’t seem unusual, though. Jongdae was one a well-known hitman in the industry.
“They don’t pay up easy,” said Jongdae with a slightly whiny voice.
Baekhyun seemed to be in thought, but Chanyeol immediately knew something was awry. The smaller’s normal stony face was rather subdued and distant, his “thinking” taking longer than usual. He pushed himself off of the table and strode around it—his walk was different too. Sloppy and jittery. “Last week’s shipment was supposed to go to Busan. The plane that was supposed to take it there is no longer available. Jongdae you will be in charge of the convoy that will drive it there—if they’re stingy on their end then I can expect you to point a gun at their face and shoot first ask questions later.”
Jongdae nodded and tapped his firearm on his thigh. He was known for being pretty trigger-happy. “I can do that.”
“That’s forty-thousand dollars. Don’t mess it up.”
“You got it boss.” Jongdae shrugged and turned to leave, his eyes catching on Chanyeol, who stood watching the scene with incredulity. Jongdae grinned that mischievous little smirk of his. “Oh, hey Park.”
Baekhyun looked up at the taller as Jongdae slipped past and up the stairs. Chanyeol’s jaw had dropped, staring at Baekhyun’s muddled face. “What’s that?” the smaller asked slowly, glancing once at the crate.
“Uh…” Chanyeol jerked a thumb back at it. “A sample. New delivery fresh from the Bahamas.”
Baekhyun slouched away from the table and came over, asking Chanyeol to open the box. The taller did so, jacking it open with a crow bar. Baekhyun’s eyes skimmed over the packs of white substances and nodded, taking one bag in his hand to examine it deftly before dropping it back in and turning back towards the table. “Good, good.”
Chanyeol took a dubious step forward as Baekhyun loosely hopped up onto the table, crossing his legs and leaning back with a sigh, eyes fluttering shut for a moment.
Chanyeol took another step forward. “Are you…high?”
Baekhyun looked at him. “What makes you say that?”
The taller paused, disbelieving, and then dropped his head. “What did you do?”
“Dunno. Jongdae had some extra in his pocket.”
“You took drugs from Jongdae?”
Baekhyun didn’t reply. Chanyeol’s head swiveled back to him. Baekhyun had never ever shown any interest in doing drugs. It seemed so…not normal. To top off the sundae with chocolate sauce and a cherry, Baekhyun was dressed in new semi-heeled leather boots and a remarkably punk-exotic jacket with tight cuffs. His usually manicured bangs and hair stuck out at a few odd angles and his shirt was untucked at the front.
“Am I incapable of doing drugs?” asked Baekhyun, his voice still upholding that interrogative sting to it.
Chanyeol was at a loss for words. “N-No…I just…why?”
“No reason.”
“Just cause?”
Again, no reply. Chanyeol took several steps closer, gesturing to the stairs that led up to the main level street. “Are you sure you should be giving orders when you’re like this? Especially to someone like Jongdae?”
“Don’t question my judgment. Jongdae will be fine.”
“Are you fine? Right now?”
Baekhyun lifted his sinking head and his chin tilted up lazily. The view offered Chanyeol perfect eyes on Baekhyun’s pulsing throat, his pink lips…the smaller closed his eyes. “I’ve been surrounded by drugs my whole life, have been running a drug cartel for weeks and have never even touched the shit until now.” His voice lilted and swooped in variations, words sagging slowly as if they wouldn’t roll off of his tongue in a mature fashion. He opened his eyes again and his head flopped to the side, hair shagging over his forehead as his inquired, “Have you ever done any?”
Chanyeol shook his head, moving even closer. “Uh…no?”
Baekhyun’s droopy, dilated eyes glazed over Chanyeol’s face during a small package of sweet momentary curiosities. The smaller’s expression was radically not defensive and separated, but softer. A sense of mundaneness passed between them—something rare these days. But Chanyeol hiccupped in the back of his throat as warmth blossomed in his chest, behind his ribcage—those eyes. They weren’t the eyes Chanyeol was used to. They weren’t accusing and suspecting and condescending. No, they were just…thoughtful. Curious.
Chanyeol had never seen that in Baekhyun before, not to this extent.
But Baekhyun, in the end, didn’t say anything. He rolled his neck and groaned, sliding sulkily off of the table. Chanyeol watched with a dry mouth as Baekhyun slunk around the table and dropped into the wheely chair behind it. His feet drifted up to the tabletop and crossed on top of it, his fingers absently coming up to brush against his lips. Chanyeol gulped.
“I am never doing drugs again,” Baekhyun moaned as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Why would anyone ever want to feel this way?”
“It’s supposed to feel good.”
“It doesn’t,” Baekhyun retorted. Chanyeol couldn’t help the smirk that carved his face—this was kind of funny, actually, seeing the smaller so doped up. “It’s pseudo-good. It’s like the tail end of a weakening hangover, or the painful point you reach right before you orgasm. It’s not like the fun of actually being drunk or the actual blissful release. Not that I like being drunk anyway. It’s just…unpleasant. It’s bliss done poorly. I hate it.”
Chanyeol sniggered. “Good. I wouldn’t be able to handle an addict on my hands.”
Baekhyun waved an absent hand. “All the higher-ups are addicts. If they’re not all high or drunk then they’re fucking someone. It’s disgusting. And it’s not even about all of that stuff—it’s about the money. We’re swimming in an ocean of sin, Chanyeol. Hope you don’t mind.”
The taller leaned forward onto the table and put his weight on his fists, grinning. “It’s more fun being bad, anyway.”
“I know you want to fuck me.”
It was so sudden that Chanyeol almost jerked away. Mouth hanging open and eyes wide, he stared, shocked, at Baekhyun.
The smaller man’s eyes opened and he watched Chanyeol from underneath dark lashes. “Don’t worry about denying it. You’re not very inconspicuous, especially since the night on the racetrack.”
Chanyeol swallowed hard. “W-Would you be saying this if you weren’t high?”
There was a stifled pause wherein the tension in the room skyrocketed and put the hair on the back of Chanyeol’s neck on end. The two mens’ eyes locked, boiling low with challenge—desperation on Chanyeol’s part, tease on Baekhyun’s. The smaller’s lips curled up into a deadly smirk. “You picked a tough battle to win, Chanyeol. I don’t know if anyone has ever told you that.”
Chanyeol was shocked—he and Baekhyun hadn’t ever really spoken about certain serious things before, never had the smaller been so candid with him than like this. Every one of his words grazed Chanyeol’s nerves like an electric wire and sent shivers through him, sweat and goosebumps collecting on his skin. “H-H-Huh?”
Baekhyun’s fingers kneaded together in front of him and he brought them to his mouth, hiding his grin, but his narrowed eyes peeked over his pretty hands. “I don’t lay out easy. Especially not for men like you who have no direction: you’re a lost boy, Channie. You’re a compass with no needle. I see no ambition in you other than your pursuit for me. You confessed to me. But I can tell you now that I am a fruitless bargain. What does that say about you?”
Chanyeol would have heard everything Baekhyun said, but his mind had gotten caught like a record on “Channie”.
Channie.
Baekhyun called him Channie.
An unhealthy amount of satisfaction grew like a weed in Chanyeol’s gut—a beautiful, sickening weed that never could’ve been blanketed by wildfires and that grew in the form of big bright red roses. He blinked. “Uh…”
He wanted to ask if Baekhyun had ever laid out for anyone; the term “men like you” had gotten on Chanyeol’s nerves. What men like him? What did Baekhyun mean that he was lost? No ambition? And what was that that Baekhyun was saying about himself—?
Chanyeol should have had the nerves to ask these questions, but the growing arousal under his pelvis prompted him to take a deep breath and step away from the table. He ran his hands through his scalp, hair carding back into place afterwards. “It’s two in the morning Baekhyun. You should go to bed.”
He had a vague feeling that Baekhyun had noticed his…issue. There was a pause, and then Baekhyun lankily stepped out of the spinning chair, loitering around the table once again to stand behind Chanyeol. The taller male shivered as Baekhyun’s long, pink fingers brushed over his shoulder lightly, holding there for a moment as Baekhyun spoke low in his throat.
“Find some direction—find out why you’re here, Chanyeol. Why you’re here.”
Here. In this business, were the unspoken words. Baekhyun continued,
“Figure out who you’re doing all of this for—yourself? For the money and the adventure? For your father?” The pregnant breath of the lull in Baekhyun’s note sent a shutter down Chanyeol’s spine. “Or for me?”
“And what’s your direction?” Chanyeol breathed, trembling at Baekhyun’s touch. Maybe it was his charged imagination playing with fire, but he felt as if the smaller’s breath became even hotter against his earlobe, whispers like screams in his head.
“Down.”
And then Baekhyun slipped away through the nearby door and down the corridor, taking away with him the rich scent of some drug and the tendrils of appetite and intense longing. Chanyeol’s fingers combed through his locks several times more anxiously, frustrated.
Byun Baekhyun continuously stole his heart, his hammering, sobbing, begging heart in search of sweet salvation that came in the form of wearing skinny jeans, leather jackets, and that stupidly wonderful passive expression that kept Chanyeol wanting more.
~
“Are we not going to discuss the fact that you were high off your ass yesterday?” Chanyeol voiced as he strode into the kitchen. Baekhyun glanced up from where he sat at the table reading briefly, and then went back to the pages. The taller frowned and pulled the hot water off of the heater and poured it into his mug, the water crinkling and plopping into the bottom and stirring up the tea bag. “I read that stress is a large contributor to sleepwalking. Although, so is being drunk and stoned.”
“It only happened once,” Baekhyun replied.
He sat down across from the other, cup in hands as the steam rose and tickled his chin.
“No it didn’t.”
At this, Baekhyun did look up. Today he was wearing one of Chanyeol’s larger t-shirts: they never had gone to buy him new clothes, but neither paid much attention to it or minded. The smaller’s brows furrowed (cutely, in Chanyeol’s opinion).
The taller took a sip of his tea and met the other’s gaze. “You did it again last night, and the night we had gone out to the racetrack.”
Baekhyun’s scowl visibly deepened.
“I’m worried about you Baekhyun,” Chanyeol lulled, his voice soft and swooping with meaning.
“Don’t be.”
But the other was already shaking his head. “I am. Why would you do drugs?”
“I already established that I wouldn’t do it again,” Baekhyun mumbled emotionlessly.
“But why would you in the first place?”
Baekhyun’s expression became incredulous. “Because the opportunity presented itself.”
“If the opportunity presented itself for you to kiss me, would you do it?”
The smaller was very obviously taken aback. He leaned back, the book now outside of his peripheral attention. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I love you, Byun Baekhyun, and I’m worried about you.” The words rolled so easily off of his tongue, splitting the air like a crack of thunder in the warmest part of summer. He noticed something tense up in Baekhyun’s face, perhaps a saddening of the eyes, or a wariness growing in his brow. The said male shook his head.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“I do.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not?” Chanyeol pushed his tea away from him, suddenly frustrated. “Do you deem yourself not worthy of my worry? Or am I not great enough to be any of your concern?”
Baekhyun just stared.
“Well? What is it?” Chanyeol bleated; palms open on the table. “Because you are absolutely ethereal! You are the only person in my entire life that I’ve ever concerned myself with. I would do anything for you! Last night you claimed that your only direction was down. You said that my pursuit of you was fruitless, a waste of time.”
When Baekhyun spoke, his voice was quiet, almost a whisper, like a crooning lion cub. “Because it is…”
“It’s not!” Chanyeol said as he slapped his hands on the table. “Baekhyun you make me feel alive, whenever you do that shitty trick when you come up to me and whisper in my ear, you make me feel as if I’m breathing, as if the universe will bend to my will! I want to scream when I’m next to you! I want to cry or laugh or dance around in circles. I’ve seen you naked, I’ve seen you hungry, I’ve seen you drunk, I’ve seen you asleep and sleepwalking, I’ve seen you high, I’ve seen you angry, and I confessed my love for you at a hundred and ninety-six kilometers per hour. You make me crazy.”
As Chanyeol had been going on and on Baekhyun had leaned forward and pulled the steeping teabag out of the mug, but at that last sentence he froze and their gazes locked.
Suddenly Baekhyun stood, pushing away from the table as his book snapped shut in his fist. He whirled himself out of the kitchen and towards the bedroom, and Chanyeol sighed to himself as he took his tea into hand and went into the bedroom after the other.
They both had started packing since the renovations had officially been completed in Dongdaemun. Baekhyun was further along than Chanyeol, even though most of the clothes that the other had packed were Chanyeol’s. The boy moved towards his open suitcase, where he began putting away other garments.
Chanyeol moved soundlessly around the other side of the bed, sitting cross-legged on the covers while he watched Baekhyun pack.
A comfortable silence swathed between them despite the tension of their conversation. Chanyeol admired the other’s small, bright, thinking eyes, and the toughness in his brow. Though even though he adored these things about Baekhyun—the brusqueness, the strength, the mischief—he also enjoyed the part of the other that hiccupped after he brushed his teeth for some reason, or wiggled his toes when he read books, or curled his hands into fists when he slept, all the little things about Byun Baekhyun that no one else saw.
“You want to know why I sleepwalk?” Baekhyun asked as he folded one of the sweaters Chanyeol had unofficially given to him. “It’s ten times more likely to occur in people who have relatives that sleepwalk. My mother was a sleepwalker. She was also a psychopath.”
Chanyeol’s jaw dropped: he felt like he’d been punched, his gut adamantly shoved into his ribcage where it didn’t belong, crushing his lungs. He didn’t mean to stare at Baekhyun, but he couldn’t help but feel magnetized to Baekhyun’s glistening sadness. An emotion he’d never seen in him before.
“I know about being crazy, Chanyeol,” he mumbled. “You’re not crazy. You’re just good.”
“Good?” Chanyeol whispered. “I don’t know about that anymore…”
“Everything you do, you do out of love,” said Baekhyun as he picked up another shirt. “You joined the mafia out of love for your father. You kill people out of love for me. After almost a whole year of being stuck with you as my guard and as my partner I’ve learned things about you, too. You can’t tell me that you didn’t have aspirations before you joined the mafia—”
As he spoke the last word his voice cracked and he looked away, but Chanyeol extended his cup of tea to the other, and he accepted it with a nod, sipping.
His statement had caught Chanyeol off-guard, almost as much as his careful, downcast puppy eyes did. The man on the bed dug through his memory and tried to resurface reminiscence with his younger self: it really had been two or three years since he’d officially joined the mafia, not including the street skirmishes his father encouraged precursory to that.
“I…I think…” He smiled. “I wanted to travel.”
Baekhyun sighed. “Of course you did.” He looked up again and Chanyeol felt an understanding pass between them—or maybe something else from Baekhyun, something like envy. “Where did you want to go?”
“Argentina, Portugal, France.” He waved his hand in a rolling gesture instead of going through the list.
“I wouldn’t mind going to Spain. Or India. Or England maybe.”
“I have always wanted to go to Budapest too. That would be amazing…though I always read that it was expensive.”
Chanyeol’s heart began dripping with awe when Baekhyun let out a miniscule chuckle that rumbled like a purring cat, or the timbre of rain on a rooftop, or the rustle of poplar leaves in the breeze. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“No. No I guess not.” He peeked at the other from beneath his brows. Baekhyun was lipping the rim of the cup, but Chanyeol’s head whirred like a spinning top. Was he seeing a whole different person? Who was this boy and what had he done with Baekhyun? “What about you? Any aspirations before the mafia?”
The sharp edge to Baekhyun’s eyes returned and he said bitterly, “The mafia was part of my life before I even separated from my mother. I was the product of a drunken syndicate boss and a sedated lunatic fugitive and a forgotten condom. There was no avoiding who I am today.”
“And who are you today?”
“Hm?”
Chanyeol’s heart had begun to sink. The bulb of choked saliva in his throat took several forceful gulps before it dropped down, allowing him to breathe again. Looking at Baekhyun, he now wanted to cry, and it wasn’t out of happiness. “Uh…wh-who do you think you are today?”
The smaller’s head snapped up and he bit, “A badass son of a bitch that everyone hates, Chanyeol.”
“I don’t hate you.”
Fingers twiddling with the hem of a pair of pants, Baekhyun muttered, “Then you have poor judgment.” As if as an afterthought, he passed the mug back to Chanyeol and continued folding vigorously.
Like tinkering drumbeats Chanyeol’s fingers rapped against the cup. “Can…can I ask about your mom?” The reply was another one of Baekhyun’s unresponsive silences, one that was pregnant with dangerous chance. Tentatively Chanyeol whispered, “Where is she now?”
“In jail. That was the last I heard of her, and that was ten years ago.”
“In jail for what?”
He couldn’t help but notice Baekhyun’s flushing cheeks, the disappointment clear on his face. “Homicide. And for trying to drown her ten year old son in the bathtub. While sleepwalking.”
If the room didn’t feel claustrophobic before, it did then. The tension dripped like butter and could have been cut with a knife.
“Uh…um…I’m…” Chanyeol cleared his throat, unable to meet Baekhyun’s eyes now. “I…”
“I’m taking a shower,” Baekhyun proclaimed as he grabbed a handful of clothes and hurried out of the room. Usually this was the point at which Chanyeol would follow him in to be present at all times, but something in Baekhyun’s voice was vaguely distressed and there was a resolute need to be alone, so Chanyeol waited until the door was closed and water running before he stood and went to sit by the door, guarding like he always did, and making sure Baekhyun didn’t so anything reckless.
He felt as if maybe he understood now why Baekhyun never allowed him to watch him sleep. The smaller was obviously very ashamed of his sleepwalking habits, this sleepwalking trait that so far sounded like his only finite connection to his mother.
Who had…tried to kill him.
Chanyeol didn’t know that it was possible to have such evil endeavors while being asleep, but perhaps in a psychopath it was. Had Baekhyun grown up in a house with an emotionless, soulless killer? Until he was ten, at least? His father wouldn’t have been home often, not as a mafia boss.
What had Baekhyun’s childhood been like?
A nightmare?
Chanyeol shivered, haunted by the thoughts that came to mind. Baekhyun’s unusual personality had to have cultivated somewhere, he supposed.
It didn’t matter though. He would always wait and protect his love, even if it wasn’t returned it full…yet.
He would wait.
~
The next day it felt as if the previous night had never happened. Neither man mentioned what had been discussed, as if the relationship that they’d cultivated over the past year was a sheet of glass, and last night was a crack in the resolve of their endurance. Baekhyun had returned to his normal, passive, heartless self—which Chanyeol was convinced was the true mask. He’d so far seen glimmers of who Baekhyun was bound to bloom to be, of the person he used to hide behind his door at night, but who now hid under the pretense of a pistol and leather jacket.
They spent the day moving into the warehouse, filtering in pieces of their livelihood as shipments of drugs came in downstairs. Conversation was a mere bubbling creek that wound between them softly and casually, but Baekhyun was evasive as ever.
It had been decided that Chanyeol’s home would be one of many safe houses, and their living in the warehouse would be done sparingly.
Sometime in the afternoon, however, Chanyeol expressed his need to go.
“Go where?” asked Baekhyun dully, but his interest was profound in his eyes that remained fixed on Chanyeol like a lion watching its prey.
Chanyeol finished tugging on his coat, pistol heavy at his waistline, and waited as Baekhyun hunkered over beside him to the door of the second-level flat, looking wary.
“To take care of a certain Lee Beomnam,” he replied.
Baekhyun’s eyes flickered—he took a step forward and reached out, his hands running along the sides of Chanyeol’s coat, fixing the flaps and straightening it out. The taller reveled in his sweet scent, Baekhyun’s natural musk that had him wanting to take him into his arms right then and there to hug him and squeeze him and kiss him and do all the lovey-dovey things he’d always wanted to do…
“Be back by dinner?” Baekhyun asked, patting Chanyeol’s chest.
The taller broke out into a beaming smile and he rested a hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder, wondering if the touch was too much or not enough. Baekhyun didn’t seem to mind. “Expect me.”
And then he whisked away, throwing a backpack over his shoulder.
Chanyeol had planned his assassination well for a while after getting routine updates from street dwellers on the arsenal master’s whereabouts and late-night activities. Apparently the man visited a certain favorite prostitute every weekend, chiefly Friday nights, and there was apparently already a chauffer ready to take the man down to his local whore.
Except when Chanyeol made it to the brothel in Itaewon wherein his death client was to be later that night, he was rather shocked to find that it wasn’t a woman—but a boy.
Do Kyungsoo.
The man nearly leaped out of his own skin when he found Chanyeol standing there behind the bed like a shadow cast in red and pink hues from the lights outside. The taller had never really officially met Kyungsoo, but he’d heard plenty about him.
“No need to use the backdoor, Park Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo said lowly in his radically deep voice for such a short man. “If it’s a scandal you want to avoid, I understand, but I’ve already scheduled a client for—”
“I’m not here for your services,” Chanyeol said quickly, cloaked in serious darkness.
Kyungsoo, it turned out, was a very intelligent man. He stalked over to the bed and sat himself down in his robe, head tilting. It took him a moment, and then he said, “You’re here to kill Lee Beomnam, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Baekhyun’s orders?”
“I’m not to say.”
Kyungsoo shrugged. “Of course you aren’t.”
There was an awkward pause between them, and then Chanyeol said, “I didn’t know you actually did…this. It would seem like your father wouldn’t promote it to his own son, no offense.”
“I don’t usually,” Kyungsoo admitted. “Jongin is the only man I choose to sleep with. But my father is paranoid—I’m sure your boss received the spy my father sent him? Did Baekhyun kill him? How long did he last? Ten seconds? A minute?”
“You’re a spy,” Chanyeol realized, his mind jumping to the obvious conclusion here. “What do you know about Lee?”
Kyungsoo smiled, and looked genuinely apologetic. “Sorry. You’re going to frame me for killing Lee Beomnam; I’m not ecstatic about the idea of sharing with you all the good stuff.”
The taller shrugged, eyes glancing about the room. “I guess I don’t have to swear you to secrecy at gunpoint…I didn’t know it was going to be you in this position. I would’ve tried to figure something else out. Jongin really won’t appreciate this.”
The shorter waved a hand. “Oh please. You’re one hundred percent Team Baekhyun and no one else matters to you. Baekhyun and I have some deals arranged, so don’t worry about Jongin or me. This won’t matter in the future.”
Chanyeol recalled a few days ago—Kyungsoo and Baekhyun had gone out for breakfast at a small café in Gangnam, and though Chanyeol naturally tagged along, he was sent to observe from the other side of the room where he couldn’t overhear their conversation. Perhaps these deals were of discussion.
“So?”
The taller looked up. “So what?”
“So what’ll you have me do?” Kyungsoo stood and adjusted his robe around him. “You’re here to assassinate the man I’m supposed to sleep with. What do you need from me? I’m not a killer, I won’t do it myself.”
Chanyeol began shrugging off his backpack, his palms warm and sweaty. “I don’t need you to. As long as he’s alone with you and completely distracted I can handle it.”
He began to move through the room, examining the corners and walls and stashing his pack in a hidden place, and then searching for a hiding spot for himself as well. He had never visited a brothel himself, and was admittedly fascinated by what he saw.
Though as he began twisting the silencer onto his pistol, glancing at some terrifying-looking sex tools, Kyungsoo began to speak again.
“Chanyeol.”
The said man faced him gladly. “Yes?”
“That coffee meeting I had with Baekhyun?”
“…Yes?”
The shorter chuckled a little bit, seemingly amused. “Byun Baekhyun is incredibly difficult to read. It’s like trying to search for emotions in a brick wall—they don’t exist. You must understand him, though, enough to tolerate him.” Enough to fall in love with him, Chanyeol thought. Kyungsoo went on. “There is something that I am good at reading, though.” He paused again, probably for effect, and then said, “Desire.”
“Desire?”
“Sexual desire, romantic desire, and every kind of yearning in between.” A mischievous twinkle came to his eye and his round, heart-shaped, butterfly-wing-like lips quirked up. “Baekhyun likes you, Chanyeol. He’s more than just attracted to you. He just doesn’t know it yet.” The smaller closed the distance between them and waggled a finger in front of his face. “So get laid. Get him laid. He’s a wound-up, up-tight, sexually deprived prick. Just do something! You both need it and you both obviously want it! So man up and grow a pair. If you think forcing yourself on Baekhyun would be a turn-off for him, you’re wrong. He’s a toughie. He would probably be into that kinky shit—not that it’s any of my business.”
Chanyeol had frozen stiff, eyes wide and hands pinned to his sides. Sometime during Kyungsoo’s monologue the taller’s lips had gone dry, and his gut churned and prickled with a dangerous satisfaction at the prostitute’s words, something sly and slick. His neck had heated up too, and to hide the flush he bowed his head and uncomfortably cleared his throat. “You got all that from a coffee date?”
“I thrive on knowing and measuring desire, so much so that I was even able to read it off of the infamous bitchface Baekhyun.” He rolled his eyes and turned away, but just as he did, the sound of a car pulling up alongside the street met their ears, and in that moment of intuition they’d both sensed the danger.
Chanyeol slid away into the nearby closet as Kyungsoo prepared himself.
And he believed he’d still make it back to Baekhyun in time for dinner.
~
As could have been expected, when Chanyeol returned to their new apartment he found Baekhyun sitting on the sofa reading a book, toes wiggling. With a contented, though tense sigh he removed his jacket and pack, his hands still buzzing with the feeling of the trigger being pulled and the gun vibrating in his grip, putting a soundless bullet into the back of Lee Beomnam’s head. But the sight of Baekhyun just sitting there, completely harmless, soothed him immediately.
“You’re late.”
Chanyeol strode into the space, leaning against the nearby wall to watch him read, and he received a sense of déjà vu from weeks—almost two months—ago when Baekhyun still lived in his father’s house.
How far away that seemed now.
“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol said sincerely. “I don’t mean to be late on your cooking night.”
Baekhyun’s small eyes rose up, and his one word was implying exactly what it seemed like it was. “Success?”
“Success.”
The smaller nodded, resting his chin on his palm on the armrest. “I called Yixing. The dockhands in Incheon have all sworn themselves to me…amazing how a little raise is such a persuasive nudge.”
Chanyeol grunted in acknowledgement, continuing to watch the other. Baekhyun let out a little sigh and then said offhandedly, “We made twelve million dollars today.”
“Did we really?”
“Already the arsenal profits have come in. And you killed him, what?” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Half an hour ago?”
“Indeed.”
“My father stopped by when you were gone.”
This surprised the taller a bit. “Your…father? What did he want?”
“To see how I was spending my money.” There was a bite of impatience, of vain dislike to his words. He added, “And to give me this.” With his pretty hands he lifted a letter, folded neatly back into its torn open envelope, and said, “It’s an invitation to his Masquerade Gala. It’s in less than two weeks.”
Chanyeol lifted his brows, imagining Baekhyun in a black leather mask or something.
Baekhyun in and or plus any sort of leather would be…well…
“Do you think you’ll go?”
“I don’t know.” After a moment Baekhyun changed the subject completely by asking, “Was Lee by any chance wearing a gold ring?”
Chanyeol paused to think about it. “Yeah, I think so.”
The gang boss went back to his book, the complete passiveness void of expression coating his face once again. From his spot on the wall Chanyeol admired the other’s folded legs, the curve his thighs into his ass, the slightness of his waist, the elegance and regality in which he sat. There was tiredness about him, almost a hibernation. What was hibernating? His sexuality? His…desire, as Kyungsoo put it? His interest in Chanyeol?
How was it that Chanyeol could live with Baekhyun 24/7 and not know he was being pined over? Was Chanyeol that obsessed with his own languishing desire that he didn’t even notice Baekhyun’s? Sex wasn’t Chanyeol’s area of expertise, admittedly, but Baekhyun himself was.
How could Chanyeol have missed it?
Maybe Kyungsoo was wrong, he thought. The prostitute didn’t know nearly as much about Baekhyun as Chanyeol did…but something within him desperately wanted Kyungsoo to be right. He wanted him to be right with every inch and heartbeat of his soul.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Baekhyun asked suddenly.
“L-Like what?”
The smaller glanced up again and his eyes narrowed. “I made stir fry if you’re hungry—it’s on the stove.”
“I’m not hungry for stir fry.”
Baekhyun almost seemed like he caught onto the underlying theme of Chanyeol’s words, but instead he chose to snap, “If you want something else you make your own damn dinner.”
Courage. Have courage, Chanyeol thought. You’re the viper. He steeled himself, willing the gentle sternness in his voice to harden. “That’s not what I meant.”
A second passed, then two, then three. Baekhyun’s head tilted just the slightest, his orbs darkening impishly, frighteningly. That domineering, terrifying curiosity that was hidden in the pinch of his lips and deepening of his brow showed itself then: and that’s when Chanyeol knew he’d hooked him. Baekhyun was interested, and Chanyeol was on the right course.
He just had to stay in control.
Baekhyun’s spindly, pretty fingers closed and set aside the novel he was reading, and he stood from the divan with that lion-like preying movement about him. He strode right up to Chanyeol and stood just a foot away.
“What is it you meant?”
Something about the faraway, challenging look in Baekhyun’s eyes let Chanyeol’s subconscious beast know that the smaller wanted this—wanted it as much as Chanyeol did. Baekhyun was only standing in front of him and he was already running wild with images of the love of his life wide open beneath him, begging.
Oh, Chanyeol would die to hear Baekhyun beg.
He just had to get rid of that smirk on the smaller’s face, the smirk that had grown when Baekhyun truly understood what the other was saying.
Chanyeol’s eyes had locked onto Baekhyun’s, lust pouring from his gaze unto the smaller’s like ripples of silk. Chanyeol’s palms itched and tingled and he slowly lifted both of his large mitts, placing them heavily on Baekhyun’s shoulders. Precarious tingles of a need to dominate tricked between the each and every ridge in the taller’s spine like an icy stream—if lust was ice water then Baekhyun was lava. Chanyeol pushed down on the smaller’s shoulders, wanting to pressure him onto his knees—but Baekhyun knew what he was doing and resisted by bolting his knees back, his backbone stiffening. His eyes were stony. “I won’t do it Chanyeol,” he mocked between his teeth.
Be dominant. Be dominant. The taller scowled and brought a finger up to Baekhyun’s little lips. At first the smaller seemed surprised by the intimate action, but he didn’t question or stop him. He drew around them and pressed down over the folds as he felt out the way the soft skin rolled over his massaging finger. “Now, now, Baekhyun…wipe that fucking smirk off of your face,” he commanded.
The smaller scoffed and snatched Chanyeol’s finger between his teeth then bit down. Chanyeol immediately growled and ripped his hand away, reaching it behind Baekhyun’s head—quick like a viper—to take a firm hold in the smaller’s silky crown of hair. He jerked Baekhyun’s head back and the creature squeaked as his back bent and his chest and abdomen rolled against Chanyeol’s. His throat pulsed in its gloried exposure, uvula bouncing.
“No,” Chanyeol scolded. “You do not bite, Baekhyun. I do. Tonight I do.” Chanyeol’s gut burned with excitement and he reveled in the smugness and contentment of Baekhyun’s body so near his. Heart hammering, Chanyeol ghosted forward and his breath fanned hotly against Baekhyun’s glacier-cut collarbone. Am I really doing this??? He thought wildly. This is happening??? His whisper should have been inaudible but his words tickled the earlobe of the man in his grip. “You’ve been a bad boy, Baekhyun.” Chanyeol’s lips came down and for the fist time ever in his love-stricken life the skin of his lips graced against Baekhyun’s body. “Bad dog,” he muttered. “Bad dog.”
As his kisses began a waltz up Baekhyun’s throat patiently the smaller panted with exasperation. “Huh,” he puffed, his hands clutched at the taller’s shiny button-down. He seemed to be having trouble breathing, being so bent back. “You’re sadistic, Chanyeol. Sadistic. I didn’t know you had that in you.”
Chanyeol snarled and suddenly released Baekhyun—the latter had relaxed all of his weight into the other’s strong arms with out knowing it and with a shout of astonishment he dropped to his knees, unable to save himself. For a moment it looked as if he was going to jump back up again, but the view of Chanyeol’s crotch right in his face seemed to stop him.
The taller smirked. “Tell me puppy…baby want a bone? To chew on—to suck?”
Baekhyun’s eyes narrowed. He sunk lower on his knees and his legs spread further apart, his hands perched between his thighs. He tilted his head and arched up to Chanyeol in the most erotic way, eyes wide and innocent. “Does Chanyeol want to see me beneath him?”
Chanyeol would have been in full ecstasy right then, it would have been enough to satisfy his fantasies for months just to see Baekhyun like that on the floor. But he could take this farther, he realized. He shivered, taking a step closer and gazing down at Baekhyun’s kneeling form. He nodded.
“Chanyeol wants to hear puppy beg? Channie wants to hear puppy scream?”
Chanyeol chuckled darkly, lust boiling in his throat. He trembled with lechery, with desire. “Oh, oh yeah baby…”
Baekhyun tilted his head even farther, tongue slipping past his pink lips for a moment to wet them. He grinded his pelvis once against the floor: a sight that had Chanyeol weak at the knees. “Channie wants to make puppy come?”
The taller’s fingers slid down over Baekhyun’s head, wrapping in his locks. “Oh yes Channie does.”
It was as if Baekhyun’s entire face had changed—his eyes were wide and wet, muscles relaxed, brows raised and lips parted. He looked almost babyish and totally and completely innocent, as if by changing his expression he had unwound years and years of sin and crime. He lifted himself off of his hands and onto his knees fully, his face flesh up against Chanyeol’s bellybutton and his neck only an inch away from Chanyeol’s cock. He simpered, fluttering his lashes as he hooked his long, pretty fingers on Chanyeol’s pants. The taller male tilted his head back and sighed. “Oh Channie does…”
Baekhyun giggled—a bell-like sound. Completely foreign to Chanyeol’s ears. “Kyungsoo and I had a bet on how big you were…” he looked up at the taller, lashes flickering. Chanyeol’s entire expression was bathed in ecstasy and libido. The taller lifted a brow. A sense of pride and pleasure seeped into his gut, thinking that Baekhyun had thought about and even discussed his penis before: and with Kyungsoo.
With Kyungsoo. Oh god. That was probably why they didn’t allow him to overhear their conversation. But he forced those thoughts away and breathed,
“Oh?”
“I already know who won.” A smirk twisted Baekhyun’s features then as he brought a hand up beneath Chanyeol’s pelvis, palming his dick once and causing Chanyeol to groan and take a step wider, pushing his hips towards Baekhyun. “Oh baby…”
But already he had noticed a difference in the smaller’s temperament. That smirk…that smirk…it unveiled the devilish face of a beautiful, passionate rose lined with thorns and dripping with poison. Baekhyun removed his hands from Chanyeol’s pants and slowly stood from his crouch, grinning smugly. A look of dismay shed upon the taller’s face—oh no.
Baekhyun’s trademark smirk and sharp, cold eyes replaced the naïve, warm, baby boy that had been kneeling in front of Chanyeol just a moment before.
Goddammit, thought the taller. He was close—so close!
But he knew.
Baekhyun had done it again.
Baekhyun was in control of this situation. He always was.
The smaller licked his lips again and Chanyeol shuddered, his cock hard and erect against the fabric of his pants, no thanks to Baekhyun. The smaller chuckled lowly and stepped up beside Chanyeol, resting his hands on the taller’s shoulder and perching his chin on top of his knuckles. “Oh, Channie. You tried. Close but no—” He blew a kiss against the other’s cheek. “—cigar.”
Baekhyun smiled again and slunk away from Chanyeol’s body, strutting proudly towards the door. Chanyeol turned around, eyes wild.
“Baekhyun!”
The smaller just continued striding towards the door, hiding his fatal grin.
“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol called again, and this time the smaller halted in his step.
“You know—you almost had me when you pulled my head back. That was incredibly sexy. Really something.” He laughed darkly. “Not enough, though.”
“Baekhyun!”
“Have fun by yourself though. Don’t let me stop you from a good time.”
Adrenaline pumped scandalously through Chanyeol’s veins—he recalled Kyungsoo’s words: “If you think forcing yourself on Baekhyun would be a turn-off for him, you’re wrong.”
What would happen if he used a little more…force?
“He’s a toughie. He would probably be into that kinky shit—not that it’s any of my business.”
“Baekhyun!”
Just before he reached the door the said male turned around, only to be body-slammed by Chanyeol into the wall. The taller threw his arms out to cage Baekhyun in and—hoping and praying for the best—he smashed his lips onto Baekhyun’s.
To be honest, there was so much adrenaline and testosterone surging through him that he could have fainted, and leaning against the wall, against Baekhyun, was all he could do to keep himself on his feet.
His heart ran wildly all over the place, pounding his chest like a thousand drums beating to the same rhythm, because he was kissing Baekhyun.
He was kissing Baekhyun!
The smaller’s lips were much more wet that he’d thought they’d be, not that he minded, in fact he very much enjoyed those lips, enjoyed their softness, their slimness, their shape and the way they molded to Chanyeol’s instantly, as if Baekhyun’s lips were built for Chanyeol. The two of them were so close, their noses bumping each other, their chins brushing, their cheeks heating each other’s with the flush of the situation.
Oh, god, Chanyeol loved kissing Baekhyun. He could definitely get used to this.
It only lasted for a few seconds, however. Baekhyun was a predator, and to suddenly become prey was probably very startling, hence the brief surrendering of his firey personality.
It ended quickly. Chanyeol was still falling in love with the feeling of the kiss when he felt a harsh push on his chest, and then he was stumbling backwards over his feet. Baekhyun glared at him, his eyes gleaming with treachery. He was breathless, his chest heaving and his hair disheveled and he seemed to be deciding on what foul name to call Chanyeol, but the said male didn’t give him a chance.
With an animalistic growl he approached Baekhyun again and without concern about care or gentleness, attacked the smaller with a guttural, “I love you so much”. His elbows fell against the wall and this time he came prepared, tilting his head and pouncing with his lips already fallen open. Baekhyun had let out first a squeal of surprise, eyes squeezed shut, and then he returned the growl through their connected mouths. He pushed against Chanyeol again but the taller held steadfast, holding them together. Chanyeol felt out of control, as if he was drunk on the high of Baekhyun’s beauty. It was just like he said: Baekhyun made him crazy.
He began to move his lips, passionately forcing Baekhyun’s mouth to part whilst avoiding the smaller’s stuttering, stumbling legs below. He felt their teeth knock together, the violent kiss hard enough to bruise their mouths. One of his hands came down from the wall to caress Baekhyun’s shoulder, then his arm, his elbow, his wrist. Chanyeol barely even registered his own actions as he tugged Baekhyun’s hand up and pinned it beside his head on the wall, groaning and overtaken by lust.
Baekhyun had started kissing back.
Then, completely unexpectedly, there was a terrible slam into his stomach and he was forced to pull away from Baekhyun, bent over with a wheeze. Baekhyun had punched him.
Flabbergasted, Chanyeol punched him back…in the jaw.
“Fuck you!” Baekhyun screamed, before grabbing Chanyeol’s shirt, whirling him around, and slamming him into the wall instead. Still wheezing, Chanyeol barely comprehended it when Baekhyun pushed the kiss onto him then, still pinned to the wall by the front of his shirt.
Baekhyun was kissing him back.
Very passionately so!
Huh, thought Chanyeol, head clouded as he returned the kiss in full. All he needed was a little…nudge.
But he was through with Baekhyun in control. Reviving his self defense skills, Chanyeol happily kicked out one of Baekhyun’s legs, but the other was also an experienced fighter. He swung his ankle out and pinned down Chanyeol’s leg with his own, and when Chanyeol tried to sweep the other’s hands off of his chest Baekhyun pushed his wrists away. Chanyeol, however, grabbed onto one of Baekhyun’s hands, spun himself around (breaking the kiss, unfortunately), and delivered a sharp elbow to the smaller’s stomach. Baekhyun tumbled to the floor and Chanyeol jumped on top of him, meshing their mouths together.
They’d both begun to perspire, and to Baekhyun’s breathy, sweet taste came the saltiness of his sweat. Chanyeol trembled with hunger, with arousal.
Baekhyun then lifted his hips, wrapping his legs and locking them around Chanyeol’s midsection while simultaneously wringing his arms around his neck. The taller gasped into Baekhyun’s mouth, but he certainly wasn’t expecting what came next.
Baekhyun pinned himself to Chanyeol and threw his force to the side, effectively rolling them over so he was on top. Now straddling the taller, still kissing harshly, he moved his arms into a choke hold…still kissing.
Chanyeol grunted, surprised by Baekhyun’s iron grip, but he was also beginning to see red splotches in his closed-eye darkness, so with another punch to Baekhyun’s face—on the other side of the jaw—effectively throwing the smaller off-balance, he threw him off his chest.
Baekhyun rolled onto his stomach, but before he could slither only a foot away Chanyeol sat on top of his back and grabbed his flailing arm, pinning it behind him. The smaller let out a delicious, aching whine and Chanyeol laughed darkly, leaning forward and peppering kisses along the side of Baekhyun’s neck. “Quit griping, sweetheart,” he mumbled.
Before he could take Baekhyun’s earlobe between his teeth, the man on the ground reached out and took hold of a stray shoe, one that had been left by the door, and swung it back, bashing it right into Chanyeol’s temple. Chanyeol’s grip on the boy’s arm disappeared as he flailed back, and in that moment Baekhyun slipped out from underneath him with a shooting, “Bastard.”
“Love you too you fucker,” Chanyeol retaliated as they both skittered to their feet, panting. Once standing he didn’t have much time to catch his breath, though, because a flying projectile by the name of Byun Baekhyun crashed into him, wrapping around his front like a koala to a eucalyptus tree.
Chanyeol immediately cradled Baekhyun’s body to his own, swallowing the other’s saliva, stumbling backward toward where the sitting room was. Neither were quite sure when their tongues became involved, but suddenly they were. He cupped the smaller’s ass and squeezed the flesh out of pure impulse, and his response was Baekhyun biting his lip, and Black-Widow style he yanked himself out of Chanyeol’s hold and, using the centrifugal force of his weight, threw Chanyeol onto the couch.
Though, he threw himself along with Chanyeol too, and they both wrecked into the furniture with cries of surprise and knocked it clean over backwards, tumbling onto the floor again.
The two jumped up and collided in another kiss, desperately and hurriedly engaging their tongues in a heated dance, wet and sloppy and so full of passion that it just had to be taken out through punches. They held onto each other, Chanyeol’s arms around Baekhyun’s waist, and the latter’s hands entwined in the taller’s hair, and stumbled through the apartment, moaning obscenely.
“Go to hell,” Baekhyun cried into Chanyeol’s mouth.
“I love you,” Chanyeol replied with a shudder.
They passed through the kitchen and past the dining table, and Chanyeol couldn’t help but turn, his arms tired and his body aching, and mash Baekhyun down onto the table, sucking in his moans and gasps. He hiked Baekhyun’s legs up onto his hips and pressed their hips together, and the smaller wrapped his ankles around Chanyeol’s back, holding him close and responding wholeheartedly to each nip and bite, lick and slurp.
It was very erotic, Chanyeol realized.
He fucking loved it.
The table creaked when Chanyeol leaned his weight onto it, on either side of Baekhyun’s head, and their flurried kisses began to relax. Their making out settled and instead of a fight scene, became more of a lost-at-sea, in-the-belly-of-the-whale type feeling. The world swirled around just Baekhyun, just the feeling of his body underneath and close to Chanyeol’s, warm, aroused, and sweet.
Chanyeol never wanted to stop, never ever wanted to abandon those lips that he’d already been entranced by. Because they were Baekhyun’s. Baekhyun’s. He was making out with Baekhyun on the kitchen table—what a day!
Chanyeol grinned against the other’s mouth, and finally, after many minutes of caressing each other’s yearning souls, he pulled away, their lips sticky with saliva un-meshing. Neither opened their eyes, perhaps afraid that the spell would break. Their breaths trickled into each other’s open, panting caverns, lips sore.
When Chanyeol finally opened his eyes Baekhyun was looking up at him quietly, his normally emotionless, stony eyes now wasted and weakened, looking soft and vulnerable and tender.
His lips were swollen too, and there were two massive bruises cultivating on either side of his face.
Chanyeol smiled softly, his fingers carding through Baekhyun’s soft, silky locks. He had always wanted to touch Baekhyun’s hair, and now he realized it was well worth the wait.
“Baekhyun?” he whispered, thinking maybe he was on the verge of tears but that it would be extremely unattractive to start crying. “Are you okay?”
The boy beneath him visibly shivered, and then his little eyelashes flickered, blinking lightly, and he whispered back, “Sorry I punched you in the stomach.”
Chanyeol giggled. “Sorry I pinned you to the floor.”
“Truce?”
The taller bent down and placed a final, gentle kiss to Baekhyun’s yummy, awaiting lips.
“Truce.”
It physically pained Chanyeol to release Baekhyun from his human cage of limbs and step away, allowing the other to sit up, disoriented, and then slip off the table. They stood there for a moment, awkwardly adjusting their clothing—Chanyeol noted his erectile issue down below…and Baekhyun’s too.
Although he would very much like to make love to the other right now, he didn’t feel as if the time was right. Not only that, but his body was sore after being bashed in the head and thrown to the ground. Sex right now would be rather futile from his end.
“Uh…meet for dinner in five minutes?” he suggested.
“Okay.”
The awkward moment lasted, at least until Baekhyun lifted his head and, with that sort of liberal arts rich gangster confidence, he walked off and closed himself in the bedroom, leaving Chanyeol to his thoughts, and to the bathroom alone.
“You like it?” asked Baekhyun, the two of them joined at the kitchen table where just ten minutes ago the only thing cockblocking them were their jeans.
Chanyeol leveled his gaze at the other—Baekhyun’s subtleness and seriousness had returned since the intense make out session, and he seemed to have fallen back into his thoughtful, reserved state. The only difference now was that when he looked Chanyeol in the eye—and perhaps Chanyeol was imagining things—he didn’t look like he was plotting the doom of the entire world or judging whether or not to pull a gun on him.
He just looked serene, his small puppy eyes observing intently and without menace.
Chanyeol, still feeling a bit dashing since his earlier stunts, extended his palm across the table and wiggled his hand beneath Baekhyun’s empty one, braiding his fingers in between the other’s. Baekhyun seemed uncomfortable with the gesture at first, tensing and straightening in his chair like he always did when he was displeased, but after a moment he relaxed again, albeit hesitantly.
“It’s delicious,” Chanyeol replied. To release some tension he went back to animatedly chowing down his food: the rice and stir-fry he had no idea Baekhyun could cook so well. After a moment the smaller’s thin fingers curled around his own, albeit hesitantly.
“Chanyeol.”
The said man looked up. “Yes?”
“Sleep with me tonight.”
Maybe something got stuck in Chanyeol’s throat then, because he felt so red in the face and began coughing furiously, slapping his chest and trying to free up his airway. “What—”
“On the bed.”
“On the bed…?”
“I don’t mean sex, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun elaborated. “I mean you shouldn’t sleep on the floor. The bed is plenty big.”
Chanyeol blushed further, suddenly embarrassed by his outburst. “Oh. Thank you.”
“Chanyeol.”
“Hm?”
He braced himself this time, buttoning his lips shut before he could say something he would regret.
“Can you pass the salt please?”
“Can I what?”
“Pass the salt.”
“The salt?”
“Please.”
“Oh…yeah.” He did so, handling it across the table.
“Chanyeol?”
“Y-Yes Baekhyun?
The man seemed to almost regret opening his mouth this time, dipping his head for a moment, but as if he riled his nerve, he looked back up and muttered, “Thank you.”
“For passing the salt?”
Baekhyun smiled then, a smile that said, “You’re a dumbass and I love you”, a smile that made Chanyeol’s heart melt into a sad little puddle, and replied, “For everything.”
That night they did sleep in the same bed. Un-touching, on separate sides of the mattress, but Chanyeol had never felt so close to the other in his life. Especially when Baekhyun rolled over with a babyish whimper and a scrunch of his nose, then facing Chanyeol, and the taller had full view of his sleeping face.
“Ah, so precious,” he muttered to himself, reaching out and tapping the tip of Baekhyun’s nose with his finger.
Unfortunately or perhaps not, Baekhyun’s eyes slid open, and Chanyeol jerked away with a shock.
“I’m a light sleeper, Chanyeol.”
The taller fumbled around in the sheets, rushing to apologize. “I-I’m sorry.”
“Go to sleep.”
He turned himself over again with those final words and a heaving sigh of fatigue, his body sank back into a delayed, sleepy rhythm and his breaths lowered. And somewhere within himself, Chanyeol decided it was best to fall asleep.
He did so. Happily.
~
It was unusual for Chanyeol awaken alone, since his inner special Baekhyun sensors always woke him up seemingly coincidentally with the other, as if his inner clock ticked to Baekhyun’s time. Chanyeol draped his arm across his eyes and grinned, still feeling as if he was dreaming as memory of the previous day came to surface. Never mind he that killed Lee Beomnam—he’d kissed Baekhyun, made out with him, held him, and was sure that they’d unofficially adjoined in an unspoken relationship. How could this be real? It was just too good.
All the more reason to get out of bed, Chanyeol decided as he threw the covers to the side and happily made his way out of the bedroom.
Baekhyun was back to his book, sitting at the kitchen table. In front of him laid a towel, and on it was his disassembled handgun with the pieces strewn over the cloth. Chanyeol took a moment to admire his favorite little man, his hair and face illuminated by the morning sun filtering in through the windows, the sunlight that had squeezed between the tall buildings around them just to make it to his shining face.
“Don’t loiter,” he heard Baekhyun say from across the room.
“Sorry,” Chanyeol said as he made his way behind the other’s chair. “How are you this morning?”
Up closer, he recognized the massive bruising on either side of Baekhyun’s jaw, and though the swelling subsided the patchwork color of purple and blue and green gave him an intriguing, frightening look. But Chanyeol grinned, admiring his handiwork that was the pair of swollen and bruised lips. He pleasantly took credit for that.
“I’m fine.”
The taller leaned down and asked, “Can I hug you?”
His response was a gentle nod. Delighted, Chanyeol reached over the back of the chair and wrung his arms around Baekhyun’s chest, dropping his head onto the smaller’s shoulder.
“The firing pin spring is broken,” the older said, frowning at the table and his dismantled pistol.
“We have an entire arsenal at our fingertips, I don’t think you need to worry about it.”
“Chanyeol, there’s something I want you to understand,” Baekhyun mumbled.
His hug around Baekhyun’s shoulders tightened instinctively. “Yes?”
“Don’t start expecting too much for me,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, indicating the hug that he was being held in. “I’m diluted. I’m evil. I’m not very affectionate. Trying to hold me is like trying to keep a pet vulture. Convincing me to be devoted and caring is like trying to train a falcon to love the prey it kills before its talons sink into its neck.” He paused, eyes shifty. “It’s against its nature.”
“I will coach you on love,” Chanyeol replied. “You don’t have to worry. I will love the vulture and the falcon, but I will also nurture the turtledove and swan within.”
Baekhyun didn’t reply.
After a minute Chanyeol asked, “Baekhyun, do you suppose after a year of being no more than ten feet from each other we could be considered dating right now?”
He felt the other shift as he set down his book. “Dating?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to date me why?”
Chanyeol let out a sigh and moved around Baekhyun’s side, sliding into the chair beside him. The smaller’s eyes remained fixed on the table, his hands busying themselves as he picked up the slide and ran his fingers over the muzzle. Chanyeol slouched onto the table and rested his head onto his folded arms with his face turned to Baekhyun, who made sure he looked promptly bored with the topic.
“Because I like you,” Chanyeol said.
“You don’t love me?”
His voice came like the shock of a bullet, teasing and even a bit malicious, the pupil of his eye watching Chanyeol out of the bottom corner of his orbs, challenging.
What a devil, the taller thought dreamily, moving his hands to distract one of Baekhyun’s away from the gun slide. “Oh?” he whispered as he took Baekhyun’s hand in his, placing a delicate kiss on his knuckles. “I do love you.” He kissed his hand again, then up his arm his lips waltzed, stippling the other’s sleeve with enamored smooches. Into the crook of his elbow, up his bicep, his shoulder—
When Baekhyun turned his head though, before Chanyeol could take his lips he said sternly, “That’s not enough.”
“Not enough?” Chanyeol’s eyes flickered to the shorter’s lips and he smiled. “The like part or the love part?”
“I asked why you want to date me,” Baekhyun said, his fingers deftly and absently assembling the pistol on the table. “What can you offer me, Park Chanyeol?”
“Dating is just a word for it,” Chanyeol began to reply, one of his arms coming to rest on the back of the other’s chair. Their faces still lingered radically close and every little cruel occupation in Baekhyun’s wicked expression turned him on. “We don’t have to date. We could just be…lovers. We could be married, you know. I’ve already sworn myself to you—all you have to do is return the favor. In fact, I feel as if we’ve had this conversation before…”
When Baekhyun spoke he did so lowly, seductively, with a bit of a threat to his tone. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“I would date you—or marry you, or simply be in love with you—because I think you are beautiful. You have the power to take my breath away with a single glance in my direction.” They both ignored the audible click of the trigger snapping into place at Baekhyun’s handiwork. “I love you because you are secretive and sly, and I would be honored to hold those secrets for you. You are the lion: exotic, beastly, passionate, intense.” He paused here with another sigh, tilting his head to admire Baekhyun from yet another angle. “But you are also you. And I love every little one of your quirks because they’re mundane, and because even though no one else sees you this way, I think you’re absolutely adorable. Your cuteness is mine only. You think you’re so icy and enigmatic, but darling I can read you like an open book. Your face is my masterpiece. Your fears are mine to put to rest, fears you have not told anyone else.”
“I have no fears,” Baekhyun whispered, his gaze becoming even more brazen.
“But you do, my love.”
“Oh really?”
“Mmhm.”
“I won’t ask you to list them.”
“Why not?”
Their noses were brushing now, eyes painfully close to the point where it hurt to stare at each other for so long. There was a sweeping sound and a clack as the final piece of the gun came into place, snapping together fully.
“Because I believe you.”
Chanyeol grinned hotly against Baekhyun’s soft, pale cheek. “And what can I offer you?”
“You tell me.”
“My loyalty.”
“Hm.”
“My love.”
“Hm?”
“My life.”
Baekhyun turned his head and his lips brushed against Chanyeol’s temple in that manipulative game again, the one that broke down every one of the taller’s reserves. “You’re not here for the money?” Baekhyun whispered.
“That’s a gig.”
“And the sex?”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Am I an occupational hazard?”
Chanyeol chuckled, his voice grinding low with the early morning rustiness of his vocal chords. He placed a soft kiss to Baekhyun’s cheek. “You’re the occupation. My lifelong endeavor.”
“You’re a fool, Park Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol laughed softly against the other’s ear, spindly hairs off of Baekhyun’s head tickling his lips. “And a downright helpless romantic before my morning coffee.”
He stood from his chair and swerved around the table, grinning his head off. He heard Baekhyun scoff from the table as the smaller reopened his book. “Maybe you should skip the coffee every day—”
His sentence was cut short as Chanyeol passed in front of the window and a resounding plink-plink-plink-plink-plink exploded on the glass beside his head. Chanyeol whipped to the side and witnessed the fissuring of the window around un-punctured bullet wounds in the surface, his mouth agape and heart leaping into his throat. The raining bullets ceased and disappeared just as quickly as they came.
Chanyeol whipped his head to look at Baekhyun. “These windows are bulletproof?”
Baekhyun swung himself up from the table and to the window, already sporting his hunter’s posture. Through the glass his eyes combed the landscape and then froze. His brow furled and his orbs darkened. “Jongdae.”
“Kim Jongdae?” Chanyeol asked, flummoxed as he leaned towards the window over Baekhyun’s head.
“Third floor window across the street. He’s already on the move,” said Baekhyun.
“But I thought we were on good terms…”
“Don’t take it personally,” the smaller said with a deadly glower. “He’s an assassin, so someone had to have hired him to kill you.” He stepped away from the glass and Chanyeol could practically see the gears turning in his head: just like that, out came the syndicate man. “How could he have seen in here though? These are tinted windows. He could’ve been using infrared. But who would have an agenda to kill you?”
The thoughts tumbled from Baekhyun’s mouth relative to Sherlock Holmes, or at least with the same intensity.
“Jongin maybe? For me framing Kyungsoo?”
“Jongdae wouldn’t take a job over something like that.” Baekhyun strutted away from the window, his brows knit with unadulterated focus. “The last person who talked to me about you was my father. He came here the night you killed Lee Beomnam. Last night. He said you were a distraction, that you were interrupting my full potential as a…a businessman…”
He petered out then, realization dawning on his features.
“Baekhyun?” Chanyeol asked carefully with a step closer. For the first time in his life he’d just been targeted by an assassin, and was saved only by Baekhyun’s precursory construction plans. “You don’t think your father intended to kill me, do you? I thought he was impressed by my skills, by my keeping you alive…”
Not that Chanyeol could say that that he liked Baekhyun’s father very much anyways.
“To him you are expendable. Just a guard, he thinks. Easily replaced by someone else who can give their life up for me. But you’re not expendable,” Baekhyun said tersely, turning his head away, teeth grinding and terrorism in his eyes. “The meeting you took me to between my father and I at that hotel, months ago. Had you been listening you would have caught on: my father is not impressed by you. He thinks me a fool for taking you as my associate. But all he’s about is business, is money. He thinks you are distracting me from my business plans.” Baekhyun turned his head, sharp eyes raking the apartment. “So why did he decide to kill you now? Coincidentally right after we…”
He stopped there and Chanyeol serviced a helpful, “Made out.”
“But how would he know?”
They both realized the answer, of course, and after exchanging a look of disgust the two set out through the apartment to search for a camera. As Chanyeol’s fingers brushed under the edges of the kitchen counter, though, he couldn’t help but observe Baekhyun in his peripheral vision. There was ferocity to the boy’s actions, a sense of desperation, for every one of his hurried movements were deliberate and directory. The smaller’s expression had fallen to one akin to Wednesday Addams’, and that’s how Chanyeol knew.
He was angry.
“Here,” Baekhyun declared then, jousting his pointer finger in the direction of the lamp beside an armchair in the sitting room. “Don’t be obvious,” he ordered as he stood to the side.
Chanyeol made his way over from the kitchen—taking note of the lion’s death glare—and swept his gaze over the standing lamp in front of him, trying to be discreet.
Sure enough, a small, almost unnoticeable black bulb faced on one side with a flat, shiny surface was pinned to the bottom of the light bulb, hiding out like a menacing eye just below the lampshade where nearly the entire flat minus the bed and bathroom were visible.
Across from him on the other side of the lampshade was Baekhyun, and Chanyeol mouthed to him, “Bugged?”
The other nodded, then stepped away from the camera’s peripheral view and gestured for Chanyeol to follow him to the bedroom.
“You want to leave it there?” Chanyeol asked once they were safely closed away in private.
“I don’t want him to suspect anything,” was Baekhyun’s reply. “As long as we don’t lead on that we know.”
“Why?” the taller asked, his growing suspicion laced with a veneer of fear.
“So that he doesn’t see us coming for him.”
Chanyeol’s stomach dropped as the true meaning behind Baekhyun’s words materialized. He inched forward towards the other, his eyes creased with concern. “Baekhyun, what are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying.”
“He’s your father. Maybe you should think about this—”
“Do not challenge me, Park Chanyeol,” Baekhyun snapped, his anger veering in Chanyeol’s direction. “We kissed, you had me on the table. But don’t forget who’s in charge here.”
Chanyeol’s immediate reaction was to cower at such wickedness, but he held his place and only dipped his head in recognition of Baekhyun’s leadership, though he was at a point now where he knew they were equally compatible when it came to dominance. It was clear after last night.
“You’re the boss, Baekhyun. I’m not challenging your authority,” said Chanyeol with his hands raised in surrender, his eyes gentle and willing Baekhyun to soften. “You’re in charge of the business, so I’ll be in charge of the relationship. Does…Does that sound alright?”
His response was silence. Baekhyun whisked away with a short, “Let’s go out today,” and then he grabbed a set of clothes and made for the bathroom.
Once he was gone Chanyeol rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Dammit,” he hissed, frustrated with this new development. Never mind that Baekhyun’s father watched the two of them knock around the flat sucking off each other’s faces—Chanyeol was being targeted by that same man, one of the most powerful men in South Korea, for that same kiss. While Chanyeol was busy wanting to protect Baekhyun’s emotions from the rest of the world, the boy’s father was occupied with protecting Baekhyun’s priceless and powerful financial enterprise…from Chanyeol.
Figures, he thought. Baekhyun’s moneymaking skills are more important to his father than his emotions.
But why was Baekhyun so upset? So what if someone took a few shots at Chanyeol’s head? He wasn’t hurt, and it was just Chanyeol, just his head. There wouldn’t be much value lost in substance there.
He exhaled and shook his head, already fatigued.
And he had been having such a good morning.
~
The next few days passed slowly, inching along and holding fast like a dull ache in one’s side, a cramp in the flow of weeks. Baekhyun seemed particularly mistrustful and aware of the camera in the apartment, always keeping his voice low and his movements calculated. He was always stiff now, his distressed aura worn like an overcoat over his shoulders. He became a brooding ghost drifting through the apartment, daggers in his stare.
The first few days it seemed like Baekhyun was trying to flesh out his wrath by going on a spending spree: with the millions—and soon billions—of dollars building up in his pockets after just a few weeks Baekhyun finally seemed to decide it was time to shop. Chanyeol honestly didn’t know Baekhyun had such an intense, candid, and frankly stylistic fashion sense. When Chanyeol asked his companion why he insisted on updating their wardrobes to Gucci, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton one afternoon while they paid for his new $7,000 watch, Baekhyun answered,
“Because I can.”
It seemed stress-induced, Chanyeol decided, but he didn’t speak out against it. Though Baekhyun didn’t seem to care for all the flashy brands that much, the change in their clothing quality spoke volumes on the streets, and in their apartment when Baekhyun strode out of the bedroom every morning proving that he could step onto a runway and look absolutely divine at any time.
In the end Baekhyun still wore Chanyeol’s shirts to bed, and that was all the latter cared about.
But after a few days the smaller insisted that they stay inside, tethered to the immediate safety of their heavily guarded warehouse. Trying to calm Baekhyun down was a pointless effort, but Chanyeol did get him to soften for those few moments in the mornings when Baekhyun granted him a hug and perhaps a kiss or two…or three.
That was the other thing. Within the next week Baekhyun seemed to warm up to Chanyeol’s new affections, chiefly hugs and kisses. Even cuddling became ever closer to becoming reality: one evening Chanyeol tucked himself behind Baekhyun on the couch, almost holding the smaller in his lap as the latter male read his book. Eventually Chanyeol began reading the pages over his shoulder, and every time he sipped his wine or tea or whatever it was, Baekhyun got the hint to turn the page so they could both go on.
It was a dream for Chanyeol.
At least it would have been, had Baekhyun not been plotting the overthrow of his father.
“We’re going to the Incheon port,” Baekhyun announced one evening over a week later as he grabbed his coat as he threw a look in Chanyeol’s direction. The taller quickly stood from his seat at the table, immediately wondering if it was a coincidence that Baekhyun wanted to go to the harbor the same day that Yixing called to let him know another firearms shipment had arrived from Russia.
“Might I ask why?” asked Chanyeol, tugging on his jacket beside the smaller. Baekhyun was looking as pristine as ever: he’d recently taken to thin layers of makeup, much to Chanyeol’s surprise. He couldn’t complain though. Not when his little lover boy had the power to turn himself from a cute little puppy to a smoky, sexy thunderstorm on legs.
“I need a new gun,” Baekhyun replied.
Before Baekhyun could storm out of the door Chanyeol caught him in his arms and gently enveloped him in a hug, tucking the smaller’s head beneath his chin and sensing his succumbing.
“Hey, are you alright?” Chanyeol whispered soothingly, fingers playing with the hairs at Baekhyun’s nape. Baekhyun still didn’t return his hugs or initiate any kissing, but at least he allowed it. “You seem really agitated today.”
When Baekhyun didn’t respond Chanyeol pulled away and held Baekhyun at an arm’s distance, his palms caressing the smaller’s cheeks and thumbs brushing over his cheekbones fondly.
Baekhyun leaned into the touch.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Chanyeol whispered. “I’m always here for you.”
“I’m getting there Chanyeol,” Baekhyun said, the morose tipping into his tone like blue dye dripping into water. “I need time.”
The taller nodded understandingly. “Okay. You know I love you, right?”
No response, but Chanyeol could see the answer in Baekhyun’s face.
He pushed a smile onto his face, mostly for the other’s benefit. “Let’s go pick out some new toys, shall we?”
~
“Russian imported,” Zhang Yixing explained—a cigarette characteristically situated between his teeth—to Baekhyun, who stood beside a table in the shed down by the docks. The Chinese man leaned against a freshly opened crate packed with firearms, looking tired and dopey as ever. Baekhyun was examining an array of ominous-looking pistols laid out beside each other, the best of their kinds.
He’d picked up one in particular, and now he began weighing it in his hands, then he stepped back and lifted it up to his eye as he aimed no where in particular.
“So you’re a specialist in guns now?” Chanyeol asked Yixing from his spot beside Baekhyun.
The Chinese shrugged. “You pick up a few things here and there.”
“Too heavy,” Baekhyun said, setting it back down.
Yixing eyed them both, “Have you moved into that fancy new place in Dongdaemun yet?”
“I wouldn’t call it fancy,” Chanyeol amended.
Baekhyun moved to the next handgun, a slightly smaller one. “Compact pistol?”
“22 caliber.”
He armed himself with this one, and then put it back down. Onto the next, taking it into hand and examining the body. He hoisted it to his eye, his stance faultless and sinister—if Chanyeol had a gun pointed at him, which he’d had, he definitely wouldn’t want that face behind the barrel. Not just because Baekhyun was scary when he was angry, but because he was beautiful while doing it.
He lowered the gun and scrutinized it in his hands. “9 millimeter?”
“Yes.”
“How many rounds?”
“Sixteen.”
He reached out to the tabletop, dipping his hand into a box of bullets that he began shuffling into the gun. “It’ll do.”
Zhang Yixing scuffed his toe against the cement floor, head lolling. “Is there anything special you’ll be using this gun for?”
Like killing his father? thought Chanyeol.
“You’re not paid to ask questions, Captain,” Baekhyun seethed back. He then turned to Chanyeol. “Let’s go.”
Back in the Camaro, Baekhyun’s high-strung nervousness seeped out of him, his fingers tight around the wheel. “I have a bad feeling about Zhang Yixing.”
Chanyeol looked his way. “You felt that too?”
“You mean the presence of a lying bastard?”
“I would have put it a little more softly…”
“Don’t,” Baekhyun said, sure of himself. “We don’t tolerate liars. Whatever it is we’ll sort it out after I take care of my father.” He glanced to Chanyeol and took in his uneasy expression, which he responded to with, “That is not up for discussion.”
“I know,” Chanyeol said as they halted at a red light, and he reached out and slipped one of Baekhyun’s hands away from the steering wheel to hold for himself. “It’s not your father I’m in love with.”
The smaller’s eyes flickered to Chanyeol again, and for a moment the latter saw something new and interesting in Baekhyun’s eyes: a mix of sorrow, of…longing?
Desire?
The light turned green and Baekhyun tore his eyes away from Chanyeol and back to the road. As they skimmed down Seoul’s lively neon night streets, then turning down more uncrowded avenues, Baekhyun’s hand in Chanyeol’s tensed.
“Chan?”
“Hm?”
“Remember the day Kim Iljon was killed?”
“Yes?”
“And we were attacked by men from Shanghai?”
“After being followed by them in the…car?” Chanyeol turned in his seat to look out the back window and his stomach immediately unsettled. “Are we being followed?”
“Do you think the Camaro is being tracked?”
Chanyeol turned back around and his fingers curled to his gun. “They could just be following us, not the car.”
“We’ll find out.”
Suddenly and without warning Baekhyun swerved into the turning lane and off to another street, and then a few meters down he veered into the mouth of a backstreet and slammed the car into park.
“Jesus, Baekhyun!” Chanyeol exclaimed, but he didn’t have time to whine about the jolting stop because Baekhyun had already unbuckled and hustled out of the car, skidding down the darkened side street. “Dammit,” he cursed as he hurried after.
They flew on quick feet under the darkening sky, night falling upon them as Baekhyun led them on a winding, weaving path through the darker allies. Chanyeol caught on the reason: no one would have been able to follow them from the head of the street, and no one could find them now unless either Baekhyun or Chanyeol was tagged.
“No more Camaro?” Chanyeol puffed as he jogged beside Baekhyun.
“From the sixties?” The elder glanced around one corner before whisking them out and onto a final backstreet where they began heading back to another glittering and bustling thruway. “Too conspicuous.”
They burst out onto a random main street again, the scents of nearby restaurants infiltrating their nostrils and flaunting the ideals of a hot meal.
Chanyeol felt the faint brush of Baekhyun’s fingers against his clothed elbow, and then he discreetly began walking beside him down the sidewalk, passing by handfuls of eating parlors—
“In here.” Baekhyun tugged on the elbow of his jacket again into a sidewalk Japanese noodle bar and they were slammed with all sorts of exotic smells and the dampness of heavy steam in the air. The place was relatively empty minus a pair of cooks and a lone customer at the opposite end of the short bar.
The two sat down with tense spines and rigid backs, and though menus appeared in front of them neither one took much interest in them.
“What would the boys from Shanghai want now?” Chanyeol muttered to Baekhyun, absently fiddling with the corner of the menu as they waited for something to happen—or not. It would be nicer if not.
“Everything going in and out of the port in Incheon was in alliance with the Shanghai mafia,” Baekhyun said quietly barely above the simmering of meat in a skillet. “Kim Iljon and Lee Beomnam were both weasels in the business. Kim was killed by the Chinese though. He must’ve realized that he could have made more money if he cut ties with Shanghai, like I did. They killed him for that. Maybe they’re coming for me for the same reason?”
Chanyeol frowned. “But they tried to kill you months ago, too. They followed us in the very same car: there are still dents from the bullet holes.”
The smaller’s brows knit in concentration. “You’re right. When I came in to this position…why would they have wanted to assassinate me? I know I have a reputation, but before now I wasn’t well known or involved with my father’s business much. They must’ve tried to go at me because of another reason…because I’m my father’s son? Because I’m the heir to inherit the entire Seoul mafia? But that wouldn’t have been of their concern at the time. Lee Beomnam had once said that discussion of my involvement had been in the works for a while: he said that the day Kim was killed. He must have tipped the Shanghai mafia off, told them of my reputation for being a stick in the mud. So they tried to kill me too before I could even get my hands dirty.” He rambled on, almost seemingly entranced by his own deep thought and speaking to himself. “It didn’t work. I took the position, cut off ties with Shanghai, then killed Lee because I suspected he was a rat - which he was - and so I could make more money controlling the port. But that means…”
“Yixing would probably be in on it too,” Chanyeol supplied with pursed lips. The corner of the menu was just about torn to shreds by now. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Baekhyun, his pretty face, and then said, “That sounds like you, you know. Stirring up trouble. Manipulating the system.”
“One thing you learn from a psychopathic mother is that conformity is all in your imagination.” He sat up suddenly and lowered his chin. “Behind us.”
Around them there was a grave shuffling of feet, two pairs maybe, and a casual grunt. Beside Chanyeol two stools were pulled out and scraped against the linoleum floor and an accented voice ordered a bottle of soju.
Chanyeol and Baekhyun exchanged a look as the drink came, and they both heard the pop and snap of the top coming off. On the other side of the bar the one strange passerby yawned audibly and scuffled out, leaving only a few crinkled won in his wake…and also the tendrils of violent freedom.
Baekhyun was only looking at Chanyeol, but the taller could see that the smaller was watching the men behind him out of the corner of his vision. Oh, Baekhyun had such nice eyes—
“Chanyeol!”
The said man whipped around on his stool and dodged to the side as that soju bottle swung through the air where Chanyeol’s head had just been and smashed onto the bamboo counter. The pieces ricocheted back and he felt a sharp slice across the side of his scalp, ruffling his hair.
The space exploded into havoc just after that. The stranger not currently occupied with Chanyeol’s flying fists leapt from his seat and pulled a gun, the silenced bullet that snapped out of the barrel grooming the air beside Baekhyun’s head. The man charged past the other two sparring men and Baekhyun whipped out his own new pistol—
And that’s when the realization came to him.
The single pause was enough time to allow the second hitman to careen into him, wrapping Baekhyun instantly into a headlock and they both teetered backwards. But before the man—who reeked of cigarette smoke, seaweed, and ash—could drag his gun out of the position it was pinned in between his and Baekhyun’s body, the smaller reached back and fought blindly with his hand for control over the pistol, and after twisting his wrist to turn the barrel around he jabbed his hand against the other’s and the trigger went off.
The hold around his throat loosened and disappeared, the stranger gangster sliding to the floor.
Chanyeol was just about finished himself: after engaging in snake-like combat with the first Chinese mobster he finally delivered a harsh enough blow that earned him time to reach out, grab the severed neck of the smashed soju bottle, and whip back around to ram it into the man’s stomach. And again. And again. And again.
The glass fell from his hands and shattered on the floor beside the lifeless corpse of the man it had just been used to kill, and he heaved breathlessly, trying to hone back his strength. In his hand, the hot stickiness of blood felt unusually warm, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
Chanyeol turned quickly to make sure Baekhyun was still there—which he was, much to his heart’s relief—but then they both noticed the terrified, disbelieving, teary stare of the cooks behind the counter, who both trembled with shock.
Baekhyun stalked behind the kitchen and the men recoiled away, but he just turned to the backdoor, his hand on the handle.
“Chanyeol.”
His name itself was a command and the taller understood it, though it did churn his stomach a bit. Not enough though to stop him from following orders though.
Leave no witnesses.
When Chanyeol returned to the back ally behind the restaurant, wiping his hands on a stray kitchen towel, he was met with the sight of Baekhyun throwing the new pistol to the ground and kicking it aside almost tantrum like, for he looked almost overflowing with desperation and fury.
“It was in the gun,” he snapped. “Yixing put trackers on the guns he offered me.” He paused to look Chanyeol’s direction, his eyes chilling and cold. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s just a few scratches.”
Baekhyun stepped forward, and even though he wore a face that said “I’m going to kill you” his touch was unbelievably gentle when he reached out and ran a finger over the side of Chanyeol’s head just under the new gash there, the skin under his fingers detonating with pleasant tingles
Chanyeol hissed in pain though, and when he did Baekhyun whisked himself away and said, “We’re going to your house. The safe house. It’s not far from here.”
“Baekhyun wait—”
“The Shanghai men are probably watching our place. And my father is too.”
“Baekhyun—” Chanyeol grunted and forced himself to leap forward, snatching one of the smaller’s hands. “You’re out of control, Baek. Just slow down for a minute—”
Just as he caught Baekhyun’s wrist the latter male spun backwards and ripped his hand out of the other’s wildly, distraught. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, a tangible ode to the violent night, but Chanyeol believed Baekhyun’s eyes looked more glistening than usual, threatening with…tears.
As if meaning to patch up his short-tempered outburst, Baekhyun grabbed Chanyeol’s hand, squeezing tightly with that iron grip of his, and twisted away, back onto the street.
“We’re going home,” he whispered, his voice wafting back to Chanyeol’s ears through the weave of the other voices around them, and it was clear as a bell.
Being in love with a mafia boss’ son was hard.
~
“Baekhyun, you’re shaking.”
“No I’m not.”
“I can feel it.”
They had finally made it back to Chanyeol’s former home in Yongsan-gu after tedious lengths of keeping to the shadows and slinking along as inconspicuously as possible. The house was dark and dusty after just under two weeks of being away, and though it was still home to Chanyeol, it was awfully strange stepping into only a shell of a house, the magic of its inhabitants dissipated and hiding in the shadowed corners.
Baekhyun was stiff as he sat Chanyeol down on the bed in their previous bedroom and tended to his wounded scalp. His thin fingers worked like elegant spider limbs sewing up the pain in Chanyeol’s head: soft and immaculate.
But his hands were trembling and Chanyeol could see it out of the corner of his view, but also on the hairs of his head.
“I’m really okay, Baekhyun,” he said, wanting to hug him for assurance.
“No you’re not.”
“It’s just a cut.”
He felt the touch of Baekhyun’s hands disappear, the cool healing ointments already applied but the pleasure of the stroking hands emptying. If the wound looked as bad as it felt it would probably leave a scar.
But he didn’t care about that now—he turned on the bed and watched as the smaller slowly sat down at the edge looking traumatized, though Chanyeol couldn’t imagine why so. Baekhyun had killed people before. Nothing was different now…right?
Chanyeol scooted off the bed and kneeled before Baekhyun’s hunched figure, eyes wide with concern.
“Hey,” he said softly, patting the other’s knee. “It’s okay. I’m not hurt.”
“You are,” Baekhyun whispered back as he wrapped one arm around his midsection and rested his other elbow over it, hiding his face in his hand.
Chanyeol had had worse cuts though, much worse and Baekhyun knew that.
Silence filtered between them, worried and fearful. But after a minute there was a tiny little sniff, and then Baekhyun’s face peeked out between his fingers, cheeks red, lips trembling.
Baekhyun was crying.
“I don’t want you to be hurt,” he bleated, still looking away. “I don’t want you to die.”
Chanyeol’s heart rate skyrocketed and his chest clenched painfully, whirring and pounding with distress and fascination both. He sat up on his knees and pressed himself against Baekhyun’s pinched together thighs, and with his hands he reached out and coaxed the smaller’s wrists out away from his face.
His words choked up his throat. Baekhyun was beautiful when he cried too.
“I’m not dying,” Chanyeol whispered back.
Baekhyun blew up with emotion then, voice flowering into a scream. “You could be!” His tone broke with a sob, eyes creasing with unshed tears, and he covered his mouth behind his palm. “My father wants to kill you.”
“Baekhyun—”
“He tried to kill you, Chanyeol! I will not allow that! I don’t care if the whole world goes to hell but not you. Not you Chanyeol.” The tears spilled over his eyes, his beautiful, sad puppy eyes that Chanyeol loved so much. The taller took Baekhyun’s hand in his and squeezed, willing his love to be felt, for he could not speak. Not when he was biting back his own tears at the sight of Baekhyun’s crying face.
The latter quickly unraveled, hands flailing and sobs overtaking him uncontrollably.
“I ne-never ha-had a m-mother. M-My fa-father ne-never loved m-me,” he cried. “I grew u-up try-trying to understand l-love. I g-grew up trying t-to figure out wh-why my m-mom never wanted to see me. Wh-Why she ne-never wanted to he-hear me si-sing in the school c-concerts or come to the school to wa-watch me learn like other m-mothers did. All the o-other kids came back to school a-after th-the holidays with all sorts of st-stories, and I-I began t-to wonder i-if i-i-it was weird that I sp-spent C-Christmas alone in my r-r-room, or th-the n-new year celebrations drawing p-p-pictures i-in th-the dark of my dad in a superhero c-c-cape shooting people. D-Do y-you have any i-i-idea what it’s l-l-like s-sitting i-in a classroom and feel like you’re i-in a courtroom, r-r-ready to be sentenced by the g-gavel? I-I-I spent my years i-in m-m-middle school i-imagining I-I-I was i-i-in some s-spaceship s-s-surrounded by monsters an-an-and aliens—and then the day came when I realized that I was the monster.”
He broke out into another round of wails and Chanyeol couldn’t take it anymore. He hoisted himself onto the bed and pulled Baekhyun into his arms, heart hammering wildly. He felt every convulsion of the smaller’s little frame and every tear wetted his shirt, but he didn’t care.
“Who do you think you are?” Baekhyun wept. “Trying to love someone like me?” Chanyeol felt little fists pushing against him, and then winding into and tugging his shirt.
Chanyeol shivered and held Baekhyun closer. “There’s no one else I would rather love.”
He heard Baekhyun scoff, and then before he knew it there were lips against his, pressing passionately as Baekhyun’s fingers slid around his shoulders and neck, trembling violently. The kiss was wet, perhaps due partially to his thick tears streaking down his face.
After a moment Baekhyun pulled away again and hid his face in Chanyeol’s shoulder. “I’ve never been loved before,” he hiccupped. “You make me feel so good, even though you have control over and understanding of the one piece of me I never ever could compose or figure out.” He pressed himself closer to Chanyeol’s body and wept, “My heart.”
“Oh, Baekhyun…”
“I’m always in control! I know how to control! I know how to manipulate! But I never ever could control my own heart, and then you just came in and took it over. What the fuck was that, Chanyeol? How did you do that?”
Chanyeol dipped his head, fighting tears. “Baekhyun…”
“I was afraid of you at first. Almost as afraid as I was of my mother. Because you controlled something of mine, something intimate and special and confusing.” His arms tightened around the taller and he nuzzled in closer. “But then I realized that you weren’t going to hurt me. I realized that you were the only safety net in my life, that you were my only home, my only safe place.” His voice broke down again and he cried, “And my father wants to take you away from me! He wants to kill you! How dare he?”
Chanyeol had begun to pet the other’s head, and he achingly placed kisses all over Baekhyun’s hair and shoulder, his throat pinching painfully. “It’s o-okay,” he whimpered against Baekhyun’s body. “I’m here. I’m here now.” Another kiss. “It’s okay.”
Trembling, Baekhyun leaned away and looked into Chanyeol’s eyes, his face blotchy and teary but still breathtaking. “I’ve never loved anyone before,” he whispered. “But I think it feels like this. I…I…” He shuddered, breaths quickening, and Chanyeol instinctively began stroking his neck to soothe him.
“Breathe. It’s okay.”
“I…Chanyeol I…” The words built up in his mouth, coagulating on his tongue ready to spill— “I love you.”
A tear slipped past Chanyeol’s barrier, his chest quivering. “Oh my god Baekhyun, I love you too.”
“I want you to make love to me Chanyeol.” Baekhyun then said, the words slipping past his lips. Chanyeol froze, a gasp whizzing down his throat. Baekhyun took the taller’s hand and placed it on his own chest and Chanyeol could feel the violent thumping of his heart. “I want it to be you. It has to be you. I want you to take me places I’ve never seen. I want to love you Chanyeol. I don’t know how. I need you.”
Much to Chanyeol’s dismay, the smaller released his hand and his own fingers began a slinky trail down his front, feeling himself and allowing Chanyeol to watch as he slid his hands over the folds of his own shirt, down to the clasp of his pants. The tips of Baekhyun’s fingers brushed down against his crotch and the boy immediately flushed a deeper pink than he already was.
“Wait Baekhyun—”
“Please,” he whispered, staring longingly into Chanyeol’s eyes: the neediness was unmistakable then, and his obvious craving to be close to the other correlated with the shrinking space between them as Baekhyun leaned up onto his knees and took Chanyeol’s face in his hands. “Don’t you want me?”
“I want you,” Chanyeol whispered as he placed his hands over Baekhyun’s. “But I’m sorry, I don’t want you to think that I’m taking advantage of you.”
“But I love you,” Baekhyun choked, and the fear of rejection in his eyes stabbed Chanyeol’s chest. “I love y-you so much Chanyeol.” Suggestively he pushed his hips forward, the obvious intention in his lower half conflicting with the softness of his tone. “I w-want to do this.”
“I-I do too,” Chanyeol muttered, experimentally sliding his hands up Baekhyun’s thigh. “But…”
“But what?”
Temptation was a beast. Chanyeol’s eyes leered wantonly into Baekhyun’s, and he wanted to take him—oh, did he want to. He wanted to push him into the covers and cover his body, fill him and make him his.
What was stopping him?
Chanyeol’s reserves broke.
“But nothing,” he gasped as he leaned up to Baekhyun’s body and sealed their lips, falling dangerously into his desires. This was it, he thought. No turning back now. He wrapped his hands around the backs of the smaller’s slim, rounded thighs and slid him up onto his lap, cradling his rear with his large palms protectively and rolling his tongue into Baekhyun’s mouth.
It appeared the smaller was still a bit distressed, though, as he began trying unclothe himself and ended up fumbling, frustrated, with the zipper and buttons of his pants.
Chanyeol seized his hands and moaned into his mouth, “Relax. Leave it to me.”
There was a brief hesitation on Baekhyun’s part and the taller sensed it: let Chanyeol take control? Or fight back like he always had done before? Baekhyun’s teeth chattered with adrenaline, but eventually he nodded, relaxing his spread legs over Chanyeol’s hips. Their lips connected again and their hot breaths intermingled heavily, loudly, desperately. The desire churned between them and electrified their blood so every touch sent shocks down the other’s spine, heat buzzing with each brush of skin.
Chanyeol spread his hands over the berth of Baekhyun’s back and carefully lowered him onto his back while pressing himself ever closer to his front—with the change in position the most delicious gasp slipped out of Baekhyun’s mouth and sent all of Chanyeol’s blood from his head to down below.
“Oh, Baekhyun…”
His words disappeared behind the smaller’s lips where they churned with Baekhyun’s whisper of,
“Ch-Chanyeol…”
Chanyeol moaned his ode to desire, “I want to take you somewhere. I want to waste your time into oblivion, Baekhyun.”
Though the taller could have stayed there forever between Baekhyun’s legs just kissing him, his need to explore more of the other’s body and pacify his lover’s racing heart won over. Reluctantly, but also very excitedly Chanyeol moved away from Baekhyun’s lips, mouthing across his face and delicate features, wetting his skin as if he was about to watercolor him like a canvas. Across his cheek, at the corner of his eye, his temple, his ear. Chanyeol lapped at the boy’s lobe and his tongue brushed against the apparent pressure point just behind Baekhyun’s ear, to which the other quivered and twisted his fingers into Chanyeol’s shirt.
His hands were an elated reminder and the taller sat up only to rip his shirt off and toss it across the room, then descended back down to assault Baekhyun’s neck with as much grace and gentility as a parent would use to a child.
Chanyeol ran his hands up from Baekhyun’s waist, over his ribs and coaxed his arms up from his armpits as he nibbled under his chin and began drawing kisses down his throat and the beautiful creamy skin found there.
“Mark me,” Baekhyun bade as he wound his fingers in Chanyeol’s hair and pulled his head down wantonly. Chanyeol stretched up and placed a kiss on his lips as if to say, “I am darling”, before he dipped back down and began licking and sucking a path all the way down to Baekhyun’s collarbone from his uvula.
“So beautiful,” he groaned, running his slick tongue into the deep crevice above Baekhyun’s clavicle and biting there, earning him a sensitive whimper from Baekhyun and a future love bite.
As Chanyeol’s hands began to work at the zipper of Baekhyun’s skinnies he felt the warm tingle of the smaller’s touch on his bare stomach, tracing his body’s outline up to his wide shoulders, where he felt a series of kisses at his sternum.
“I love you,” the boy beneath him hummed, lifting his hips as Chanyeol began shimmying off his pants. Once they’d been kicked off and Chanyeol began climbing back up his legs the taller started a new trail of kisses up from his knees, dropping his warm lips up the silkiness of Baekhyun’s inner thigh.
“I love you too,” he groaned back between each kiss, eyes hooking onto the smaller’s clothed penis, already semi-hard through the thin fabric damp with sweat. His hand slithered up and he rubbed his palm over the bulge and Baekhyun hiccupped, his hands flying down and meeting Chanyeol’s at his crotch.
“Mngh,” he whimpered submissively, his own fingers tracing the outline of his dick.
But Baekhyun suddenly sat up then, forcing Chanyeol away from his pelvis. Chanyeol was about to check if he was okay, or perhaps unsure with what was going on, but instead he was gifted with a somewhat timid, but very pleasurable sight. Baekhyun’s face had melted into a tender and silently youthful expression: still glittering with tears, gentle, puppy-ish and bearing weakness, but confident in its own way. His hands were laid on his belly, lifting his shirt up in an unintentionally teasing way, exposing more of the milky expanse of his unclothed body—but he moved his hands then to Chanyeol’s shoulders as he crawled over the taller’s legs and began undoing Chanyeol’s pants instead.
They disappeared quickly alongside his boxers, and Baekhyun bent down briefly to steal a docile kiss on Chanyeol’s erect cock, sending a brutal shiver up the taller’s spine.
Fuck, he thought. Who knew Baekhyun could be so sensitive and submissive in bed?
It unlocked a whole new world of possible fantasies for future reference in Chanyeol’s mind, aware that now was not the time to be crafty. Baekhyun was proving his trust in Chanyeol, and he was in need of gentle, passionate loving, not a rollercoaster ride.
With that in mind his disallowed Baekhyun to take his cock into his mouth and instead flipped their positions again, hands sliding the hem of the smaller’s shirt over his head before he pinned him down, Baekhyun’s hands above his head and his whole body spread out beneath Chanyeol.
“Oh look at you,” Chanyeol crooned as he slipped Baekhyun’s underwear off his body and dropped them to the side. With gentle hands he coaxed the smaller’s thighs further apart, spreading them wide and showcasing his entrance and freed cock. He stroked the undersides of Baekhyun’s thighs and the smaller squirmed beneath him, whimpering erotically.
Chanyeol ended up lathering his erection with lube, then coating and testing Baekhyun’s entrance with a single finger, but as it turned out that was an incredibly tender spot for the boy as he convulsed and curled over, knees knocking as if a switch had been slipped. It took a few moments for Chanyeol to relax him and unfurl him back out.
It was time. Chanyeol descended upon his lover and steadied himself with his elbows above Baekhyun’s shoulders, swooping down and capturing Baekhyun’s sweaty lips in a heavy, passionate kiss. Down below he rubbed his cock against Baekhyun’s and began rolling his hips, intensifying the hardening painful pleasure.
“Chanyeol!” Baekhyun shrieked, writhing with arousal and need. “P-Please!”
With one last kiss to ready Baekhyun, he lowered his hips and slowly slid his length in.
The immediate heat of being inside Baekhyun’s body was overwhelming and extraordinary, but it was nowhere near the pleasure Baekhyun’s reactions induced. The boy tensed and let out an unrestrained string of mewls and gasps the deeper Chanyeol pushed, head thrown back.
The slow pace allowed Chanyeol to massage the boy’s prostate shallowly, causing the other to lurch and claw at the taller’s shoulders, already over-stimulated.
“Ngh…hnn…ahm…Ch-Chanyeol…”
Chanyeol pushed all the way back in, reveling in each millimeter, leaned forward and kissed Baekhyun’s mouth to comfort him, and then grabbed the undersides of Baekhyun’s knees and folded them over. “I’ve got you,” he whispered and with another loving kiss, he pulled himself out and slammed back in. Baekhyun screamed and his stomach clenched, but his body reeled with pleasure. Chanyeol did it again and again at varying intervals, his own body tingling with delight. Their lovemaking progressed like this, albeit a bit softer, with long, full thrusts that filled Baekhyun to the brim and rode up his position on the bed, then emptied him nearly completely, the slow piston-ing so satisfying that they both trembled with goosebumps.
Baekhyun gasped each time, almost feminine-like, and each whimper was the most appetizing music to Chanyeol’s ears. The smaller purred Chanyeol’s name, arms wrenching and mangling with fluster and pleasure, fingers teasing the bed sheets.
And then Chanyeol felt Baekhyun’s rim relax around his member, and could feel Baekhyun’s hips lifting to meet each one of his thrusts eagerly, and Baekhyun’s delectable gasp of, “Faster”.
Chanyeol growled in response, pushing Baekhyun’s legs further apart and tightening his hold before quickening his pace, rushing his member into the sticky breadth of his hole. The thrusts became almost frantic, the fear and frustration from the last week building up in Chanyeol’s arousal, taken out through his dire love for the man under him, who was obediently and gracefully taking each advance, each push with excited whimpers.
“Yes, yes, yes—” Baekhyun whined, hands scrambling to find purchase on the smoothness of Chanyeol’s back. Each slap of their bodies connecting echoed around them, sweat collecting on Chanyeol’s brow, and Baekhyun’s back arched painfully, wildly, happily. As he did so his belly and chest became even more exposed and Chanyeol took the opportunity to wring his arm around the underside of Baekhyun’s arced spine and swing his tongue around one of Baekhyun’s perky nipples. The smaller let out a cry of arousal and of his sweet, lewd appetite, trembling as Chanyeol continued to make love to him while exploring the tundra of his skin, across his flat chest and to his second nub.
“You’re so beautiful,” Chanyeol panted as he began to feel Baekhyun’s belly clench and his back tense. “I love you so much.”
His thrusts deepened, dangerously pushing both of their bodies to the limit. Chanyeol loved the feeling of the tip of his member pushing Baekhyun’s velvety walls and colliding with the soft insides of his beautiful body, his high escalating quickly. Baekhyun cried out as he came beneath Chanyeol with a shudder and scream, the opaque fluid dashing between their stomachs…
But Chanyeol wasn’t quite done yet. He felt his stomach coil, wound tight like a spring ready to snap, and he gave one last thrust, impossibly deep, his hips flesh up against Baekhyun’s and the heat around his cock suffocating and then the utter euphoria hit and he burst.
Chanyeol let out a noise even he didn’t know he was capable of making: somewhere between a groan, a growl, and a whine his orgasm lasted, his whole body electric and humming with life. He felt Baekhyun’s soft hands creep around his midsection and pull him down against his own sweaty, heaving, wet chest, their bodies fitting together perfectly like it was just meant to be, like this moment was already written in the history of the universe doing everything absolutely right.
He rode it out carefully for the last few seconds and then finally stopped, dropping his forehead onto Baekhyun’s chest, still fighting for breath.
It had happened.
Making love to Baekhyun, he decided then, was the greatest feat, the utmost pinnacle of bliss that could ever exist. It was amazing.
When Chanyeol looked up to see Baekhyun’s face he could have fainted then and there. The boy’s lips were parted in a way that looked as if he was still sensing the high of his own orgasm, and his hair was went and springy with sweat, dangling in his eyes. His glistening face was full of so much love, so much adoration, and the submissiveness just put Chanyeol over the edge.
And then the most beautiful thing happened.
Baekhyun smiled.
He really smiled.
His lips pulled taut and cheekbones rose, and in a moment his entire array of blinding white teeth were showcased within the most glorious smile Chanyeol had ever seen. Baekhyun’s smile was so big it was almost rectangular, and his eyes even creased, turning into thin crescents. An eye-smile. It was the most adorable thing Chanyeol had ever seen.
“B-Baekhyun,” he breathed, gently pushing the bangs out of the other’s eyes as Baekhyun did the same for him, tucking his hair behind his ear. “You’re smiling.”
Baekhyun let out a half-sob and half-giggle, his shoulders shaking, but Chanyeol couldn’t tell yet if it was because he was crying or laughing.
“Y-Yeah. Haven’t done that in a while.”
“God I love you,” Chanyeol gasped, taking Baekhyun’s lips once again. “I love you I love you I love you.”
Another giggle-cry. “I love you too.”
The smaller combed Chanyeol’s hair back as the taller pulled out of him and then laid beside him, wrapping himself around and nuzzling into Baekhyun. But then he felt Baekhyun’s body quiver and he lifted his head, his heart aching at the sight of more tears.
He didn’t question them though. He just wiped them with his thumb.
“You’re so good to me,” Baekhyun whispered. “I can’t ever let you leave me, you know.”
“Don’t worry. I’m already pledged to you and you only.”
“Consider myself pledged to you.”
Chanyeol’s breath hitched. “Is that a proposal?”
“You proposed to me first. Remember?”
The taller beamed and tightened his hug around Baekhyun’s waist. “Hm. I guess I did.”
~
Baekhyun’s father’s masquerade party had crept up on the two of them quicker than either expected. The next night they dressed themselves up and made for the gala, which took place in a large, dramatic venue hall that vaguely looked like it could have come from the 1800s but on steroids.
It was clear though who stole the show, and the smiles ran away from the party partakers’ faces and the whole room seemed to have been displaced by their presence. All eyes turned to the entrance where Park Chanyeol strode in with Byun Baekhyun on his arm.
Equal: the two of them.
Perhaps it even could have been noticed by the other guests that it looked almost as if the supposed “guard” was the one toting Baekhyun around, but those thoughts were dashed away when any one of them witnessed the smaller whispering in Chanyeol’s ear and then leading him in any one direction. It was almost a scandalous sight: seeing the mafia boss’ son clink glasses and drink amicably with a mere serviceman was unheard of. What had this random Park man done to deserve the attention of the most despicable and feared gang man in Seoul?
If only they knew.
The ripple effects from the previous night’s indulgences had taken a fierce hold in their lives, particularly in Baekhyun. Chanyeol was shocked the following morning to find Baekhyun sitting beside him reading his book, Chanyeol’s head in his lap, and breakfast already prepared. Baekhyun had become unbelievably clingy: throughout the day he never released from Chanyeol’s side, and his nearness was never without affectionate pats, touches, hugs, or kisses. Baekhyun groomed Chanyeol’s hair, found frequent refuge in Chanyeol’s arms, and continually let him know how much he loved him. And Chanyeol made sure to return the love in full.
“They’re all watching,” Chanyeol whispered to Baekhyun once they’d first entered, after their names had been announced to the crowd and all heads had turned to gossip. Tonight they were both adorned in pristine suits with long tails and large cuffs. An elaborate mask decorated the top half of Baekhyun’s face, and likewise an albino one curved over one side of Chanyeol’s, exposing only one eye, one half of his lips, and ending just below the fresh scar on his head. One could say that they were breathtaking in their subtlety, in their rich simplicity. This was when expensive clothing paid off if only to make a social statement. Baekhyun’s arm looped around Chanyeol’s tightened and he lifted his chin.
“Let them. Let them wonder over our affair, let them lust over our attention. They are of no consequence.”
He simply radiated with love despite the harsh words. Chanyeol hummed.
“How charming.”
Immediately they were swarmed by partygoers barely recognizable behind their façades not even ten steps forward.
“Byun Baekhyun!” They all cried, bowing and shoving their hands forward for victorious shakes over the others. The men—and some women too—passed wary glances in Chanyeol’s direction too, albeit without much intention.
The anxiety in Chanyeol’s chest began to increase with all those hands waiting to be shaken, but Baekhyun made absolutely no indication that he had any intention of taking their offerings. He just stood there starting at them, uninterested.
So Chanyeol shook their hands.
It was clear in the faces of those men and women that their immediate judgments of Chanyeol’s character were altered, their eyes shining as if he’d turned into a glorious deity before their eyes. Chanyeol felt Baekhyun’s pleased pat on his arm.
“A-And you are…?” they asked eagerly.
“Park Chanyeol. Mister Byun Baekhyun’s associate.”
“Associate,” they echoed.
“Let’s go get drinks,” Chanyeol heard Baekhyun whisper against his shoulder, tugging him in the direction of the bar, completely bypassing the other men there who watched with gaping mouths.
“Not to be rude,” Chanyeol tossed behind him to the observers, his own cheeky smirk curling his lips up despite the ominous air. On their way to order drinks Chanyeol mumbled,
“I know you’re not fond of those guys but I don’t think you want to make any more enemies at this point.”
Baekhyun simpered up at him.
“Does it matter? You handled it just fine. Besides, I can say whatever I want. A thousand enemies are not enough; a single enemy is. There is no such thing as a ‘harmless’ enemy.”
Chanyeol chuckled lowly, his voice reverberating back to him from behind his mask. “I love it when you talk in riddles like that.”
He happily pulled out a stool at the small bar within the venue and Baekhyun elegantly sat down with a sweep of his obsidian hair and a sultry cat-like look in Chanyeol’s direction. His cheeks were still a bit puffy from his match with crying last night, and his lips were still a bit swollen due to Chanyeol’s sculpting kisses.
No one would have known that Baekhyun really only drank grapefruit juice in carbonated water due to his ever-present alcohol intolerance, whereas Chanyeol downed a vodka tonic and tried to dilute the stress that came with their being at the party. They had yet to see Mr. B, Baekhyun’s father, who was the apparent star of the show tonight.
And, if all went Baekhyun’s way, a dead man walking.
As Chanyeol sat and watched lovingly as Baekhyun stirred his drink, admiring his still barely-visible love bites covered meticulously by Baekhyun’s make up, a voice vaulted over the rest and said,
“Well well, look who it is.”
Chanyeol’s head turned and through the blurred edges of his vision he saw Do Kyungsoo with a very unhappy looking Kim Jongin behind him, both of them recognizable but just barely through their masks.
It had been Jongin who’d spoken, glaring daggers in Chanyeol’s direction.
“Good evening Jongin, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol said politely, one of his hands floating habitually down to rest on Baekhyun’s thigh. They both very much enjoyed the touch now, and Baekhyun lifted his glass to sip in order to hide his smile.
Kyungsoo noticed the gesture naturally though, and he passed a knowing look to Chanyeol and a wink to Baekhyun.
“Glad to see you made it to the party,” Jongin said bitterly to the other tall man there. Chanyeol assumed he had found out about his framing of Kyungsoo.
Jongin’s date, however, seemed very exasperated with his boyfriend’s issues. “Calm down Jongin, don’t make a scene,” he said. “And grab me something to drink, and something for yourself too. You turn into a lover not a fighter when you’re drunk. Now let’s leave these two lovebirds alone.” He bowed his head knowingly towards Baekhyun. “Mister Byun Baekhyun.”
But before he left completely, he turned and added, “By the way, a man named Zhang Yixing is looking for you Baekhyun. He’s here somewhere. Thought I’d let you know,” and then he steered Jongin away.
Zhang Yixing. Both men sighed tiredly at the thought of confronting him.
“Glad to see they’re doing alright,” Chanyeol mused quietly, ignoring the mention of the Chinese man, though there was still a pinch of guilt in his gut knowing what sort of reputation he’d given Kyungsoo. At least the little man had Jongin to punch anyone in the face who gave him trouble.
But it was difficult to try to focus on anything other than Baekhyun. Chanyeol’s attention very quickly swerved back to his beautiful man sitting beside him, preened and poised, watching him back with just as much intensity.
“How are you feeling?” Chanyeol asked gently as their feet and ankles began playfully dancing and brushing against each other under the bar.
“About you? About the party?”
Chanyeol shrugged.
“Well I’m absolutely in love with you,” Baekhyun said slowly, his fingertips running along the rim of his glass. “But I would rather this party be over. It’s really annoying when everyone watches you.”
The taller pursed his lips and asked, “Are you still going to…”
Are you still going to kill your father? There was another one of Baekhyun’s silences. It was an affirmative.
Baekhyun leaned closer to Chanyeol and placed one of his delicate hands on his high shoulder, stroking his sleeve fondly as if comforting him, letting him know that it was okay, that Baekhyun knew what he was doing. It was strange how their relationship had come together: Baekhyun took charge socially and financially very prominently, but whenever he was alone with Chanyeol he suddenly became helpless and needy and playful, where Chanyeol’s inner Alpha-male senses were allowed to shine through. It was as perfect as it was functional.
Chanyeol’s fingers traced patterns on the tops of Baekhyun’s thighs as the smaller’s hands danced over his shoulder, and as their eyes met through their masks, honesty and trust gleaming behind dark eyeholes in the ceramic, Chanyeol couldn’t help but smile.
And then as Chanyeol was observing Baekhyun’s eyes he noticed a change: Baekhyun stiffened and his glare hardened, gaze distracted and pinned somewhere beyond Chanyeol’s shoulder. It didn’t take long for the taller to realize what Baekhyun was seeing:
His father, hidden behind a mask and sporting a jolly, sickly smile as he stole away from the group of men he had been talking to, most likely all of whom were gangsters. The mafia boss promised something about cigars, and then shook his head and began striding away towards a bank of closed doors to private rooms and offices.
“Baekhyun—” Chanyeol started, but it was no use. The smaller suddenly grabbed Chanyeol’s vodka in hand, took a swig, and then slipped off of his barstool—but not before his fingers twisted around a stray knife behind the bar counter and whisked it into his sleeve.
Mr. B disappeared behind one of the doors, and like an ominous tempest Baekhyun sloped through the faceless crowd after him. Chanyeol lept from the bar and shouldered past the bystanders—
“Chanyeol!”
He spun around and his face fell at the sight of his own father, striding toward him with a smile on his face. Not now, Chanyeol cried internally.
“My boy,” Mr. Park greeted once he was within speaking range, but the younger had already begun to inch away. “It’s been months since I’ve last seen you. How have you been? How is life with Mr. Byun Baekh—”
“I’m so sorry father!” Chanyeol gasped, bowing deeply as he stumbled away. He rarely was disrespectful to his father, but now wasn’t not the time. “I have to go! I’ll meet you later!”
Maybe drinking so heavily before this moment was not the best tactic in the world, thought Chanyeol as he staggered towards the private rooms where he’d last seen Baekhyun disappear to.
When he finally burst past one of the doors and into a small, dark room, the door swinging shut behind him, Baekhyun had already confronted his father.
The younger’s back faced Chanyeol, stoic and predatory. It seemed the knife had yet to make an appearance, still hidden in his coat, but he’d taken off his mask and it was clenched in his hand. The infamous Mr. B stood at the other end of the room where more boxes of wine bottles and liquors were stacked, and beside them were small stashed crates of cigars and the like.
“I knew I had a madwoman as a wife. Never once did I entertain the idea that you’d get that gene. A psycho.”
Mr. B’s eyes flickered to Chanyeol as he finished speaking, his brow stern and angered, but then Baekhyun was speaking and even though he was the father, he didn’t dare divert from Baekhyun for too long.
“—Then maybe you shouldn’t have fucked a head case,” Baekhyun hissed, his voice scarily calm. “Then we wouldn’t have run into this problem.”
“Your mother approached me. I would’ve had better taste personally.”
“You dare consider her a mother.”
“She raised you well enough, didn’t she?” said Mr. B with a shrug.
“You tell me,” Baekhyun replied, his words falling like atom bombs and sending tremors through the room and shivers down the spine. Baekhyun hadn’t been raised at all, not by any parent, Chanyeol knew: he’d just grown up alone. “Tell me father: are you proud of me? Are you proud of the person I am today? Are you proud knowing your blood is my veins?”
Mr. B didn’t answer. Baekhyun’s voice darkened threateningly.
“I’d like to know your answer.”
“Of course, son,” Mr. B replied a bit too casually. “You’re an impeccable businessman, thanks to my example.”
“Not because I’m a psycho?”
The storage room fell into a painful, stressful silence, with Mr. B’s eyes darting back and forth between the two younger men in front of him. Chanyeol had yet to move away from the door, frozen in place and smart enough to know not to approach Baekhyun now.
“You have her coldness,” Mr. B reflected. “And her stare. Do you still sleepwalk at night?”
Even Chanyeol could tell that his words were meant to maim. He glanced at Baekhyun, aware that this was a sensitive subject.
But Baekhyun didn’t even flinch. “Do you still fear homosexual people?”
“I did not raise my son queer,” Mr. B snapped. He pointed an accusatory finger in Chanyeol’s direction. “He is a distraction. He is benign. He won’t last.” He then waggled a finger between himself and his son. “This will. Our name will live on.”
His tone was almost begging—almost. But when Baekhyun just stood there mockingly, silently, it forced his father to gripe for his word as if he could sense his son’s intentions. Mr. B stepped forward, each pace taking him just a little closer to Baekhyun.
“Maybe I wasn’t there for you all the time—but I always provided, didn’t I? You didn’t grow up on the streets, did you? I am your only friend in this world.”
“You tried to kill Park Chanyeol.”
“For your own good.” He was now standing right in front of Baekhyun, a hand placed on the younger’s shoulder and abusive energy clashing between them, the most powerful father-and-son duo in all of South Korea at a standoff. “Come, son,” Mr. B said with an unhealthy smirk. He pushed a thick, dark stick into Baekhyun’s chest with his other hand. “Cigar?”
It happened so quickly Chanyeol almost didn’t see it: he only saw a glint of light off of the blade as it slid out of Baekhyun’s sleeve, and then the next moment the knife was in the middle of Mr. B’s chest up to the hilt, right in his heart. The man held an open-mouthed expression and his eyes wandered away from Baekhyun’s face, at least until the younger shook the handle and deepened the wound, the front of the mafia boss’ fancy shirt darkening with blood.
“No one tries to kill Park Chanyeol,” Baekhyun whispered into his father’s face. “No one takes Chanyeol from me. No one. Not even you.”
“B-Baekhyun…” the man stuttered, cigars falling from his grip. Chanyeol took a step forward but then suddenly felt sick—the image in front of him was too much. Baekhyun had a knife in his father’s heart because of Chanyeol—for Chanyeol. Chanyeol wired his fingers through his hair, his heart thumping wildly.
“Don’t worry,” Baekhyun seethed, blood seeping onto his skin. “Your business will stay in the family name. I’ll make sure of that.”
And then he released the man and the elder stumbled back, looking dazed and stupefied.
And then he fell.
Chanyeol would never forget the sound of the body hitting the floor, though in the next few years he would try and come fairly close.
But for the time being he only stared at Baekhyun’s back which was for the first time looking slouched and fatigued. Chanyeol inched forward, concern littering his brow.
“Baekhyun?”
The smaller turned then, his wallowing eyes straying in Chanyeol’s direction. But Baekhyun didn’t look particularly sad then—he looked almost relieved, ready to be taken into Chanyeol’s arms.
“He died with a mask on his face,” Baekhyun whispered. “No man who lives and dies like that should be mourned. He should only be pitied.” He looked down at his own black mask, the one he’d unceremoniously removed from his face in this room, and then he dropped it on the floor. It broke with a final snap.
“Let’s go home Chanyeol.”
But before either could move the sounds of the party outside the door enveloped the room and they both turned to see the door opening, and in stepped Chanyeol’s father mumbling, “Chanyeol are you in here—”
He stopped with his eyes glued to the body of his boss, his buddy, on the ground stained with blood, absolute shock riddling his face. Chanyeol sagged.
“Consigliere Park,” Baekhyun noted as he stepped up to Chanyeol’s side, fist clenched to hide the blood on his hands even though it was obvious who the operator of the situation was. “Let everyone know that Mr. B is dead, and his son Baekhyun is now the official head of the Seoul mafia, as proclaimed in his father’s will.”
“I…I…”
“You’ve seen his will, haven’t you?” Baekhyun asked. “You were his closest advisor.”
“Well…yes…”
“The Seoul mafia is mine now,” the smaller declared as he wrapped his arm back around Chanyeol’s. “Make sure everyone knows.”
Chanyeol felt a desperate tug on his sleeve, a silent plea for them to get going. He folded his hand over Baekhyun’s, his heart feeling as if there was a massive weight hanging at its bottom, and then began to lead the smaller towards the door. His father’s eyes remained pinned to the corpse on the ground, the man that was supposed to be invincible, unmatched, now so easily taken down. Who would have known how simple it was? No guards, no witnesses, no screams, no friends…just a man. A loveless and lonely man who died at the hands of his aggrieved son.
But as they passed Chanyeol’s father it was then that Chanyeol saw in his parent’s eyes that familiar look—the one he grew up seeing when his father came home from a particularly bad day at work. The look that always had Chanyeol’s mother approaching her husband with a sympathetic kiss on the cheek and a cup of tea, the look that let Chanyeol and his little sister know not to throw a fuss when his father came home. His sister…where was she now? She would be in high school, wouldn’t she?
Chanyeol suddenly slipped away from Baekhyun’s embrace and threw his arms around the other man there, startling him. He felt his father stumble back but the man didn’t push his son away.
“Ch…Chanyeol?” came his muffled voice
Chanyeol breathed in his father’s scent: he still smelled like the house Chanyeol had grown up in. He still smelled like mom’s tea and the dog’s shampoo. “Thank you for always being there for me. Thank you father.” He squeezed his eyes shut and held tighter, his heart aching with forgiveness for any wrong Chanyeol’s father may have caused him: there was no time for holding grudges. Chanyeol was lucky, even though his father was sometimes strict with him, had pushed him to do things he didn’t want to do, was often unpredictable, at least he made it to every one of Chanyeol’s birthday parties when he was little. At least the two of them could share a joke comfortably and with a good laugh. At least his father wished only the best for him. Chanyeol had always assumed that those things were obligatory parental things, but he was wrong. He had taken advantage of those things. Sure, Chanyeol hadn’t travelled anywhere outside of South Korea since joining the mafia, but if not for his father he wouldn’t have met Baekhyun.
He felt his father’s hands come to pat him on the back.
“Of course? You’re my son, Chanyeol…”
“I appreciate everything you and mom do for me,” Chanyeol went on. Oh, gosh, his mother. He hadn’t seen her in almost three years. “Let her know that I love her, please, father? Please tell her.”
“I’ll tell her Chanyeol…”
His father seemed a little uncomfortable with the hug, but even so, he soon hugged back. In the warmth of his father’s arms Chanyeol could sense the angst beating in his elder’s near chest—his father, the Seoul mafia consigliere, had just missed witnessing the murder of the most influential man in his life. Without a Mr. B there was no Mr. Park.
It quickly became apparent though that the hug had lasted its course and should have ended, but even so Chanyeol gave one final squeeze and released his parent from his embrace with a loving glance. His father’s eyes held worry, shock, care...and Chanyeol couldn’t have asked for anything more than that last one.
He took Baekhyun’s arm again then and led the two of them out the door without a look back, afraid that if he did he would cry.
~
The series of events that occurred after that happened in a flash.
Chanyeol only remembered wanting leaving the venue with Baekhyun in a hurry, but before they left Baekhyun excused himself to go to the restroom. Chanyeol remembered waiting outside the door and hearing his father take the stage and announce to the guests, all of whom were gang men involved in Baekhyun’s father’s—and now Baekhyun’s—mafia, that the boss was dead, and that everyone was to answer to Byun Baekhyun now.
There had been quite the confusion and much astoundment. In the sudden disturbance and commotion between guests Chanyeol thought that maye he had seen a man pass by that looked enough like Zhang Yixing to cause himself worry, but his head felt too full already to cope with the idea that maybe the Chinese captain was slinking around somewhere. The masks were all too disturbing. So he didn’t investigate.
That was his biggest mistake.
He realized this as soon as ten minutes later, Baekhyun still hadn’t come back. The panic had set in immediately. He searched the restroom, bustled around the other masked guests for a single sight of his beloved, but he saw nothing. Baekhyun would have been the only unmasked person in the building. He should have stuck out like a sore thumb. The only thing that was burning and sore was Chanyeol’s heart.
Baekhyun was missing.
Baekhyun was missing.
And it was his fault.
The guilt didn’t have time to set in though—Chanyeol felt the intense siege of his heart moments later when determination and anger overthrew the fear and demise. He felt his fists heating at his sides, his brow hardening.
Someone had taken Byun Baekhyun.
And it was his job to find him.
His searching, however, came to an abrupt halt five hours later. Chanyeol had made his way all across the most part of Seoul and found himself back at the warehouse apartment sweaty, angry, and nearly hopeless. He had called Kyungsoo and some of the dockmen in Incheon. There had been no sight of Baekhyun or Yixing.
Chanyeol grabbed a pitcher left on the kitchen counter and hurled it against the wall with a guttural scream as the glass exploded across the room.
“Dammit!” he cried. Just as he was ready to take out his gun and shoot something his phone rang with a jolt, sending a shock of surprise through Chanyeol’s body. He ransacked his own coat, scrambling between pockets with the burglar fingers of a desperate man. Once extracted from his person Chanyeol took a brief moment to notice that the number was blocked, which spiked his anxiety and anger even more, and then answered the call with a harsh,
“Where is he?”
Already in the background Chanyeol could hear the distant and sketchy tones of Chinese being spoken before the real voice came through:
“Mister Park Chanyeol.”
Zhang Yixing.
“You son of a bitch,” Chanyeol cursed.
“Let’s cut the juvenile banter and get to the point shall we?” Yixing said. “I have something you want. I am holding Byun Baekhyun hostage.” The Chinese man’s voice pittered out and over the line Chanyeol could hear some amount of shuffling and ruffling. “Look at all these pretty hickeys,” Yixing mused, then there was more rasping. “You really left your mark. He’s got a soft neck, I see the appeal.”
Chanyeol’s blood boiled. “Don’t touch him.”
“You know, Byun Baekhyun always seemed like such a fucking stone head that I never really thought about what he would be like physically—I never expected him to have such nice skin.”
“Don’t you dare touch him you—”
“I have no interest in sex. Not with him,” Yixing interrupted. Chanyeol didn’t even have the patience to feel offended. “I’d like to keep this as civilized as possible, Mister Park. Before I make my intentions clear I’ll explain myself.”
“Make it good,” Chanyeol growled, knuckles white with the sheer tension in his hands.
“My name is Zhang Yixing and I’m the head of the crime syndicate in Shanghai. Yes yes, I’m very young to run the mafia. But Mister Byun is also very young to have taken over the Seoul mafia.” In the distance of the phone call Chanyeol thought that maybe he heard some heavy breathing just faintly—Baekhyun’s. “How ceremonious and convenient it was that it was announced to the entirety of crime heads all in one room that the infamous Mister B was dead.. May he rot in hell.”
Something we can agree on, Chanyeol thought bitterly.
“I’m well aware that Mister Baekhyun is the new boss in these parts. However I’m afraid I cannot allow him to obtain that position. It’s too dangerous to have such a little tike in such a powerful place—that is why I am taking over Seoul.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to make this as clean as possible Mister Park,” Yixing said with a bite. “I’m not a villain, I’m a businessman. Before you try to go on and insult me I’m letting you know that none of this is personal. It’s purely financial, so—”
“Dammit tell me what the hell this is!”
Another sigh. “I’ve been trying to squeeze a surrender out of Byun Baekhyun for hours now…” Chanyeol felt his stomach drop. “But he’s a tight-lipped brat.”
“What have you done to him?” Chanyeol asked, his voice rising with tension and fear. “What have you done to hurt him?”
“It won’t matter after this,” he heard Yixing say, and in the background there was an audible snap of a revolver hammer clicking into place. Chanyeol whirled around and ran his fingers through his hair, stressed perspiration dripping down his forehead. “I’m going to kill Byun Baekhyun and take his mafia, and I had asked him if he had any last words. He only asked for this phone call.”
Chanyeol’s chest clenched with the most intense pain he’d ever felt, grief unmatched already taking a fierce hold in his heart. He couldn’t help the guffaw—almost a sob—escape his throat or the frightened tears that came to his eyes. “Oh my god.”
“Alright,” Yixing said. “I’m holding the phone to Mister Byun’s ear. You have three minutes.”
“B-B-Baekhyun?” Chanyeol stuttered.
“Hello Chanyeol.” His voice was weak—not tired, but raw. It sent chilling shivers down Chanyeol’s spine.
“Oh my god, where are you? Baekhyun where are you? Shit, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t there for you and I’m so sorry.” Chanyeol had already begun to whiz downstairs towards the garage where they kept the spare cars, keys fumbling in his fingers. “Where are you? Where are you I can still—”
“Thank you for being my partner.”
“Baekhyun don’t do this—” Chanyeol whimpered as he jammed the keys into one of the car doors, missing the lock with shaking hands.
“Thank you for loving me. Don’t think that you can just go love someone else while I’m gone.”
Chanyeol felt the hot tears sliding down his cheeks as he slipped into the car and turned it on, quickly rolling it out onto the street where he stalled. “No no no no no—”
“We didn’t outsmart everyone. Not Shanghai, not the police…”
Wait, the police?
As if on cue, right out front of the garage door the bright, flashing lights of police cars and their wailing sirens whizzed by, and then much to his dismay, parked just outside of the warehouse. He watched with teary eyes and an open mouth as the cars screeched to a halt and out of them flew handfuls of officers, all of whom were wearing bulletproof vests and had their hands on their holsters.
Oh my god.
“But don’t worry about me. I always win. In the end, I always win.”
Chanyeol didn’t have the heart to remind Baekhyun that there was probably a gun to his head.
Though now suspicious, Chanyeol stepped out of the vehicle and headed towards the police cars. He was gambling time to jump in the car and search for Baekhyun for snooping around an obvious crime scene, and though his heart tugged at him to go search for his love, his feet disobeyed.
“It’ll be a while until we’ll see each other again,” he heard Baekhyun say.
“B-Baekhyun please…” he sobbed, phone pinned to his ear.
“Don’t try to contact me once I’m gone. You’ll know when the time is right.”
“Baekhyun! Don’t say things like that!”
“There is less than a minute left, Chanyeol.”
“B-Baekhyun, Baekhyun…”
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Stop it! Stop it Baekhyun!” Chanyeol cried. “Please, please no! I love you so much Baekhyun! I love you I love you I love you!”
“I love you too, Chanyeol.”
Then over the line there was a massive bang and a huge flurry of voices, and for a moment Chanyeol thought that it had been done. That was it. It was over. He felt sick—he was going to throw up.
But just as the bile began collecting in his throat he noticed that the policemen had slammed open the door to the basement of the warehouse next door and were then filing in with guns in their hands, and shouting the words,
“This is the police! Put your hands up!”
And those were the faint commands he heard over the phone too.
He heard Yixing’s voice, shocked, angry, and then the sounds of guns going off over the phone—but he could also hear them right nextdoor, right in front of him.
Chanyeol’s vision blurred and he stumbled over his feet, adrenaline pumping through his veins and grief digging graves in his chest. He hiccupped and scuffled over to the next warehouse, where all of a sudden the gunshots went silent. The phone line had gone dead too.
“Excuse me sir,” one of the cops said as they put their hands out to stop him from coming any closer. “Please stay back.”
“B-B-But wh-who—”
“Stay back sir.”
Chanyeol staggered backwards, his heart racing in his chest. Please, please no…
But then after a few minutes someone did emerge from the warehouse basement. Already a crowd had begun to gather and yellow tape had been strung up, blocking off the convoy of police cars and uniformed men on their radios, who looked agitated and serious. Chanyeol thought that maybe he caught some words being spoken, phrases about the mafia of both Shanghai and Seoul, and he also noted Baekhyun’s name.
The first to come into view out of the warehouse were a handful of cops, and then after them came a familiar form. His hair was wild and from the distance Chanyeol was at he could see some notable bruises across his face, but that was the least of his concerns.
Baekhyun was alive. He was alive.
Two cops escorted him with his hands cuffed behind his back, a slight wilt in his gait as if injured. Chanyeol let out a cry and he slipped underneath the yellow band that stretched in front of him, rushing for the other male. “Baekhyun!” he wept just as one of the cops seized him and began directing him away.
“Move away, sir. Please stay behind the tape—”
“Wait, wait no—please officer, please I have to go and—”
“That man is under arrest. Please remain behind the yellow tape.”
“But where can I see him? Is he going to jail—”
“The government will make a statement at a later time, sir.”
Chanyeol felt himself being pushed back into the crowd, and he had half a mind to whip out his own gun and make a scene—he certainly had the power to…
But then he glanced down the road where Baekhyun was being manhandled towards one of the cop cars. He seemed relatively calm, but Chanyeol could see in his eyes that he was in pain and was unsatisfied. Their gazes met and Baekhyun passed him a stern look, one that said, “Keep away. Stay calm”.
Chanyeol covered his mouth with his hands as salty tears stained his skin, because he wasn’t sure if he should have been extremely happy to see his beloved alive or if he should have been devastated to witness Baekhyun being guided into the police car, the door flipping shut behind him.
“Oh my god,” Chanyeol whispered to himself, his head spinning and body burning with adrenaline. “Oh, Baekhyun…”
Somewhere across town, people were still enjoying h’orderves and cocktails, slinking by the bar with masks and lecherous hands.
Chanyeol just wanted to sit down, put himself in Baekhyun’s arms, and cry.
~
Chanyeol tried to ignore his haggard breaths, his nervous foot tapping, and the sweat that was ready to break on his brow. He hadn’t slept a wink nor had he eaten, but he was too beyond exhausted to even notice. Emotionally he was charged, ready to burst out crying at a single sight of—
“Baekhyun!” he gasped, fidgeting in his chair at the private cubby as Baekhyun appeared with an escort on the other side of the glass window. Baekhyun had been in prison for two days, though he had been gone for two weeks as he had awaited his trial, and Chanyeol jumped on the very first opportunity to visit him that he was offered. Baekhyun had been arrested on dozens of charges, including murder, drug possession, drug use, drug trafficking, and a slew of other things. It wasn’t like the government didn’t know who he was or what he was up to, but they could never put their fingers on him.
The warehouse in Dongdaemun had been investigated, the shed in Incheon ransacked, and a series of witnesses of Baekhyun’s ‘crimes’ interviewed—but no one came for Chanyeol, which let him know that Baekhyun had probably offered someone some sort of sum of money to keep his name out of the picture. Chanyeol wasn’t suspected at all, even after his emotional show that night Baekhyun had had a gun against his head.
But already he hated the conditions of his visit—he hated seeing his beloved on the other side of that barrier between them, and he certainly didn’t like being on the prison grounds in the first place. It felt ominous and unhealthy, wretched and despondent.
Chanyeol sat himself back down and already had the phone on the wall in hand as the escort behind Baekhyun stepped away, leaving the two alone minus one other pair of people who spoke several seats away.
Chanyeol watched as Baekhyun reached for the phone—sending Chanyeol a small smile through the window as he did so—and lifted it to his ear.
“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol just about cried even before the other had the phone to his lobe. Then softer, his hands trembling, tears threatening to fall, “Baekhyun…I…I…I just…”
“Calm down Chanyeol,” Baekhyun said quietly, unexpectedly tender.
“I miss you. I miss you so much. I’m so so so sorry! I’m sorry. I wasn’t there for you…and I just…god the phonecall…Are they treating you well? Are they feeding you okay? Has anyone hurt you? Are you getting enough sleep—”
“Shh, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun said as he leaned back and relaxed in his chair, quirking his lips a bit. “I’m fine. I’m in my realm. Despite all the locks and fences, you’d be surprised how much freedom someone like me can achieve in a place like this.”
Chanyeol frowned. “I don’t know if I want to know what that means.” He eyed Baekhyun’s beautiful face, which was still clean-shaven, but also not quite as washed as Chanyeol remembered. The smaller’s hair was touseled and there were visible dark circles under his eyes, and Chanyeol immediately had a need to take him into his arms and hold him, caress him, tell him how much he was loved. Instead Chanyeol muttered, “I don’t think orange suits you.”
Baekhyun chuckled and shrugged, wrinkling the bright orange jumpsuit that adorned his body. “It doesn’t.”
Chanyeol shook his head. “That’s it. I can’t do this. I’m going to go do something bad, right? Something bad. And I’ll get arrested. And then you and I can be in here together—”
“No Chanyeol,” Baekhyun interrupted with a stern pinch to his voice. “As sexy and lovely that would be, I can’t let that happen.” He suddenly sat up and leaned forward, leaning on his elbows and looking deep into Chanyeol’s wide eyes. “You need to manage things out there. I’m incarcerated, not dead. I will have obedience while I am put away.”
Chanyeol glanced to the side where the escort could be seen in a small office to the side, obviously monitoring his and Baekhyun’s conversation. Baekhyun was of ‘special interest’ to the government, and therefore everything he did was monitored. But anyway, Chanyeol didn’t need Baekhyun to say the words in full in order for him to understand. Chanyeol was well aware that Baekhyun could manage the mafia even behind bars: he had all sorts of connections. Baekhyun was still the boss. He still was ready to hand out orders and threats while still raking in the cash—but he needed Chanyeol on the outside to manage it all because he didn’t physically have his hands on the business. He was the voice behind the curtain working the buttons and levers, but Chanyeol was the one to hold onto the tangible mafia strings on the outside.
“I…I know…” Chanyeol said, his hand inching closer to the glass where he could see Baekhyun’s pretty fingers so easily. “I know. I just don’t like seeing you like this. I’m sorry. I want to hold you.”
“And I want to be held.” Baekhyun nudged his hand against the glass and for a moment Chanyeol could feel the other’s heat behind the window. “I feel I’m going to be lonely here without you.” Upon seeing Chanyeol’s unhappy eyes Baekhyun went on to say, “But don’t worry too much. I can take care of myself, especially in this sort of setting.”
Chanyeol sighed and blinked a few times, pressing his fingers onto the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I know…”
“And I promise I’ll make up all the sex we will have missed while I’m here.”
Chanyeol’s head snapped up. “R-Really?” He sounded too enthusiastic for his own good, especially when Baekhyun smirked at him. “How are you going to do that?”
“Well I couldn’t tell you, could I?” Baekhyun said faintly, with a saddened smile. “That would spoil all the fun.”
Chanyeol scooted his chair closer to the bench where his arms were resting, wanting to come ever nearer to his loved one. “This isn’t fair. You never should have called the police. You never should have ended up here. Are the Shanghai men in there with you?”
Baekhyun shook his head. “No. They were deported.”
Chanyeol grunted in response. Baekhyun, seemingly amused by his lover’s crossness, he chuckled lowly and whispered,
“You know me well enough by now, Park Chanyeol.” He tilted his head. “You know everything I do has a reason behind it. I don’t just wing things. Everything is going according to plan.”
Getting kidnapped and held hostage had never been planned.
Or…had it?
“You know this conversation is being monitored, right?”
“So? There’s nothing the government can do about it, not with a little extra cash on the side.”
Chanyeol lowered his head, hiding the overflowing love in his eyes. “My beautiful little devil…”
“Please don’t cry, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun whispered then. Chanyeol laughed rottenly and rubbed his eyes.
“I’m not crying…”
“You are.”
“Maybe I am…”
“Don’t cry.”
Chanyeol looked up, aware that his eyes were probably red and his lids puffy. Baekhyun smiled.
“There is nothing to be sad about.”
Chanyeol shook his head again. “I won’t be able to spend time with you, and that’s very very sad,” he said as he glanced at his watch. “See? I’m almost out of time already.”
“It won’t last forever,” Baekhyun said as he adjusted the receiver in his hand. “I won’t even be wearing orange for very long. If I behave myself—” He rolled his eyes. “—I’ll get to wear blue. Fancy that, huh?”
“Fancy that.”
And then their words petered out, replaced only by longing, loving stares. Two weeks Chanyeol had been away from Baekhyun. Two weeks. He had never been away from Baekhyun for more than an hour for an entire year, and now he was just expected to fall away from all the little things Baekhyun did? He based his life, every minute of his day on what Baekhyun said and did. He supposed he didn’t have much of his own administration at this point. He was just lost without Baekhyun.
“You’re the worst mafia boss in history,” Chanyeol whispered jokingly, his cracked voice betraying his tears. “You got arrested the day you got promoted.”
“Very funny,” Baekhyun snorted. “Look at you—you can barely take care of yourself without me.”
“Where’s the lie?”
They continued watching each other, both enjoying the closeness after so many days apart, but before Chanyeol could profess his love for the other one more time there was a short,
“Mister Park, your time is up.”
And then behind Baekhyun appeared his boxy, stern-looking escort.
“That’s my cue,” Baekhyun mumbled, his fingers brushing against the glass again.
“Be safe, okay?” Chanyeol said quickly. Baekhyun nodded.
“When am I ever not?”
Chanyeol scoffed playfully at this, and then he put his whole hand against the glass. Baekhyun eyed him and then did the same, their palms aligning although Baekhyun’s hand was much smaller and slimmer than Chanyeol’s. “I’ll see you Saturday?” Baekhyun asked.
“Of course,” Chanyeol replied.
Behind the glass he saw the guard gesturing to Baekhyun and speaking, and then Baekhyun carefully put the phone away and the line went silent on Chanyeol’s end. The smaller stood from his seat, passing Chanyeol one last loving look—and a mysterious, suspicious wink—before the guard directed him away and through a door at the end of the hall.
Chanyeol sighed and put his own receiver away, already missing Baekhyun’s presence more than ever.
Guarding the boss’ son was never easy, but falling in love with him was even harder. That was for sure.
But it was worth it. Every pain, every second, every hardship.
Baekhyun was completely worth it.
~
EPILOGUE
The morning breeze that drifted in from the splayed open patio doors—catching on the sheer curtains and spinning them about in a tranquil motion—carried with it the scents of the Spanish countryside late spring. Warmth swarmed into the massive master bedroom and though it was probably almost noon Chanyeol reckoned, a thin layer of dew still dared trickle the contents of the room.
The wetness was barely decipherable from the stickiness of the dried sweat over his skin already, the saltiness in the air and of his perspiration was almost palatable as Chanyeol drew his tongue over his lips and began to smile elatedly, remembering the previous night. The lovemaking had been unbelievably hot and terribly kinky. With a satisfied torque in his gut he recalled how brazen it had been, how rough: the way Baekhyun looked with a collar around his throat, or with his lips around Chanyeol’s member, or the sounds he made when he bounced on Chanyeol’s lap, or the way Chanyeol made him beg. Last night was an adventure, a sexual conquest, and Kyungsoo hadn’t been wrong when he’d said those months ago that Baekhyun would ‘be into that shit’.
Chanyeol grinned fully and stretched in the mounds of pooled, wrinkled sheets, the sound of his grunt carrying all the way through the cavernous room. He still had to get used to that: having so much space, hearing his voice reverberate through the house. The open windows were a plus: the manor always had its own warm and fragrant draft that very quickly became a part of the feelings of home.
Home. Spain was different than South Korea, very different. But it was where both he and Baekhyun wanted to be at the moment. Chanyeol had bought the hillside villa with some millions of dollars that came from their bank account, the one that had grown sizably during the months that Baekhyun was missing in action. Ten acres of land and a three-story Spanish villa complete with gardens, ornate carvings, vines climbing up the walls as if it had come straight from a European romance novel, and staff included…plus the local people. They were all wonderful too. Chanyeol knew he had made the right choice purchasing this place when he found Baekhyun taking dance lessons with the nearby townspeople within an hour of his arrival.
Baekhyun had only been released from prison a little under two weeks ago. Chanyeol was still haunted by the thought of his dearly beloved wasting away behind bars, degraded, and torn from the everyday comforts that Chanyeol believed he deserved…although when Chanyeol did eventually bail Baekhyun out of prison (with a major bribe of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the government higher-ups that did nothing to shorten his and Baekhyun’s pockets) the smaller wasn’t in a somber mood at all: in fact he seemed pleased. Based on Baekhyun’s short tales he’d told the other of his few months in prison, it seemed he had made himself king behind bars and apparently suffered no loss of authority with all the other inmates at groveling at his feet.
Yep. That sounded like Baekhyun.
Somewhere in between noticing Baekhyun wasn’t beside him and slipping out of bed Chanyeol caught the carried sound of a soft solo violin playing a warm tune drifting in from the patio doors. He stood and pulled on a pair of pants, his broad, bare chest beaming with strength and pride, and sauntered over to a nearby table where last night’s bottle of wine had been left open but barely emptied. The drinking had been forgotten as soon as Baekhyun’s pants were taken off.
Chanyeol poured two glasses and strolled towards the outdoors across the marble floor, the balmy breeze swirling around him at the threshold like the Earth’s own breath of air. The view was amazing.
There, sitting at a little table with his legs crossed and a book in hand sat Baekhyun looking absolutely lovely.
Of course, the landscape was beautiful too. The villa sat on an overhang on a steep forested hill, and stretching out around them was a lively emerald forest, and in the distance were fields of green and gold. The Barcelona countryside was the most humble sight to Chanyeol’s eyes, but also one of the most beautiful.
But Chanyeol’s eyes drifted back to Baekhyun magnetically, and he strode up behind the smaller and dipped down to wrap his arms around Baekhyun’s body—which had thinned since his prison time and had yet to soften back up—and as he did so he stretched his arms out and placed the wine glasses down in front them, and dropped a loving kiss against Baekhyun’s cheek.
“Good morning,” Chanyeol said.
Soft laughter. “Good morning.”
“You look stunning,” he said as he kissed each of the intense love bites left on Baekhyun’s pale skin from the night before while his hand brushed over Baekhyun’s fingers, over a small gold band over his fourth. Then he straightened and slipped around Baekhyun to stand at his side and he leaned a hand on the back of his chair.
Baekhyun’s lips pulled up into a smile—oh, how Chanyeol loved that smile—and he averted his eyes from his book, a hand reaching up to stroke Chanyeol’s chest. “You’re quite a sight as well.”
Chanyeol grinned and leaned down again, pressing their lips together lovingly. It was then that he noticed the third presence there on the patio, and his heart habitually pinched in his chest with defense when he glanced up, pulling away from Baekhyun, and saw the violinist in the shade. It only took a moment for him to recognize scars crisscrossing the man’s face and his suspicions were only raised.
But he forced himself to relax: if Baekhyun let this person be beside him then it must be alright. He had a strict sixth sense of danger.
“Who’s this?”
“Rodrigo.” Chanyeol gave him a look and Baekhyun replied with, “Don’t ask.”
So the violinist went on playing as Baekhyun set his book in his lap and took his wine in hand, eyes watching Chanyeol teasingly over the rim as he took a sip and then lowered his chalice, swirling it around in his hand.
“Kyungsoo and Jongin called this morning,” he mused.
Chanyeol’s attention immediately perked. “Really? How are they enjoying freedom?”
It had been revealed to Chanyeol some months ago that the deal arranged between Baekhyun and Kyungsoo went as follows: once Baekhyun was at the head of the entire Seoul mafia he would release Kyungsoo and Jongin from their connections with the syndicate. A well-known saying said that the only way out of the mafia is through death, but Kyungsoo never wanted that. He only wanted to be done with the crime business and live a normal life with Jongin off the map. Baekhyun was breaking one of the most prominent laws in syndicate history by letting the two go: which only went to show how he was changing.
“They hadn’t realized I was out of prison. I told them never to contact me again, but they were just wishing the two of us well,” Baekhyun explained.
“And are we well, darling?” Chanyeol asked with a cheeky smile as he sat down beside the other at the table and doused his tongue in wine.
Baekhyun’s face softened into that wonderful candidness that he’d begun to allot himself to be in Chanyeol’s presence. “We’re very, very well.”
The song on the violin ended after that, and as Rodrigo prepared another Baekhyun said, “Let’s go into the city today. It’s been a while since we walked Barcelona’s streets.”
“I could go for tapas and empanadas I think,” Chanyeol replied absently, eyes absorbing the light in Baekhyun’s gentle stare.
Chanyeol had really begun to take care of his lover in the past two weeks. He had missed Baekhyun durning the months he was gone with much more of his heart wasting away than he could ever describe, and since Baekhyun returned Chanyeol spoiled him rotten. Extra kisses, awaiting his every call, and sticking to him like glue. Baekhyun had made it easier on him as well: he was humbled around Chanyeol and often submissive, allowing his lover to whisk him away to any one corner of the house and hold him and kiss him. They drank the finest of liquors and ate the most fashionable Spanish food (Chanyeol was absolutely in love with the food) by day and attended concerts and made love by night. It was a wonderful life.
Of course, the mafia still paid for all of this. The two of them were still very much involved with their syndicate, and Baekhyun still very much the boss. Chanyeol still spent some nights sitting up watching Baekhyun talk lowly on the phone, and they already had met with several husky gang men in alley restaurants, discussing trade and growth and crime. At those times Baekhyun was back to his icy, commanding self, and it took a couple of whispers of sweet nothings and loving nibbles before Chanyeol relaxed Baekhyun again. Chanyeol still slept with a gun at his bedside, much like his father had, and recived routine reports on the state of South Korea’s opinions on Byun Baekhyun the drug lord and mafia boss.
But for now they were fulfilling a small piece of Chanyeol’s self that had been buried long ago, now resurfacing and refilling his life with light and warmth.
Travelling.
The song that began to echo across the patio then, strung out like straights of lazy chocolate with sea salt, moaning like a great blue whale during mating season, howl of alpha wolf and whimper of omega, was a tango. Even with just the solo violin the song hummed with passion, with fervor, with love.
Chanyeol couldn’t help himself. He stood from his seat, eyes lowered to Baekhyun’s with a dark happiness, and he took Baekhyun’s soft palm in his and raised it to his lips for a kiss.
“May I have this dance?”
Baekhyun’s mouth curved upward into a smile and he stood languidly with that lion-like prowess, his hands coming up to rest in the right positions at Chanyeol’s shoulder and hand—the female position, which Baekhyun wordlessly occupied with all the seductiveness and delicacy of a woman—and he said,
“El amor de mi vida…you may.”
Chanyeol pushed their hips together, taking his stance and lifting their arms with a shudder. “Why does everything sound so much sexier in Spanish?”
“Hm?”
“Tu es muy bonito.”
Baekhyun smiled broader, bordering on a smirk, and arched his back, lowered his chin, and leveled their eyes. “Less talking, more dancing please.”
With that the violin sang with a sharp minor zing, and as it did so Baekhyun bent back in Chanyeol’s strong embrace, lifting a leg and wrapping it around the taller’s hip. And as the song slank back up passionately so did Baekhyun, his hand hot in Chanyeol’s, and they began to dance.
The steps swerved and moved first like sensual touching, and then like a bite of a vampire, passionate and soulful. Baekhyun was the better dancer since he’d taken lessons, but Chanyeol was there to meet each of his powerful stares and woeful sighs as the dance progressed. Hips swerving against one another’s, postures slinking along and around the marble with each meticulous, risqué swing with the thighs and haunches.
As they both slid down, extending one leg back and keeping one knee forward Baekhyun asked, “Where would you like to go, Chanyeol?”
They both stood again and Chanyeol spun Baekhyun under his arm, then allowed the other to promenade around him as he asked, “In Barcelona?” As Baekhyun came up to his side again the smaller kicked and replied,
“Anywhere.” Chanyeol took his body in hand, dipping him low, and Baekhyun’s fingers ticked the back of his neck as he evaluated, “Argentina?”
“Buenos Aires,” Chanyeol whispered. They lifted again and as Baekhyun pivoted sensually in Chanyeol’s hold, hipbones brushing against the other’s with every swing and he continued with challenging eyes,
“England?”
Chanyeol dove into their dance hold and they moved across the floor, feet playing and hooking and sliding in perfect synchronicity.
“London,” was Chanyeol’s reply.
Baekhyun spun to face away from the other and kicked a leg dangerously high between Chanyeol’s with a quick, “Hungary?”
Chanyeol grabbed onto the backs of Baekhyun’s arms, the smaller’s legs perched on perfect pointed toes in his lunge. “Budapest.”
As their hands slid together and Baekhyun twirled back around, slapping Chanyeol’s hand away with the fire of a bull in the ring, to which Chanyeol gleefully did his own pirouette and then began fiercely advancing back towards Baekhyun, who stepped backwards with each of Chanyeol’s steps forward, their chests proud and arms thrust back with hard elbows, and though Baekhyun would probably never admit it, the sight of Chanyeol coming at him with that beautiful bare chest of his…well, it was intimidating.
“Portugal?” Baekhyun gasped as Chanyeol caught up to him and wrapped their bodies together sensually, with unexpectedly mastered steps.
“Lisbon.”
With the next growth of music Chanyeol nimbly swung Baekhyun into his arms and spun him around, and Baekhyun landed with another high kick and a, “Sweden?”
“Stockholm,” Chanyeol replied as he brandished his ready hand to place on Baekhyun’s waist, and they limblerly oscillated their hips with the rhythm of the violin’s clear song sideways across the marble porch, Baekhyun’s hands above his head, fingers snapping.
“France?” he panted as Chanyeol then took his hand and spun him around and around and around easily under his arm, then caught him in his arms and entertwined their limbs and Baekhyun fell into a backbend.
“Paris.”
“Ever consider Monoco?”
Chanyeol smiled and bent down to kiss the hollow at the bottom of Baekhyn’s bared throat.
“For casinos and car racing? That sounds quite nice.”
The song was coming to an end, and Baekhyun rolled back up in Chanyeol’s arms with a smile. “Perhaps Monte Carlo is our next destination,” he said as he carefully wrapped his arms around Chanyeol’s midsection and hugged tightly, and there in the taller’s arms it felt as if the mafia never existed. It was safe, it was home. For Baekhyun it didn’t matter if they were in Spain, Korea, or Antarctica. Chanyeol was the only home he would ever have. “I’ve heard it’s heaven for the wealthy.”
Chanyeol shook his head and clacked his tongue, enveloping Baekhyun in his own hug. “No no. This—this is heaven. Right here.”
“Chanyeol?”
“Yes, my beautifull husband?”
He felt a sigh against his chest. “I love you.”
“I love you too Baekhyun. I always have.”