Not Intended | CHANBAEK (BOOK I)

The Iceberg

Isolation left Chanyeol to think to himself. As he worked half-mindedly on the task in front of him, half of his brain was thinking about Baekhyun's multiple attempts at professing everything to him as if he was the ignorantly misinformed one in their relationship. Twirling the pencil in his hand, Chanyeol stared at the piece of paper and completely stopped working when he realized that his relationship with Baekhyun had completely taken over his train of thought.

The last few days had been odd for him. Baekhyun's act around him had been distant despite the fact that the smaller male tried to pretend like nothing was off. Ironically, the more Baekhyun kissed him and acted hyperactive, the more fake it felt between them. To his advantage, Chanyeol knew exactly what was going on and what exactly was straining their relationship recently.

It began to eat at him that Baekhyun was facing issues with himself. The "slut" ordeal--as Chanyeol figured--was part of a bigger ordeal dealing with Baekhyun's problem with his identity and what he presented to everyone else.

As he leaned against his chair and stared at the ceiling, Chanyeol finally realized that it was time to stop pushing the issue aside. The sooner he finished the project and sent Kris out the door, the sooner he could put Baekhyun's anxiety to rest and sleep better at night.

After taking in a deep breath, Chanyeol sucked it up and continued on speeding through the rest of his work, finalizing and double checking everything for Kris' departure.

-

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Even though the walls weren't soundproof, it occurred to Chanyeol that he hadn't heard Baekhyun screaming or laughing through the walls halfway through the afternoon. When he finished the final details, Chanyeol gathered everything and organized the papers and blueprints into folders before stacking them on his desk to present to Kris later that day.

The moment that he stepped out of his room, Chanyeol expected to hear some sort of commotion in the house, but much to his surprise, it was quieter than it had ever been in months since Baekhyun joined the household. Curious, Chanyeol stuck his head into Baekhyun's room to see if he was silently goofing around in bed with his vibrators again or quietly rereading one of his books. But when Chanyeol looked around, Baekhyun was nowhere to be found.

Walking to the main living space, Chanyeol called out for Baekhyun at first, but when he realized how empty the house felt, he began calling out everybody's name--even Nugget's. After getting no response, Chanyeol frowned and walked quickly to the sliding door and opened it. Stepping onto the deck, Chanyeol looked about and felt slightly relieved to see someone sleeping in the hammock--a sheer sign that not everyone had mysteriously disappeared while he was off trying to work.

Stepping down the steps and walking through the pathway, Chanyeol craned his head to see who it was that was sleeping. A small part of him wanted it to be Baekhyun. Nothing would've made him slightly happier if he just had some small alone time with the male for a minute or two. But as Chanyeol closed in, he was with a disappointment when he saw that it was Sehun. Sighing, he walked over and jostled the gardener awake.

Chanyeol waited for Sehun to finish being startled before he asked the tired boy questions. "Where're the others?"

"What?" Sehun groaned groggily as he rubbed his eyes.

"It's like everybody died," Chanyeol said as he watched Sehun sit up. "I wanted to know if you knew where they were."

Sehun took his time gathering reality again before answering. "I left the house when Kyungsoo and Kai were fighting. It was too loud."

"What about Baekhyun?"

Yawning, Sehun shrugged. "I don't know. He was nude the last time I saw him, but..." He paused and looked behind him toward the ocean. "Well, he's not there anymore, but he was there the last time I checked."