Closets Are For Ghosts And Gays | Chanbaek, Chansoo

How Many Puzzle Pieces Does It Take To Form A Picture?

Chanyeol really hated seeing Baekhyun in a bad mood. It was weird for starters; he was normally so loud and talkative and up for an adventure. But ever since his confession, Chanyeol had come to realize that having the ghost annoy him was far superior to the awkward silence that occurred during their scarce and very brief encounters.

It wasn't that Baekhyun was being rude and avoiding him. It was that he was genuinely too upset to speak. That left Chanyeol torn between comforting him or flat out blowing him off, and both options irked him to no end. He hated being sentimental, but it felt wrong not to say something.

So, he needed a new plan. Instead of sitting down and having some deep conversation with Baekhyun like he was a therapist, he decided to do what Baekhyun did best; rant about love. He was a hopeless romantic after all; the subject was bound to pull him out of his slump.

Of course, he wasn't going to delve into his own love life, at least not yet. He'd gotten nowhere with Kyungsoo and was in no mood to be reminded of his embarrassing confession-attempt that still blindsided him with cringe attacks from time to time. No, he needed something a little less grounded in his own reality. And what better place to find cheesy romance than a movie?

If Chanyeol was going to lure the ghost out of the closet and get him to talk again, he needed the most tooth-rotting, fluffy, gooey, cheesy romance crap that Baekhyun would just gush over. He went downstairs while his parents were out to browse streaming services in search of something. Low and behold, the dumbest romance movie he'd ever heard of popped up on the screen. Perfect.

It was about a human falling in love with a vampire; typical cliche Halloween movie romance bullshit that Chanyeol had no interest in. He turned it on and blasted the volume so Baekhyun could hear the corny pickup lines from upstairs, then put his earbuds in to end his own suffering.

He sat through thirty goddamn minutes of it before the ghost finally made an appearance. He had reached the part in the movie where the human and vampire were about to do the deed, and it amused him that that was the part Baekhyun came out for.

"What are you watching?" He heard a small voice ask from behind. Turning around, Chanyeol spotted Baekhyun at the top of the stairs, poking his head out from behind the wall.

"Just some romance movie I stumbled upon."

"Is it any good?"

"It's great." He patted the cushion next to him. "Care to join me?"

Baekhyun seemed hesitant, but he eventually floated his way down the stairs and planted himself in front of the TV. He didn't sit. He stood inches away from the screen, blocking Chanyeol's view, completely fixated on the scene.

So far, it was working. To ensure Baekhyun stuck around, Chanyeol explained to him everything he missed in the movie. Not that he was really paying attention, but it was cliched enough for him to string a plot together that the ghost could understand.

Baekhyun seemed invested in the conversation. He didn't make any comments, but Chanyeol sensed he was listening considering he stayed quiet the entire time. He finally sat down and put his feet up on the couch, bringing his knees to his chest with one ear tuning into the conversation and the other listening to the TV.

"I've never been much of a romance guy, but this movie has been pretty entertaining." Chanyeol lied, at least about the movie being good. It was true that he didn't like romance that much. In fact, he found romance movies more horrifying than the Halloween movies he'd been binging lately.

"What's not to love about romance movies?" Baekhyun said. That familiar dreamy look gradually crept into his eyes again. Slowly but surely, he was beginning to act like his old self. "They're so cute and wholesome and they make you feel good when you're down. I used to go to the cinema all the time to watch them. You remind me of my roommate; he wasn't much of a fan either."