if you'll be my strawberry bubblegum

[dmtn]

EXO
Chanyeol/Kyungsoo
PG-13
9K
Predebut.

“This is so annoying, I mean, I know what your farts smell like, for Pete’s sake. Kissing you should be easy.”

“Idiot, don’t talk about my farts right when I’m about to kiss you! No wonder you’re terrible at this!”

Kyungsoo worked on his math homework when Chanyeol decided to bring up his currently nonexistent love life and lament problems he didn’t purposely have to face. That’s Chanyeol for you. Running across the bridges he was meant to cross two weeks too soon.

“I’ve never really…” Chanyeol started. “I’ve dated girls before and all, but, I don’t know. I feel like I don’t know much. I think I’m a bad kisser.”

Long, dark hair, pants a bit too small for his maturing body. Annoying, elf laugh. Satellite ears. Being a bad kisser was the least of Park Chanyeol’s problems. Kyungsoo told him so.

Chanyeol responded by shoving Kyungsoo’s homework off his lap. “Kyungsoo, this is serious! What if I’m a terrible kisser? Who wants to kiss someone who sucks at it?” He frowned, his brows pinched.

Kyungsoo craned his neck to stare at where his homework now pitifully lay, crumbled and squished under his textbook. He punched Chanyeol’s shoulder. “Just because you suck at kissing doesn’t mean some of us don’t want to pass Calculus, you giant turd. Pick my shit up.”

“Kyungsoooo,” Chanyeol groaned, but he did as he was told. He even tried to uncrinkle the second page of Kyungsoo’s problem set, but then gave up, huffing, and roughly threw Kyungsoo’s textbook back into his lap.

It missed his crotch by a few centimeters. Kyungsoo yelped. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“I’m a terrible kisser,” Chanyeol yelled. “Doesn’t that bother you, that your friend is the worst kisser in the world? Aren’t you ashamed?”

Kyungsoo snorted, “Not really. I’m a great kisser. No one told you to suck at it.”

“You’re a good kisser?” Chanyeol squinted at his face. “Really?”

Kyungsoo bristled at his incredulous tone. He wanted to punch him again. “Yeah, what of it?”

Chanyeol opened his mouth and Kyungsoo prepared himself for whatever low blow insult that would have Kyungsoo launching himself at Chanyeol like a battle rocket and knocking them both off the bed. Instead, this happened:

“Can you teach me?”

Kyungsoo erased a hastily written variable on his answer sheet. “…Teach you what?”

“How to kiss!” Chanyeol punctuated his sentence with a short clap. “Duh!”

“…What the fuck?” Kyungsoo frowned, leaning away from Chanyeol. “Are you out of your mind? I’m not kissing you.”

“Why not?” Chanyeol pouted angrily. He looked like an angry doughboy. “You’re my best friend, you’re supposed to help me with things I have problems with!”

“I’m pretty sure none of that includes kissing you, Chanyeol. Shit.” Kyungsoo recoiled again. Ugh, kissing Chanyeol. Gross. “Besides, we’re not even… like that. Do you even like boys?”

“Why does that matter? Sorry, I thought I asked you to kiss me, not let me suck your dick.” Chanyeol rolled his eyes. “Lips are lips, you know. Yours are pretty huge, though. No wonder you think you’re so good at kissing. You probably manipulate the entire thing with the tectonic plates on your face.”

“Best friends don’t kiss--“ Kyungsoo made a point to avoid thinking about Chanyeol’s dick in any context. In his mind, Chanyeol was one of those male Barbie dolls, smooth and inoffensive.

“How do you know?” Chanyeol countered, now louder. “Have you ever had a best friend before? Because I…” He swallowed noisily and looked down at Kyungsoo’s textbook. “I haven’t, ever. Not really. I don’t… mean anything weird by it. I just want you to help me and I know you won’t laugh at me if I suck—“

Kyungsoo interrupted, “Uh—“

“Okay, okay. I know that you’ll stop laughing eventually and help me, compared to someone who would just laugh at me and never help me.” He smiled, a little cautious. “Sorry for… springing this on you like this. If you really don’t want to kiss me, I get it. I don’t think I would want to kiss me either.”

“Chanyeol…” Kyungsoo had wondered if Chanyeol acted like that only around Kyungsoo because he trusted Kyungsoo with his true feelings or if he did it because he knew Kyungsoo would shower him with heavy-handed compliments. Honesty or vanity. With Chanyeol, it was often hard to tell. “It just… it really doesn’t freak you out? Kissing me, a boy?” He had never pegged Chanyeol for the experimenting type.

A strange look crossed Chanyeol’s face. “Uh, like I said before, it’s not like we’re about to drop our pants and suck each other’s dicks, Kyungsoo. I just want to be a better kisser. I’m not really… interested in all that other stuff.”

Other stuff. Kyungsoo tapped his fingers along the edge of his Calculus textbook. He tried to weigh the pros and cons of this situation in his head, but Chanyeol kept staring at him, expectant, eyes bright and hopeful.

Now that he had given himself a few minutes to get used to the thought of kissing Chanyeol, he felt a bit better. He wasn’t nauseated; he didn’t think this situation would throw him into any sort of crisis. Even at seventeen, Kyungsoo knew who he was. Kissing Chanyeol, he hoped, would change nothing.

“Alright,” Kyungsoo said after a long, tense moment. “Just…” He pulled his textbook out of his lap and dropped it onto Chanyeol’s bed.

Chanyeol sat up, “What are you doing?”

Kyungsoo got off the bed. “Nothing,” he said, stepping closer. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right. So, do you want to kiss me or should I kiss you first?” Already, Kyungsoo liked how detached he felt from the situation. It wasn’t really him, doing this; it wasn’t really Chanyeol who he was about to kiss. They weren’t themselves and that helped make it okay. Dissecting the frog in biology lab had felt more emotional than this.

If anything, this was another science experiment. Kyungsoo would only test the hypothesis that Chanyeol was a bad kisser. It was all scientific curiosity; there was nothing to worry about.

Chanyeol tensed. “Um.” He laughed, his shoulders drawn up to his ears. “Wow, you’re almost as tall as me right now. I don’t know what to do.” He pulled his long hair away from his face, fiddling with it. Then Chanyeol smiled, nervously, and heaved a big sigh. “Okay, okay.” He patted his cheeks. “Okay, sorry, wow, I don’t know why I’m freaking out right now.”

“It’s just me,” said Kyungsoo, trying to bring some calm back to the situation. That was it. The smallest slither of him that he would allow in this situation. If he could draw Chanyeol out, like pulling a crab out of its shell, and scurry away with him to the land of scientific kissing experiments, only their impersonal shells would be left behind.

“It’s you,” Chanyeol agreed, nodding his head. His cheeks were still a bit pink. “This is so annoying, I mean, I know what your farts smell like, for Pete’s sake. Kissing you should be easy.”

Kyungsoo paused, “Wait, what—“

“You’re not very discreet,” Chanyeol said, frowning exaggeratedly. “Sorry.”

“Idiot, don’t talk about my farts right when I’m about to kiss you! No wonder you’re terrible at this!” Kyungsoo swallowed back a laugh, but a smile tickled at the corners of his lips. It was the phenomenon known as The Chanyeol Effect.

Chanyeol’s shoulders relaxed and he laughed louder then, so loud his noona pounded her fist against their shared wall and told him to “shut the hell up or I’ll strangle you, you fucking brat.”

“Love you too, noona,” Chanyeol sang back. He momentarily blinded Kyungsoo with his horrible aegyo.

When Kyungsoo returned from the land of anime eye sparkles and Chanyeol’s seventy eight teeth, Chanyeol was staring at him again. He did that a lot. Most of the time, he looked like a horse warily watching a robust cowboy muscle over to him with a lasso, but now, he looked like a princess waiting for her frog to turn into a dashing prince. Kyungsoo, not a prince, would instead turn into the frog he had dissected in biology lab. How terrible.

“Well?” Chanyeol’s brow lifted. “Are you going to kiss me or what? I’m waiting here.”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, “Do you even know the word ‘patience’?” He stepped closer to Chanyeol and shoved back the part of his brain that simultaneously screamed what are you doing, you’re about to kiss your best friend, why isn’t this weird and this doesn’t mean anything, it’s only an experiment. His hands landed lightly on Chanyeol’s shoulders. He paused. “Close your gross bug eyes.”

“Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol frowned. “Ugh, fine.” He obediently closed them.

For the first time, Kyungsoo noticed how pretty Chanyeol was. His skin was surprisingly good for someone obviously still caught in the wretched throws of unforgiving puberty; his lips, a bit chapped, were still pink and had a nice shape. His ears were gigantic, but they weren’t terribly grotesque. If anything, Kyungsoo thought they made Chanyeol about twenty six percent cuter (he knows because he had once attempted to draw Chanyeol with normal sized ears and had been unsettled by the results.) He was also tall, Kyungsoo thought, a little bitterly. Everyone loved tall people.

Kyungsoo wet his lips, took a deep breath to calm the annoying hum of his heart in his ears, and then…

Chanyeol was a terrible kisser.

“Ugh,” Kyungsoo half gagged, shoving Chanyeol away. “What the hell was that?”

“…It wasn’t that horrible, was it?” Chanyeol had his fingers to his lips.

Kyungsoo wanted to cry. “I thought you were going to choke me. Why are you so aggressive with your tongue? How did your last girlfriend not asphyxiate?” What kind of hateful, anti-kissing porn do he watch?

“I thought…I thought that’s how it was supposed to be?” Chanyeol dropped his hand away from his face. He licked at the corner of his mouth and Kyungsoo felt a dangerously filthy lick of heat down his spine. He couldn’t wait for the day he wasn’t a teenager anymore. Once, the sight of a pretty noona burping had given him a boner. His middle school teacher’s hand on his shoulder had given him a boner.

“No,” said Kyungsoo, whimpering. “God no.” He sighed. “Okay, we’re… we’re going to try again. This time don’t…actually, don’t do anything. Don’t move your mouth. Let me do everything.”

Chanyeol’s bug eyes popped out of his eyes, effectively shoving Kyungsoo under a microscope. “Let you do… everything?”

Kyungsoo nodded. His mouth still tingled with Chanyeol’s taste. “Also, do you have any breath mints? What did you have for lunch, again?”

“Hmm,” Chanyeol pulled on one of his ears. It was one of his thinking habits. “Aha!” He suddenly smiled. “Sardines and garlic!”

Kyungsoo almost lost his marbles. He held a hand up to Chanyeol, asking him to stay where he was, and then marched back to his backpack lying near the door. Kyungsoo pulled out his color coded collection of breath mints, emptied the five of the emergency red ones into his palm, closed his palm, then closed the breath mints packet. He shoved all five of the red breath mints into Chanyeol’s mouth and physically held his mouth closed. “Remember to breathe.”

“Remember to—“ The taste looked like it hit Chanyeol like a horse’s kick to the back of the head. He reared up, bringing Kyungsoo along for the ride, and thrashed so hard he almost put his hand through Kyungsoo’s forehead. When the flavor dulled, Chanyeol pouted and said, “Actually, that was pretty good…”

Kyungsoo, with a Chanyeol hand imprint on his forehead, wanted to become assimilate into the floor.

“Ehehe, sorry,” Chanyeol said when he saw Kyungsoo’s forehead. “Come here, I’ll kiss it better.”

“Let’s not fool around,” Kyungsoo replied, mentally preparing himself for the epic tongue battle Chanyeol would unnecessarily wage against his mouth. “Remember, let me do everything. If you get really excited, follow me, but follow me at about half the mouth open to mouth close rate that I use—“

Chanyeol’s eyes glazed over.

“I mean…” Kyungsoo smiled lightly, still rubbing his forehead. “Go slow. Okay?”

Chanyeol’s soul returned to his body. “Slow,” he repeated, nodding. “Got it.”

This time, the kissing was a little better. Not once did Chanyeol try to assassinate Kyungsoo with his fat, sausage tongue. The sardine and garlic taste still lingered on the inside of Chanyeol’s cheeks, but his slow pace was a relief. Kyungsoo tried to keep it casual, but it was hard to be casual when he had his tongue in Chanyeol’s mouth and it was just beginning to feel good. His hands clenched on Chanyeol’s shoulders and Chanyeol’s hands were suddenly on Kyungsoo’s hips, not even close to Kyungsoo’s crotch. Kyungsoo still felt the pressure on his crotch.

Puberty.

Their lips slid and sucked in a constant rhythmic motion that was beginning to make Kyungsoo’s toes curl in his socks. Chanyeol’s mouth was wet, wetter than any of Kyungsoo’s girlfriends, and, at first, Kyungsoo had been unsure of what to do or how to make it so he didn’t have to suck too much of Chanyeol’s spit into his mouth. Half way into the second kiss, he forgot about being careful. Chanyeol was an eager student, a quick learner when stimulated in the right way. And this, Kyungsoo’s tongue in his mouth, running along his teeth, rubbing against his tongue, seemed to be the right kind of incentive.

Then Chanyeol bit him.

Abrupt pain crashed on Kyungsoo like a little wave and he yanked his mouth away, tearing a hole in his lip because Chanyeol hadn’t wanted to let him go.

“Chanyeol—“ Kyungsoo half screamed. He tasted hot iron in his mouth.

“Fuck!” Chanyeol screeched, bounding off the bed for the tissues he kept on his nightstand. A masturbation joke died into the blood seeping into Kyungsoo’s mouth.

“You freaking shark—“

“I’m sorry!” Chanyeol pressed a wad of tissues onto Kyungsoo’s lower lip. “Fuck, I really, I didn’t really, I’m, it’s—“

The tear on his lip burned a little, but Kyungsoo forced himself to relax. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. He looked up.

Chanyeol was licking his lips again, as if he kept forgetting a few, hot minutes ago they were touching Kyungsoo’s, that Kyungsoo’s tongue had been in his mouth, Chanyeol’s mouth.

“I got… a little too excited, hehe,” Chanyeol averted his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck. His neck was flushed. It looked so pretty. Kyungsoo wondered how warm it would feel under his fingers.

“No biting,” Kyungsoo glared. Or at least warn me because you try to take a chunk out of me, you piranha man.

“No biting!” Chanyeol grinned, still sounding a little shaken.

The day ended without any more kisses.

Morning found Kyungsoo in the first floor bathroom of the SM building, picking at the still raw tear in his lip.

“Hot makeout session?” Youngho wiggled his brows.

Jongin, at the urinal, laughed.

“I will dunk your head in the toilet,” Kyungsoo threatened, never looking away from the bright mirror. Chanyeol really did a number on him but, then again, what did he expect from someone who had three hundred and six teeth? At any moment in time, his mouth was a bear trap.

“Dyo’s girlfriend has sharp teeth,” Youngho teased, now washing his hands. “Tell her to bite you in less conspicuous places. Your lips are about twice their normal size and since they’re normally twice anyone’s normal size, your lips are now four times the size of an average teenager’s—“

Kyungsoo lunged for him, but Youngho, one of the more agile dangers, freaking pirouetted out of the way.

Even Jongin rolled his eyes as he walked to the sink. “Show off.”

“Don’t be mean, Jonginnie,” Youngho grinned, smoothing his hair down. “It’s alright if you aren’t man enough for ballet.”

“I’ll show you ballet—“

Kyungsoo yawned loudly. “I’ll let you two kids whip your dicks out and measure them or something. Bye.”

“I know for a fact mine is longer,” he heard Youngho say as the restroom door closed.

“Youngho!” Jongin screeched.

Kyungsoo forced himself not to think about it.

Despite a few errant threats to harm Youngho or Sehun, another one in Jongin’s little dancing gang of pretty boys, Kyungsoo liked everyone at the company well enough. The only people he didn’t like were those he didn’t know, like the newest Chinese trainee who kept to himself or Kim Joonmyun, who was so friendly with everyone it made you feel like you would never be close to him. He kept everyone at a polite arm length distance.

Kyungsoo understood that, first and foremost, being an idol was a job. At best, the people at the company would be his coworkers and it was foolish to think “coworkers” meant “automatic best friends.”

But, to his surprise, that was what happened with Park Chanyeol. Kyungsoo had been in the company building for a few hours, touring the facilities on his own, trying to find the secret passageways he would be able to hide in if he ever wanted to avoid life for a few minutes, when Chanyeol had come up to him and started talking. Kyungsoo had laughed. His laughter had made Chanyeol laugh and then Chanyeol had talked more, and by the end of that day, he had learned more about Chanyeol than he knew about his middle school best friend.

At first, Kyungsoo thought he had never met any one more confident than Park Chanyeol. He didn’t know many people that could waltz into a circle of unknown, unfriendly looking trainees and start yammering away about the weather or their new choreographer or the first thing they’ll buy when they get their first paycheck.

“A vespa. Do you know what a vespa is?”

A few of the trainees would roll their eyes, insulted, while a minority would listen on, “What’s a vespa?”

“It’s a motor scooter. I want a red one with flames stenciled on the sides, ahhh.” Chanyeol would look up, lost in his imagination. “Then all I need would be a pretty noona holding onto me as we cruised down to the Hangang and then we would relax by the river.”

Only Chanyeol would treat a motor scooter as if it were a muscle car.

He had a lot of these ideas – what he would say the first time his group won an award, what his first words to Kyungsoo would be if Kyungsoo became an idol before him and Chanyeol attended a fansign – and he liked to share them over bottles of Diet Coke and sweet bread. He would talk for hours on end, sometimes happy, sometimes nostalgic for things or people Kyungsoo would never know, and Kyungsoo listened to it all, only interrupting to snort, roll his eyes, or a hide a laugh in his sleeve.

Kyungsoo wasn’t like Chanyeol. He didn’t have twenty million life experiences to share. He had been a quiet, serious kid who had grown up into a regular teenager. He ate too much junk food and felt guilty, but it didn’t stop him from sneaking potato chips off Chanyeol’s forgotten plate. He had his share of crushes and short-lived romances, nothing to write a sonnet over, and Kyungsoo liked himself, which was more than he could say for Chanyeol, who often spoke about himself as if a grander evil didn’t exist.

“I’m really an asshole,” Chanyeol would say when they were alone, his head pillowed on his knees. “I don’t know why anyone likes me. I don’t know why you like me, most of all.”

Kyungsoo, clumsy with words and crushed under his own inadequacy at keeping his new friend happy, would say, “I’m an asshole, too. That’s why I like you.”

Chanyeol made him laugh. Chanyeol got into so much trouble because he was either too loud or his limbs were too out of control or he could never reach that note he once used to but couldn’t anymore since his voice changed, but Kyungsoo liked him.

Happy Chanyeol, Sad Chanyeol, Asshole Chanyeol. The Chanyeol who could go from rapping in the mirror of his bathroom, eyes on his own reflection, to huddling in his bed with his hood over his face and not letting Kyungsoo see him because he was the “ugliest motherfucker ever, trust me.”

Acne hit Chanyeol’s ego hard.

But Kyungsoo was there; Kyungsoo still liked him. His relationship with Chanyeol was perhaps the simplest he had ever had in his life so far—Chanyeol made him happy, so Kyungsoo wanted to make Chanyeol happy, too.

Chanyeol winced in sympathy the next time Kyungsoo came over to do this homework. “Wow, I’m… kind of impressed, actually.” His eyes were on Kyungsoo’s lips.

Kyungsoo shoved him out of the way and went to slip out of his tennis shoes. “Stop gloating or I won’t help you with your English homework.”

“I don’t need help with my English homework,” said Chanyeol. Today, he was dressed in a hideously bright orange t-shirt that looked like something the SNSD sunbaenims wore during their “Gee” performances. Kyungsoo would know because Chanyeol had forced him to watch plenty of girl group performances since Byun Baekhyun had come to the company and could not, for the life of him, stop talking about them. The popular rumor of the week was Byun Baekhyun had a secretly amorous relationship with Seohyun sunbaenim and some Loner guy wasn’t too happy about it. “Sucks to be him,” Kyungsoo thought and moved on from the subject.

While Chanyeol’s shirt was undeniably offensive in all light spectrums, he also wore casual gray sweatpants. They were one of the few pairs of pants that fit him since his ill-timed growth spurt.

In Chanyeol’s room, they separated themselves: Chanyeol at his desk and Kyungsoo on Chanyeol’s bed.

Whenever they were in Chanyeol’s room, they fell into this arrangement and Kyungsoo had always been comfortable with it. Chanyeol’s bed was soft and smelled a lot like him, but the most important thing was that Chanyeol didn’t bother Kyungsoo while Kyungsoo was trying to decode his English homework like it was an inscription on the Ark of the Covenant. (He hated English and all its definitions for “read.”)

Chanyeol almost literally tackled his homework. He pushed at the paper; he shoved his worksheets around; he tore at the perforations on his Chemistry notes. Chanyeol didn’t know how to do certain things without putting on a show, for himself or for others, it didn’t matter, and homework was one of those things. Because it had been months since they had first met, Kyungsoo had thought he was long used to Chanyeol battling his level 51 Chemistry problem set, but on that day, he couldn’t concentrate.

Every little paper wrinkle made him look up. When Chanyeol sighed and huffed, Kyungsoo’s eyes flew to his lips and tongue. During a five minute break, Chanyeol groaned, leaned back in his chair, and brought his hand up his shirt to scratch his tummy. He had a thin line of hair leading to the band of boxers, light and wirily looking.

As much as he liked to brag about his Kwon Sangwoo-like body, Chanyeol more accurately resembled an anthropomorphic scarecrow, a little like Turnip Head from Howl’s Moving Castle (It was Yura noona’s favorite movie), but he also looked soft. He felt soft, too. Sure, he kissed as though it were the boss stage of an enchanted roleplaying game, but Kyungsoo knew he would slowly get better at it. Especially if he practiced often.

Practiced often with Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo pinched his cheek, willing his brain to come back down to Earth. But the pain didn’t help. It only helped to remind Kyungsoo of the time he had been making out with Chanyeol and Chanyeol had bit him so hard he bled. Making out with Chanyeol. That was a thing Do Kyungsoo did now.

Kyungsoo face palmed, miscalculated the power in his hand, and almost broke his nose. He moaned, “Ow.”

He heard the sound of a chair screech its legs against the floor. “Kyungsoo?” Heavy footsteps stepped closer to the bed and then Kyungsoo felt himself turn. Chanyeol looked down at him, smiling despite the obvious confusion in his eyes. “Erm… what’s up?”

“Nothing,” Kyungsoo tried to shrug him off, but Chanyeol held tight. “Nothing, it’s—“

“You’re lying,” said Chanyeol. He made a show of crouching down so he could look at Kyungsoo eye to eye, and Kyungsoo wanted to punch him again, but he restrained himself. It wasn’t Chanyeol’s fault he was tall, but Chanyeol did consciously rub it in Kyungsoo’s face.

“You’re so tall,” Kyungsoo said in a moment of wild petulance.

Chanyeol smiled, “You want to be tall, too? Is that it? It’s not that fun, let me tell you. I’m sure you don’t have to watch out when you first walk into a room. Low ceiling rooms, why do those even exist? And finding shoes when you’re this tall? Don’t even think about it, Kyungsoo. Just wear two tennis rackets and buy some pretty tape to cover them with.” He laughs. “Besides, I kind of like you being this… short. Your eyes pop when you look up at me.”

“Your eyes pop when you look at anyone—“

“I guess we’re a good match then, right?”

“Yeah, two chameleons,” Kyungsoo snorted. “How attractive.”

“Oh, I’m plenty attractive,” Chanyeol preened, showing off all five hundred of his teeth. “You’re not so bad either, you know, or I wouldn’t let you kiss me. Only attractive people can kiss me.”

“Gee, thanks,” Kyungsoo said, carefully keeping both his expression and his voice neutral.

Chanyeol’s kiss surprised him. It was soft and close mouthed; the kind of kiss Kyungsoo didn’t know Chanyeol could give away. But it felt wrong and sparked a terrible churning in Kyungsoo’s belly, like they weren’t supposed to do this, it wasn’t supposed to be this soft. They could blame the furious makeouts on their hormones, but what would they say was the cause of this one? Chanyeol pulled back, but he didn’t go far. Flushed and warm, Kyungsoo shivered, nauseated by the fermentation of anxiety in his gut.

“Huh.” Chanyeol’s breath brushed his lips. “That was weird.”

Kyungsoo slowly looked up. “You too?”

“Yeah.” Chanyeol’s voice was low and he was still painfully close. Kyungsoo could see the fuzz on his chin and the random distribution of cheek hair near Chanyeol’s sideburns. “It wasn’t… bad weird, just… weird. Wanna do it again?”

“This is still practice, right?” Kyungsoo’s bottom lip hurt, not yet fully healed, but he wanted to kiss Chanyeol again. He felt the desire increase, exploding as thought bubbles in his brain, once he had finally recognized the extent of his feelings. He wanted to kiss Chanyeol again, possibly over and over, possibly slow and soft. Possibly with teeth if Chanyeol would let him take the lead this time around.

Kyungsoo didn’t know if other best friends did this. Up until then, he had thought he had been only giving Chanyeol what he wanted, indulging his childish whims to be the best kisser, but now, fully understanding what he himself wanted, Kyungsoo waited for Chanyeol to make his choice. He had already given Chanyeol an out. It didn’t have to mean anything if it was only “practice.” They had already drawn that line in the sand.

“Practice,” said Chanyeol slowly, speaking as though he savored every syllable in his mouth. “Yeah. I guess we can do that.” Cupping Kyungsoo’s cheek in his hand, Chanyeol pulled himself in for another equally soft kiss.

Expecting himself to regret this later but not finding an ounce of “fuck” to give in his blood stream, Kyungsoo deepened the kiss with a very precise swipe of his tongue. Chanyeol’s tongue slowly slid against his, tentative, shy in ways Kyungsoo didn’t associate with Chanyeol’s loud and proud personality. His mouth tasted of bubblegum, that sweet one Chanyeol was fond of eating as he did his homework, and when something soft and solid found itself in Kyungsoo’s mouth, Kyungsoo momentarily pulled back. He chewed the gum.

“Take it out,” Chanyeol nuzzled their noses, pressing his lips to the side of Kyungsoo’s mouth.

Kyungsoo spit out the gum and threw it in the direction of his English book, not caring where it stuck. He wiped the residual stickiness on Chanyeol’s shoulder; Chanyeol huffed and said, “I’m good, right?”

Swallowing the most embarrassing moan, Kyungsoo whispered a breathless “yes” but couldn’t close his mouth fast enough when Chanyeol leaned closer, his hands now on Kyungsoo’s waist. Kyungsoo was startled.

“Uh,” Chanyeol started. “Is this okay?”

“What are you doing?” Kyungsoo needed to know. He needed to know exactly what was happening or would happen so he could carefully remove himself from the situation and become someone else, someone who wasn’t in his best friend’s best with his best friend’s tongue licking his bottom lip.

“I… I don’t really know,” Chanyeol confessed. “I just, I just want to… get closer to you. Is that weird?”

“Of course, it’s weird,” Kyungsoo replied. “But it’s natural. We’re teenagers. I touched you and you liked it, so you want me to touch you more. It’s all in our hormones.”

“Hormones,” said Chanyeol, not sounding too convinced. “I don’t really think—“

“Do you want me to touch you more?” Blunt words, sharp strike.

Suddenly, Chanyeol tensed up, blushing. “Um, I…”

Rejected flowed, hot and fast like it’s known to do, into Kyungsoo’s stomach, overtaking the previous swirl of anxiety. He had been nervous about it happening and now he was crushed because it wasn’t happening? Kyungsoo’s body and mind needed to come to an agreement before they tore him apart.

Also, Kyungsoo was a terrible scientist. Scientists didn’t force their hypothesis through their experiments—if it happened, it would happen under the same series of tests. If it didn’t, it was time to change the hypothesis. Assuming that because Chanyeol wanted to kiss them that Chanyeol would also be okay with other things was both naïve and horribly overbearing.

“It’s okay if you don’t—“ He still tasted Chanyeol’s new bubblegum breath in his mouth and how warm that gum had been after Chanyeol had passed it between their mouths.

Maybe it was time for Kyungsoo to dissect himself. He was already overthinking this.

“Kyungsoo, it’s just—“ Chanyeol tried to begin again, but he couldn’t finish his sentences.

Kyungsoo had finally done it: Park Chanyeol was speechless!

But there was no inkling of joy in this moment. Kyungsoo felt cold fear and the fleeting press of another, bigger realization that fuzzed and pulsed at the edge of his consciousness, like frog guts under an unfocused microscope.

(Kyungsoo needed to write that frog lab report before it ended up ruining his life.)

“I think…” He was losing air. He needed to get out of there. “I’m going to go,” said Kyungsoo. He slowly pulled his homework back from where it had been carelessly discarded.

Chanyeol, his eyes still averted, made no move to stop from collecting his belongings.

Rejection slammed into Kyungsoo again, two-fold, and, for a second, he forgot how to breathe.

Then, like he had done many times before, he found himself. He was Do Kyungsoo.

When an eight year old bully tried to take his bicycle right from around him, Kyungsoo tried to roundhouse kick him and, when that failed, he tackled the kid and slammed his elbow into his nose, breaking it. Kyungsoo survived a three year custody battle; he survived his mother’s new boyfriends and his father’s new family. He was Kyungsoo oppa, Kyungsoo hyung. He will buy his mother a new car when he gets his first paycheck so she can finally throw away her old Nissan. He had school friends – Ahreum, Hayoung, Gaeun – and work friends – Youngho, Jongin, Sehun, Moonkyu, Baekhyun. He liked girls in pretty skirts and boys with thick forearms – he knew exactly who he was.

Do Kyungsoo did not cry over rejections. He hadn’t cried since he was twelve and his father had come home for the first time in months, only to hand his mother an envelope and walk out the door without so much as a glance at Kyungsoo.

He left. Chanyeol didn’t stop him.

Assigning blame didn’t help. Later in the evening, when Kyungsoo had finished his homework and laid in bed, fiddling with his phone, trying everything he could not to check Chanyeol’s me2day because he didn’t want to know what kind of status he would post in a time like this, it was hard to objectively look at what had happened.

Kyungsoo should have known it wouldn’t have ever worked. Maybe if it had been someone else, like Jongin or Youngho, Kyungsoo would have been able to ignore himself as a person and only focus on his body and its natural reactions. Jongin was cute. He liked to wrap his arm around Kyungsoo’s midsection and rest his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder, mumbling tiredly about how much his feet hurt or how he’s dying for some sleep.

Youngho, with his face full of teeth and that annoying way he said “baby” in English just to piss Kyungsoo off, would be a little harder kiss without feelings, because Kyungsoo had an unexplainable urge to bite him. He thought it had a lot to do with how Youngho’s arms looked in muscle tees. His forearms were exquisite.

It had been Chanyeol.

Chanyeol, the guy Kyungsoo regularly binged foreign movies with and they would laugh at the characters in between mouthfuls of hot cheese popcorn and fruity flavored soda pop. Chanyeol, who pays for their takoyaki dinners and always shoves Kyungsoo into the closest empty subway cart because he felt like Kyungsoo would get trampled in the subway if he stood for too long. Annoying, childish Chanyeol and his large, hot hands, his one thousand and thirty seven teeth, how sleepy and cute he looked when he napped sitting up and woke up with red marks all over his chin from where his hand had been.

It should have been easier because they were so close, they were best friends, they were bros, they apparently smelled each other’s farts and didn’t talk about them, but the relationship now, to Kyungsoo, seemed like a double edged sword. They were close, but were they too close? Kyungsoo had felt as if Chanyeol had wanted to do more; he himself had wanted to do more. So when he, unable to tiptoe around the issue, jumped on it and asked, Chanyeol… refused? Chanyeol was scared. But it was Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo dropped his phone on his face. He swore and touched the bridge of his nose to make sure he hadn’t caused permanent damage in the last few days. But the pain knocked sense into his thick skull.

How could he want Chanyeol to think of them as nothing more than two people who were allowed to touch when he also wanted Chanyeol to see them as Kyungsoo and Chanyeol because they were comfortable with each other? They couldn’t do both.

“Fuck,” Kyungsoo groaned. He wanted to send him an SNS or an email. Maybe an inside joke or a link to a funny gif he found on Pann. Chanyeol liked to collect funny gifs.

Chanyeol. He wondered what he was doing right now. It was around ten, so Chanyeol would be on his computer. Probably playing a game of some sort or talking to the fans he was convinced he had already amassed. Or, Kyungsoo let his thoughts run wherever they liked, too tired to keep a hand on the reins, maybe Chanyeol was masturbating.

If Kyungsoo had felt unsettled the moment he didn’t mind having to kiss Chanyeol, it was nothing compared to now, when he freely thought about Chanyeol’s dick and didn’t recoil or make a face. Kyungsoo had only been with one guy before – an upperclassman from his high school – and after a few impromptu messy blowjobs in the low traffic third floor bathroom, Kyungsoo had come to an appreciation for penises. His own was great, of course, but others were nice, too.

Thinking about Chanyeol’s penis felt a bit wrong, kind of like Kyungsoo was not supposed to have his hand in this particular cookie jar, but if Chanyeol wanted him to touch him, Kyungsoo would be okay with it.

“Why the fuck do I want to touch Chanyeol so much,” he whispered, squinting at his ceiling. You know, this was all Chanyeol’s fault. If only he had been a B+ kisser instead of the C- embarrassment that Kyungsoo had to live with, this would have never happened. Chanyeol opened the door to them touching like that and Kyungsoo, who would have never imagined himself as someone consumed by anything more than heavy annoyance and apathy, suddenly couldn’t get enough.

Ugh, he was starting to sound like a Big Bang song. Chanyeol would be pleased about this development if they ever spoke to each other again.

Kyungsoo clicked off his phone and put it under his pillow. Of course they would talk more. They couldn’t lose their friendship over something minor like this. They would lose their friendship over something like, say, Kyungsoo have boyfriend feelings for Chanyeol and not knowing how or when because. Because he knew why.

He would have preferred falling for someone like Youngho. A friend, not a close one, but far from being a stranger. He would have less to lose then. With Chanyeol, Kyungsoo stood to lose too much.

Luckily, Kyungsoo tackled his life as though he lived in an ongoing poker game. Even if he had the shittiest hand, he would play his cards as though he had the best.









The next few days were full of tension. Chanyeol didn’t wait for Kyungsoo before their evening dance practice, like he always did. A day after their Situation happened, he was hanging with Baekhyun, laughing at him, tickling his neck. Baekhyun huffed and slapped Chanyeol’s hand away. The sound of skin hitting skin echoed loudly and startled some other trainees who tried to keep out of Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s way.

Kyungsoo, standing on the other side with Jongin, looked at them in the mirror. This was annoying. He could totally go over there and start talking to them. Baekhyun was one of his friends, too. But Chanyeol, with his oversized hoodie and snapback, grinned and tried to touch Baekhyun’s neck again. If Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were friends because they were opposites, Chanyeol and Baekhyun were friends because they had the same personality. They were both loud and confident and had a tendency to not know when to shut the fuck up. Like now. Now, they should shut the fuck up. Why were they laughing? What was even funny?

“Hey,” Jongin intoned quietly, bumping his hip against Kyungsoo’s. “You okay?”

Kyungsoo snapped his head away from the mirror, feeling as though he’d been caught reaching for the fucking cookie jar. “Yeah. Just tired.” He hadn’t slept too well the night before, caught in cycles of turning on his phone, checking Chanyeol’s me2day and Cyworlds, and turning it off again. Chanyeol had posted nothing. Today, he looked as though nothing had changed. He didn’t even look at Kyungsoo once and Kyungsoo would know. Kyungsoo hadn’t stopped staring at him since he came for that afternoon’s practice.

Would they even end up taking the subway home together? Or would Chanyeol go with Baekhyun?

Whatever. Kyungsoo didn’t have time for this. He imagined himself stuffing his feelings into a box (and his feelings looked like those annoying celebration streamers and the silly string Chanyeol had sprayed in his face during his last birthday), putting that box into another, larger box, putting the larger box on a boat, and then heaving it off the boat in the middle of the ocean. There. Now Kyungsoo’s feelings were lost and there was no hope of ever recovering them. Good riddance.

The choreographer turned on the music and practice began. Kyungsoo fell in line with Jongin and kept his eyes on his own reflection, letting everyone in his periphery blur away.

It was the equivalent of the first horrible twist in any low budget horror movie. The protagonist threw out the allegedly haunted locket/doll/vibrator (Kyungsoo’s favorite horror movies were also pornographic), sighed and skipped away, feelings as though they had just been relieved of a great burden, only to open their front door and see the locket/doll/vibrator waiting for them, back from a premature garbage death.

That was what Kyungsoo faced when he stepped out of the restroom later in the week and found Chanyeol waiting for him. The horror porno actress in Kyungsoo’s mind screamed.

“What are you doing here?” Kyungsoo asked, frozen in place. It hadn’t even been that long since Chanyeol had acknowledged his existence only, in light of recent events, it had felt like a few weeks. It had probably only been three days, maybe even two.

“Um.” Chanyeol stared down at his scuff high tops. “I wanted to, uh… talk about…things.”

“Things,” said Kyungsoo. “Like cats? They’re things, right?”

Chanyeol snorted, “Not… those things. Other… things. Can we go somewhere? I’ll buy you dinner.”

Kyungsoo wanted to step on his tennis shoes and punch him in the face. Yes, dinner would fix everything. By golly gee, why hadn’t Kyungsoo thought of that? Still, if Chanyeol was willing to put in effort into figuring out whatever the hell was going on between them, Kyungsoo wouldn’t want to stand in his way.

Out of the two of them, Chanyeol had always been better with words. Kyungsoo was still learning how to light his words like candles, letting them burn with his feelings, and not let them stand naked and alone, never realizing their full potential to burn as brightly as they could.

But lighted candles made everything so easier to see. Sometimes, Kyungsoo didn’t want to be seen. He needed to keep a few things in the darkness for himself.

The owners of their favorite takoyaki restaurant welcomed them with friendly smiles and let them to their favorite table in the back.

“You’re going to give me an autograph to put up eventually, right?” asked the waiter noona. She pointed to the picture frames all around the restaurant. In each of them, an idol had signed. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo currently sat under Goo Hara’s looping signature.

“We sure will,” said Chanyeol, dimpling. “I’ll make mine out to you, noona. Don’t you worry.”

The waiter noona tittered, blushing pretty under the magic of Chanyeol’s blossoming idol charm. She left with their orders and then Kyungsoo sat in expectant silence, waiting for Chanyeol to speak.

“I, um…” Chanyeol’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Don’t… don’t think….” He sat a little straighter. “On second thought… on second thought, this isn’t really… the place to talk about this. Come home with me. We’ll talk about it… there.”

Kyungsoo shifted his backpack in his lap. His stomach was beginning to hurt and the back of his neck was warm and slightly damp. He hated being kept waiting. If Chanyeol was going to end their friendship, couldn’t he do it then and there? This wasn’t a drama. If the sky suddenly decided to open up and rain on Kyungsoo as he walked from Chanyeol’s building, that would only be the icing on this shit cake.

When their dinner arrived, Kyungsoo stuffed himself with as many delicious takoyaki balls as he could. It was hard, he realized, to hold a semi-permanent grumpy face when faced with this mouthwatering goodness.

Kyungsoo’s shoulders dropped and he moved his backpack to the seat next to him. He was starting to feel a little better already, but that too shattered when he accidentally looked up at a terrible time and saw Chanyeol’s wet lips covered in sauce.

Chanyeol licked his lips just like that every time Kyungsoo kissed him.

He was such an unattractive eater. His cheeks bulged and he chewed wildly, occasionally humming or moaning about “how good” the food was under his breath. He always had to keep a napkin on hand or he would end up ruining his favorite sweaters in his exuberance. He ate as though he had never eaten before and instead of familiar disgust, Kyungsoo felt a swelling of fondness, followed quickly by the desire to know how Chanyeol’s mouth tasted now.

Probably gross, Kyungsoo comforted himself. He wanted to lock his feelings up tight and throw them into the sea again, but his Chanyeol feelings were a bit like a boomerang. It was only a matter of time before Kyungsoo threw them and they came back around to slap his head around.

They finished their meal, Chanyeol paid, and then they were off for the subway. It wasn’t incredibly crowded, but Kyungsoo was still momentarily pressed against Chanyeol’s chest, Chanyeol’s hands on his shoulders.

“Sorry,” muttered Kyungsoo, stepping back. He looked all around the subway car. A couple of middle school girls were asleep with their heads together, their arms intertwined. A businessman couldn’t stop looking at his wristwatch. Curly haired ahjummas laughed behind a tabloid further down the car.

Kyungsoo could feel Chanyeol looking at him, but he said nothing. They didn’t touch until Kyungsoo was pulling off his shoes in Chanyeol’s foyer and he stumbled as he tried to pull his right foot out. Chanyeol caught him, again around the shoulders, but he quickly dropped his hands when Kyungsoo shook him off. They were tense again.

In Chanyeol’s room, they took up their respective positions again: Chanyeol on his desk, Kyungsoo on Chanyeol’s bed. Only it was a bit different this time. Chanyeol turned his chair around so he could face the bed and he did a lot of nervous sighed and face rubbing as Kyungsoo pulled his books out.

But no matter how hard Kyungsoo tried, he couldn’t force normalcy into the situation. His pants started to feel too tight and nausea bubbled up in his throat. Kyungsoo swallowed it all back and clears his throat, fussing with his hair while Chanyeol visibly panicked and paced, footfalls heavy on the floor.

“Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo said when he couldn't take the silence anymore. “What’s going on?”

Chanyeol turned, “Best friends don’t kiss, Kyungsoo. You were right. That’s not… that wasn’t right of us to do. I’m… sorry if I… forced you to kiss me—”

“You didn’t force me to do anything—“

“Please,” Chanyeol held his hands up. “Let me finish.”

Kyungsoo swallowed down the partially digested takoyaki in his esophagus. He calculated how much it would take to have Chanyeol’s sheets dry cleaned if something terrible happened.

Chanyeol took a deep breath, and then sighed. He stepped closer to the bed, looking down at Kyungsoo. “I’m… going to say something now and you’ll probably, you’ll probably hate me, but I just… want you to know that, you’re my best friend, Kyungsoo, and I don’t… I don’t want to make you uncomfortable with… this.”

“With what?” Kyungsoo coaxed softly. His stomach gurgled. Here it came. The inevitable. The “wow, look at the time, sorry we couldn’t be friends forever like we had always planned!” Kyungsoo could survive it, he knew he could, but he would feel sad for a very long time if he lost Chanyeol. His Chanyeol.

“I… kind of… like you?” Chanyeol laughed, shrugging. “Like, a lot? I, um, I don’t really know… how anything happened but, you just… I… this, this isn’t a friendly like either. I mean, I like you as a friend, obviously, and I don’t want to lose you as a friend, but I think that we… I mean, I think that I… I like you in a… in another way. You know? Like…” He swallowed. “Like, um, the terrifying, crushing, oh-no-I’ve-ruined-a-friendship-forever-with-my-feelings-why-did-I-do-that kind of a way.”

Kyungsoo threw up.

“Fuck!,” Chanyeol yelled at the top of his lungs, stepping out of the way just in time to avoid takoyaki all over his favorite sweater. “Fuck, Kyungsoo, oh my God, did I just kill you—“

Kyungsoo coughed, face flushing with shame, and tried to sit up. He had lost his dinner over the side of Chanyeol’s bed, missing most of the actual bed but splattering the floor. Chanyeol stormed out of his room, yelling for his mom, for his sister, for the president, and both ladies came in after shoving a curious Chanyeol out of the way, cooing at Kyungsoo and helping him up to the bathroom.

“What the hell did you do—“ Yura hit Chanyeol’s arm, frowning. Park Yura. One hundred and sixty five centimeters of pigtails, pink pajama bottoms, and hard slaps. According to Chanyeol, she used to put dresses on him and make him wear their mother’s lipstick as a toddler. She said she even had the pictures to prove it, but Chanyeol would never let Kyungsoo see them.

She loved Kyungsoo, tolerated Chanyeol, and hid nothing.

“Nothing!” Chanyeol squeaked. “Nothing, I s-swear—“

“You lying—“

“Yura, please,” Chanyeol’s mother said, her arm still carefully around Kyungsoo. “Help Chanyeol clean up. I’ll take care of Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo liked Chanyeol’s mother, his sister, his father, too. Chanyeol’s entire family liked him. His mother teased that it was because he was so quiet and obedient and any quiet, obedient child was a relief after putting up with Chanyeol and his periodical life obsessions. Mama Park still hadn’t forgiven Chanyeol for the night he bleached his hair and almost ruined her bathroom.

Kyungsoo washed his face and mouth, and changed into the clothes Yura had bought for him.

“You can wear my shirt,” she preened, holding up a tank top with ‘BUBBLEGUM BABY’ and glitter hearts on it.

Kyungsoo’s smile was shaky, “Thanks Yura.” At least Chanyeol’s old sweats were nondescript.

“If Chanyeol makes you sick again,” Yura’s face darkened. Thunder crackled over her head. “I’ll twist his nuts off and feed them to our uncle’s dog.”

Kyungsoo laughed. He also tried to stealthily cross his legs.

Chanyeol was waiting for him back in his room, looking thoroughly chastised. He sat on his bed, legs crossed under him, and told Kyungsoo to shut the door behind him. Kyungsoo leaned against it. His stomach still felt funny, but the desire to upchuck had successfully passed. If only his stomach would stop hurting.

Silence, and then, “I hope… that wasn’t a response to my… confession.” Chanyeol smiled, sadly.

“It wasn’t.” Kyungsoo’s voice cracked. He cleared this throat, “I thought…” He cleared his throat again. “I thought something else was coming.”

“Something else?” Chanyeol perked up. “…Like what?”

“Like…” Kyungsoo’s mouth was too dry. He wet his lips and thought passed the sour taste still lingering in the back of his mouth. “Like you were going to… I don’t know, say you didn’t want to be friends anymore or something. That we were… too weird to function like we had before.”

“Are you kidding me?” Chanyeol stood and walked over to him. He smelled like his room, that heavy Chanyeol scent, along with sweat and that takoyaki sauce that had been all over his mouth. He stopped when their feet almost touched. “Kyungsoo, you’re… it’s…” Chanyeol frowned. “I’m not really sure… how to explain it. This isn’t, like, a new thing for me. I’ve always felt a little…different about you. I thought it was just because we were so close and not because… not because—“

Kyungsoo held his breath.

“—not because I wanted to kiss you all the time and I thought about holding your hand and telling Yura you’re my boyfriend and of course, if that ever happened, she’d kick my ass and say that I took her only chance, but I think she’s in way over her head, I mean, I don’t think she knows you as much as I do—“

“What—“

“—the kissing thing, I, well, I didn’t lie about being a terrible kisser, now, did I? I was pretty bad. You, you’re really good. Really good. Where did you learn to kiss like that? I bet you have a lot of practice, huh? When you asked me if I wanted you to touch me, I did, I did want you to touch me, but I was freaked the fuck out. You said it so calmly, like you were so confident, and, I don’t know, I guess I felt a little overwhelmed because I felt like, for the first time in a while, someone I wanted felt the same way about me but then I thought, nah, it’s Kyungsoo, he’s your friend, he’s just giving you what you want even if he doesn’t feel the same way, the way you talked about hormones made me think you weren’t really into me like I was into you so I tried to ignore everything and you but I couldn’t, I’m so, I like you so much—“

Chanyeol was gasping then, trying fruitlessly to keep his mouth in sync with his running thoughts.

Kyungsoo was amazed, then flattered, then a little sad. Finally, he understood what Chanyeol felt and he knew he needed to say something, anything, to let him know he wasn’t in this alone.

“You—“

Chanyeol shut his mouth, “M-Me?”

“You’re an asshole,” said Kyungsoo, fisting his hands in Chanyeol’s big sweater.

“I am?” Chanyeol pouted. “Look, I know ignoring you wasn’t the best way to do things but—“

“Not about that,” Kyungsoo shook his head. “Do you, do you honestly think I’d ever do something even if I didn’t want to do it? Do you know me at all, Chanyeol? Do I act like the kind of person who does things out of the goodness of his heart?”

Chanyeol laughed, “You know, you’re really sweet. You don’t have to talk about yourself like you’re a dick all the time. I know the truth.” He touched one of Kyungsoo’s cheeks with the back of his hand.

Kyungsoo felt the ground rumble under his feet. “What truth?”

“You’re probably the most confident person I know,” Chanyeol whispered, his hand still against Kyungsoo’s face. “You don’t ever take anyone’s shit. You glare at everyone that tries to baby you because of how cute you look. I like to think that I know exactly what you’re thinking, but sometimes… sometimes, I think you put up with a lot of my shit, too much of it, really. I thought you were just kissing me or offering to do… more just because I wanted it, because you… you kind of always give me what I want and I didn’t want to take advantage of how nice you are, even if you don’t think you’re all that nice.”

“I’m not nice,” Kyungsoo countered. His chest felt heavy and uncomfortable, like someone had decided to hold an inflatable bouncing castle party in his rib cage. He felt like he was about to burst. “I’m not—“

“You are. But it’s okay if you want to call yourself an asshole. I won’t stop you.” Chanyeol smiled. He was so close Kyungsoo could kiss his dimple, but he didn’t feel too sexy with persistent puke breath. “So you… did want to kiss me?”

“And do other ‘stuff’,” said Kyungsoo.

He knew what he had to do. Even if he never did something like this ever again, he needed to do it for Chanyeol. Words mattered to Chanyeol. Kyungsoo lit a match, hovered over the first candle, and said, “I… kind of like you too.” His lips twitched. He smiled. “Not… not in the best friend way, either.” His fingers burned. He felt like dropping the match; the candle was too bright, he wanted to put it out. But it was done.

Chanyeol’s entire face brightened. “You… you do?” He laughed, his breath caressing Kyungsoo’s lips. “You do,” his voice faded to a secret whisper.

Kyungsoo nodded and returned his whisper, now not wanting to speak over the oncoming pressure of Chanyeol’s lips. “I do. I like you.” Blunt words, bright words.

Chanyeol kissed him up against his bedroom door half an hour after Kyungsoo had puked over the side of Chanyeol’s bed, a week after they had kissed for the first time.

“I think I’m addicted to you. You’re like my lollipop.”

Kyungsoo groaned, “Please stop listening to Big Bang.”

Hours later, they were in bed, not doing their homework. Chanyeol was looking up Big Bang music videos on his phone and mouthing along the words, while his other hand was up Kyungsoo’s shirt, rubbing his belly.

“I know we can’t kiss right now,” said Chanyeol. “But… we can kiss tomorrow, right? And the day after?”

Kyungsoo, trying to fall asleep, grunted, “Yes. Tomorrow. Day after tomorrow. Just not right now. Keep rubbing.”

“You’re worse than my uncle’s dog,” Chanyeol dropped his phone onto the bed and scooted closer, spooning against Kyungsoo. “Except he tries to bite me when I stop petting him.”

“I’ll bite you if you want me to,” said Kyungsoo, turning his head back to close his teeth around whatever part of Chanyeol he could reach. He missed miserably. Chanyeol laughed at him, patting his tummy and then squeezing him close.

“You’re really—“

“Don't—“ Kyungsoo’s stomach lurched. He sat up.

“Sorry, sorry!” Chanyeol sat up too, loosening his grip. “I’m sorry.” He kissed Chanyeol’s cheek. “I’m the worst trial period boyfriend ever.”

“I’m going to return you after thirty days and get my money back.” Kyungsoo’s stomach still hurt, but he was a happy. Chanyeol’s hand returned to its rightful place, his pinky finger occasionally trying to worm into Kyungsoo’s bellybutton. It tickled. Kyungsoo felt warm and heavy, like a giant takoyaki ball Chanyeol kept trying to eat with his still too wet kisses. Kyungsoo would have to work on that with him later. Probably after his friggen frog lab report.

Kyungsoo napped with his leg thrown over Chanyeol’s hip, Chanyeol pressed close into his side.

“I’m going to be the best boyfriend ever,” Chanyeol promised.

“Keep rubbing,” Kyungsoo grumbled.