A/n: Just heads up, the term macular edema comes up in this chapter. ( its the cause of Tao's blindness the defination is on the next line) 

 

Macular edema occurs when there is abnormal leakage and accumulation of fluid in the macula from damaged blood vessels in the nearby retina. 

Now that,  that is out of the way enjoy!! 

---

12 years later

 

The rain poured on the day of may 2nd, and for the first time in his life it bothered him. A lot.

 

Tao dragged the thick cello case along the dirt path that once used to be gravel, the crunch that once was beneath his feet was now a silent squish.

 

Yanking the case, as it got stuck on a rock in the path, Tao watched with dismay as the case its side. Sighing as he flipped it back the proper way, he continued along the path. The house in front of him had never looked better, the owner had painted it a year ago, a nice light blue color. The once dried bushes had began to grow back and the over grown weeds on the side of the house was gone. It was beautiful, Tao had admitted, but then again he didn't know what the house looked like before.

 

Now, however is a different story.

 

Stepping up to the doorway Tao his keys into the doorknob and he stepped across the threshold.

 

“Happy birthday Tao!!”

 

Tao immediately turned as the lights were flicked on. He shielded his eyes from the light and saw several people standing in his house. Placing his cello in its usual spot near the door. He lowered his hand as his eyes adjusted to the light.

 

“How did you get in my house?” He asked walking over to the group just to be smushed into a giant hug.

 

“Minseok, you know him, he likes to pick locks,” Junmyeon, his new friend and concert master, for his chamber group whispers in Tao's ear.

 

“No, I do not; your window was open!” Minseok yells from across the room

 

Junmyeon laughed as he let go of Tao from the bone crushing hug “I swear that kid has hawk-like hearing.”

 

Laughing, Tao was led into his kitchen, with a hand pressed into his back; where his friends had set up a cake and some blue balloons.

 

“Jongdae found them, we knew that they were your favorite color after you could..” Junmyeon trailed off, his smile dropping from his face,

 

“Well, you know.” he shook his head lightly and instantly his smile was back where it belonged. Junmyeon leaned low into Tao’s ear and whispered

 

“Just so you know, I wanted to give you your present personally. Meet me out back in 10?” Tao nodded

 

“Stop hogging the famous cellist,” Tao looked up to see his newest friend, Baekhyun, a bassist,  walking toward him with the cake, shaped like a cello, filled with illuminated candles.

 

“Make a wish birthday boy.”

 

-*-

 

 

12 years ago, right after the incident, Tao was lying in the hospital bed for the 2nd time that week and he had decided to cooperate with his mother, he stayed in the house, and practiced his cello by the dark of night, most of the time only the fingerboard and plucking the strings. Foregoing the bow altogether in fear of his mother hearing him practice. He only got to feel the sun once every three weeks, it was a punishment of sorts. For a while he felt like he deserved it, but he remembered Kris’ words to him before they were separated in the creek bed.

 

 

But then his mother fell ill.

 

 

Tao felt bad about not crying when she left the world, but sometimes there are people for whom we do not weep.

 

Tao regained his sight after being put in an orphanage for a week. The person in charge of the building would hear him practicing late at night and when she confronted him about it, Tao feared he would be punished, instead the woman took him to the hospital where they determined his blindness was from macular edema.

 

When they took the wrappings off his eyes, Tao cried for almost a week, and immediately determined his favorite color was blue.

 

After he left the orphanage at a ripe age of 21, Tao had come back to the old house where it all began, however, it was completely fenced in and closed, bound to be demolished.

 

 

Tao had smiled up at the sky when he bought the place.

 

He smiled at the sky again when the renovation was complete.

 

-*-

 

The rain had stopped last night, but Tao could still smell it in the air, even before his brain told him that his alarm was going off. Running his hand through his hair, and regretfully getting up he gently shuffled to the other side of the room with the intent to shut off his alarm.

 

Sight, was a wonderful gift that many people take for granted. Now that Tao has been given a chance to see the world, he to has taken it for granted. Especially in the mornings.

 

Tao trips, over nothing and falls face first on the floor.

 

“This is a wonderful thing to see first thing in the morning.” He mutters to no one in particular

 

He stands and pads his way over to his phone. His eyes widen in alarm.

 

“, crap, no, no, no, no, no” he mutters as he quickly gets dressed and flattens out his hair.

 

In the middle of brushing his teeth he hears a car honk in his driveway.

 

“Yem, comim” he mutters as he looks out the window and spits into the sink

 

“Crap he brought the tiny honda, my cello is not going to fit in there”

 

Tao runs down the stairs, grabs his cello and just remembers to lock the door when he hears Jongdae shout

 

“Hurry up, the kids at the school don’t like to be kept waiting.”

 

Tao sighed and shoves his cello case into the car.

 

The ride to the school is quiet, as it usually is. The only sounds coming from Jongdae’s radio. They like it like that, it’s the calm before the storm, the calm before teaching kids with noise makers, more commonly known as musical instruments, that somehow never sound right.

 

-*-

 

After a day filled of teenagers, Tao sometimes questions his own sanity about why he does this, teaching a high school orchestra. Most of them know what they're doing, the rest, just do not practice or they need to be woken up with the crash cymbals and bass drums.

 

Stolen from Jongdae’s classroom of course.

 

Walking up to his bedroom, Tao thanks every god that it’s Friday and he can finally get some sleep tonight, and ‘no’ he thinks ‘those papers can wait to be graded until tomorrow’

 

Dragging his feet across the floor he gets settled at his desk and stares at the gift Junmyeon gave him.

 

The small picture is old and looks bent, like it was carried for a while. But Tao could still clearly see the people in it.

 

To the left was Jongdae, and to the right was Junmyeon, in the middle, with his arms slung around the other two, was Kris. Smiling like there was nothing wrong with the world.

 

Junmyeon gave it to him saying that it wasn’t much but Tao deserved a chance to at least see him.

 

Tao cried when he opened the gift. He fell to his knees in the wet dirt, which in turn stained his pants.

 

Tao opens the drawer closest to his right arm and snags a pen that he hopes will work and begins to  write

 

‘Hey,’  he starts then scratches it out and starts over ‘I know I need to stop these letters but for some reason I can’t.’   He pauses ‘the kids in my class, you would like them I hope, they're really good, some are even better than me. Maybe they’re even better than you! That’s saying something! Maybe if you were still here I could have invited you to my class and we could have had a competition. That would’ve been fun.

 

Can I ask one thing though, there’s a concert this evening, the kid’s, not mine. If it’s not too much to ask, can you be there. It’s our first one of the school year. I’m scared less. It would be nice to know someone there.

 

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, Jongdae can't come, the band is preparing for the football game next week, so, if you could come that would be great.

 

Your Friend,

Z.Tao

p.s. It's at 9pm, in the performing arts center. Don't be late.’

 

 

-*-

 

Kris’s final resting place was decided by Tao. His father had drunken himself to his death after Kris passed away.

 

It was the hill behind the house, near the creek bed where they were separated.

 

Crouching on top of the hill in front of a small grave stone embedded in the grass, the wind blowing in his hair Tao took a deep breath inwards and placed the letter and on the ground, reaching to the right he grabbed a rock and laid it on top of the letter, he watched it flap in the wind for a few minutes before shaking his head.

 

Standing up, and dusting off his suit pants, he sighed and walked back inside the house, he grabbed his music folder, and his cello. Gripping his baton in between his teeth, he shuffled his obscenely large instrument out of his front door and down the path to his car.

 

Toward the concert,

 

The concert that be one to remember.

 

-*-

 

 

The concert went well. The group played through their three songs smoothly and without a hitch. Tao was pleased.

 

He walked backstage as he saw Jongdae running towards him

 

“That was amazing!  Practice ended early, and I was able to catch the ending ! The way you did those key changes from the second Movement to the third went smoothly. I told you, that you had nothing to worry about,” Suddenly Jongdae’s expression changed

 

“Tao, are you ok?”

 

Tao nodded his head and smoothed his suit “Yeah, I’m just- just fine, still on the high from the nerves,” he raised his hands in front of Jongdae’s face which were shaking so bad that Jongdae grabbed a chair and shoved Tao in it.

 

“Stay there i'm going to find you some water.”

 

Just like that he was gone, Tao looked around the emptying theatre, it was a nice building the old metal design in the ceiling was just enough to distract Tao from the craziness backstage.

 

Stagehands were flying left and right trying to clean up quickly so they could go home, students were helping stack chairs so they to, could go home earlier.

 

Tao stood from the chair, knowing that he should, at least, go help the students and probably deal with parents showering him with congratulations on a first concert well done.

 

However, as soon as he walked on the stage, he heard someone call his name. Tao looked down the aisle to see Jongdae practically running down the aisle with someone else behind him carrying a small cardboard box.

 

Taking a running leap on stage Jongdae tripped and he ran up to Tao, crashing into him, almost making them to fall over.

 

“Jongdae wha-”

 

“That man” Jongdae points, for emphasis, at the tall man holding the box, walking up the stairs. 

 

“That man,” Jongdae repeats “Wants to talk to you.” he breaths in one breath

 

Tao looks at Jongdae like he’s insane. He’s never seen Jongdae voluntary run before, much less sprint, and if he didn’t know this man Tao would say that he looks like he’s at disneyland and there’s no wait times for any of the rides.

 

“Ok,” Tao says warily “Um,” he looks around at the kids still stacking chairs “Jongdae stay here and help them and um, we’ll go to the dressing rooms downstairs”

 

Normally Jongdae would complain about stacking chairs, however he’s bouncing from foot to foot as he happily agrees to stack chairs and leaves the two alone.

 

Tao waves his hand.

 

“This way then.”

 

-*-

As the door clicked shut Tao hopped up on the counter of the dressing room, crossing his legs in front of him, he proceeded to play with the hem of his shirt.  

 

“So um, what’s in the box?”

 

Instead of answering his question the tall man laughed.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, coughing lightly, once he recovered.

 

“You can see now, it looks like”

 

Tao’s head shot up,

 

“What? Did you know me before, I could see? What is happ-”

 

“My name is Wu Yi Fan, and um,” he turned toward the box next to him and he pulled off the lid carefully, as if it were made of glass, and he passed it to Tao.

 

“There’s a hill behind my house and everyday I would find a letter written to me, so um,” he hesitates “I guess I could say I was invited here by you.”

 

Tao looks down at the top letter in the box and immediately throws it on the counter next to him. On top is the letter he wrote to Kris yesterday.

 

Wiping the tears out of his eyes, he mutters

 

“But his name was Kris and you’re…” he trailes off

 

“I should probably tell you the whole story,”

 

Tao nodded

 

Reaching into his pocket of his grey suit jacket Yi Fan pulled out a small orange pill bottle. Gently he shook it and set it next to him.

 

“Remember that?”

 

“You could have just grabbed that from anywhere. When that happened it was 12 years ago and I was blind.”

 

“Yes, but um, I go by another name, I never told you this name. But i’m more commonly known as  Kris, and you brought this exact pill bottle to the doctor right before I fell into a coma. They were able to administer the drug and it saved me, Tao, you saved my life and I have spent so long trying to find you aga-”

 

“You could have just gotten that from anywhere and you probably just found the letters. Anyone could have just called themselves Kris and waltzed their way in here, just” he pauses and wipes more tears out of his eyes “, get out” Tao breathed

 

“But-”

 

“I’ve had enough torture for 12 years thinking that Kris was dead. Which he is, so please just leave me in peace. Just leave.”

 

Kris nodded and walked over to take the box from Tao, who gently grabbed it out of his hands and sniffed.

 

“Let my memories stay mine.” he whispered, not trusting his voice above a whisper

 

Kris nodded and walked towards the door, when he sharply turned and walked back towards Tao. Standing directly in front of him he tapped his shoulder

 

“Get out !”

 

“One more thing if you’ll let me” Kris didn’t realize he was crying until Tao’s head looked at him and he could feel the tear tracks running down his cheeks.

 

He sniffed and said

 

“You deserve a happy ending.” he laughed sadly  “I hope you remember that.”

 

Tao froze at the memory of what his friend had said to him in the creek.

 

Tao turned back to face Kris but he was no longer there, grabbing the box and slamming the lid on it, he ran out of the dressing room and toward the stage where he saw Kris walking sadly down the aisle wiping his eyes.

 

Tao yelled his name and took a running jump of the stage, toward his friend.

 

Tao always had dreamed of this moment of one day becoming reunited with Kris however he doesn’t expect to faceplant into the ground right after he jumps off the stage.

 

Immediately Kris comes running over to him to help him up.

 

“Oh god are you ok ? Didn’t I ever teach you not to jump off- OOF” he was winded as Tao sharply hugged him.

 

“Only Kris could know what he said that day.” Tao sobbed into Kris’ shirt. Not really caring that he was getting Kris’ shirt wet. He was really thankful that his students left a few minutes ago.

 

-*-

 

A year later…

 

Kris was surprised when he found out that Tao had bought the ‘throw-up house’ and he was amazed at what Tao had done with the place.

 

He was even more surprised that he had a grave, in Tao’s backyard. Tao told him it was specially placed so that when Tao was practicing Kris could still hear his music and see how far along he was coming.

 

They decided to combine their yards; being neighbors from the backside this entire time they just decided to put in a door there.

 

Kris still had to take his medication, and this time Tao would be there with several alarms on his phone to remind Kris to take them whenever he came over to practice.

 

The competition between Tao’s first chair cello and Kris did happen. Kris won, according to his class, and he was invited back by his class to play for their concerto concert in the spring.

 

It was during one of these concerts that Tao leans over to Kris and whispers

 

“You know, 13 years ago we made a pinky promise that you would never leave me… you broke that promise… does this mean that I get to break your pinky?”

 

All Tao got was a whimpered “No…” and a very distraught face

 

In return Tao laughed and got scolded by one of his students for talking during Jongdae's  student’s concert.

 

All was well.

---

A/N 

 

OMG !  After 10,000 Years I finally Finished this story, thank you to everyone who has been here for this wonderful journey and heres to may more stories to come ! 

here are a few notes on this chapter because I felt like it needed to be included: Kris's grave is basically just a stone in the ground, there was no casket funeral thing, so the stone is more of like a memorial. 

so yeah ! On to the next story, I have so many I want to finish and many more in my drafts so please look foward to reading those ! (hint hint: There is one I'm currently writing that I haven't published yet, its about exo as hackers, and they play a game together... not telling you which one.... but let's just say some crazy stuff goes down.) 

Please look foward to it 

AND PLEASE Comment, it keeps me super motivated to continue writing and creating more things for you all. Also, please if you're to shy (like me) to comment please up vote and I will legit squeal and I will be so happy. 

So yeah, untill next time :) 

~Ring-Ding-Dong 

p.s. I'm sorry this chapter was so darn long I was trying to get several years worth of stuff that happened into one chapter. (also I apolige for the 10 years worth of dialouge, i'm working on trying to balance it all