The day he decides to tell him it’s on his graduation day.

Maybe it was the way Baekhyun smiled at him once the ceremony was over, like this was the beginning of so much more, of everything. And not just another carefree spring morning, just like the ones Chanyeol is so used to train on, to build up his stamina, as he said sometimes making Baekhyun laugh.

He’s now sitting on the old tree he’s so used to rest in, as Chanyeol looks down at him. Baekhyun does his best and tries to get but can’t, so Chanyeol lends him a hand.

“Oh God, I’m getting old really fast” he says half joking half grunting.

His laugh could make flowers grow. Chanyeol pulls him up, thinking how it wasn’t only their age, it was the distance. Distance was setting so much faster than Chanyeol’s courage and Baekhyun was bound for a train to Juilliard, far, far, far, gone.

He can feel how his palms start sweating as they start walking. He can feel how the wind is making his hair messy, how it feels like it’s pulling him towards Baekhyun’s side. He swallows hard, and it feels as if  his courage has finally caught him up.

“I’ve loved you,” he says, with a surprising steady voice, “for so many years now.”

The echo of his voice reverberates through his bones, into the trees, into the ground, and up into Baekhyun’s spine like a tidal wave. It shows in the way Baekhyun takes a shaky breath and a step back, his palms in a fist and his eyes wide like a storm that’s only beginning.

“What?” Baekhyun just asks, almost as if he didn’t hear. They both know he did, he just wants to give Chanyeol the time to take it back.

He forces himself not to look away, holding tight on his courage. You know him, he says to himself — as thoughts of things as familiar as delicate fingers and shared t-shirts— fill his head and he squares his shoulders.

“I wanted to tell you,” he manages to say calmly. “I wanted you to know, and I know you heard me the first time.”

See, he does know him. So, he doesn’t wait for the familiar smile, the one that makes his eyes hide as his pearly sharp teeth show. He’s not waiting for the sparkly eyes and the ring of his laugh, like the first time he stared at the fireworks from Chanyeol’s rooftop. Maybe he’s waiting for a soft yes, me too.

What he gets instead is:

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun eyes are still full of shock but his palms are now open, “I— Chanyeol, I’m so sorry, but— I—” he takes another breath in but doesn’t say anything more as he gets into his car and drives away.

Chanyeol is seventeen going on eighteen, and his best friend doesn’t love him back.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

Leadership settles on Chanyeol’s shoulders, but he feels like he’s 12 and trying on his dad’s favorite shoes. He knows how to work with his deadlines and how to finish a chapter within a night with the help of coffee, of course. But still, everywhere he looks, there’s a memory of Baekhyun, the way this character he created had a mole on her lips that would make the main character feel dizzy, or how the way his main character’s best friend liked the coffee, how every now and then he was putting Baekhyun traits on his stories. The little things that made Chanyeol so in love with him, he thought he would have a seizure at any moment.

“Hey!” Minseok says. “How is work going?”

He’s flat on his back, on Chanyeol's new couch, looking at the constellations he and Baekhyun stuck up on the ceiling when they were only ten. He takes a focus on his laptop.

“I’m trying,” he finally says, after looking at the screen for a little too long.

He can’t help but think about how this was the way Baekhyun always checked up on him when he realized that writing was the thing he wanted to do. But Baekhyun was no longer there, more than once he caught himself staring at the bed, where Baekhyun usually was laying down while playing on his phone or listening to music, sometimes just laughing at some stupid joke with his eyes bright like the daylight of the first summer day.

He unconsciously digs his short nails on his thighs, as Minseok sighs in defeat and sits up.

“Let’s go, ” he says now with a smile. “You need to take some air, been staring at that screen for far too long and Sehun is waiting for us.”

It sounds wrong, because he was seriously thinking on finishing that chapter and starting the next one tonight but as soon as he starts to think about Baekhyun’s moles, like the one on his thumb, how he would always catch himself trying to discover a new one. How they looked like little obsidians on his pale skin.

I’m waiting too, he can’t help but think. The thing is this, he doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. Maybe for the world to change, because he’s a boy who loves a boy, and to top it off, he’s Asian. They both are. And that means he’s ed.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

It’s a week later when Baekhyun finally calls him, and he’s talking the way he always does.

“Chanyeol! How are you?” He sounds as happy.

“I’m ok,” he says, trying to swallow the millstone that is now wedged in his throat.

The both of them exchange pleasantries for a while. Chanyeol talks him about this new story he just stared writing a few days ago, and how he already caught the interest of someone and now it’s going to be published by the school in July and it’s going to be on the festival, Baekhyun talks about how everyone around him is talented beyond belief in Juilliard, his roommate who is a dancer and how he looks like he just came from a runaway.

“Everyone is so amazing!” he continues, “But it’s just so hard— I see where I am and where I want to be, but the gap is just so enormous. I can’t even explain you how frustrating it is.”

Chanyeol wants to laugh. “I can imagine,” he just says. He can tell it’s eight, because that’s when Baekhyun usually calls. “But the good thing is: you can see how it was, how it is, and how you want it to be. You can see the gaps. You’re not at your best yet, but that sure isn’t going to stop you from getting there.”

He can hear Baekhyun’s sigh at the other end of the line. The sound is low but sweet, even through the phone. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel it at his nape.

“You always think of the best stuff to tell me, did I ever tell you that?”

“Yeah,” he says, looking at the constellations on his ceiling. “You do that a lot.” he continues after a while.

Baekhyun laughs and mumbles something indistinct as Chanyeol checks up his planner for tomorrow, he turns the page, and runs his fingers down the lines of his last manuscript. Last year, they were both discussing on ways to improve the ending of his recently finished story, the both of them, he remembers the rainy afternoons in Baekhyun’s bedroom, discussing line changes, interspersed with the moments Baekhyun would ask him to toss another strawberry into his mouth.

“Yeol” Baekhyun said, chewing obnoxiously, “I could try out for the drama team.”

“Ugh, don’t eat with your mouth open,” he said, exasperated, but he couldn’t help but fix his eyes on his neck, the languid slope of his shoulder that were broad in some Baekhyun way and the swell-dip of his throat as he swallowed, making Chanyeol swallow hard to. The breeze from the window touching Baekhyun in a way Chanyeol had never done.

He spent those long afternoons in Baekhyun’s childhood bedroom surrounded by the smell of his favorite cologne, breathing in his scent so deep it sunk into his bones, and if he hadn’t know, he would have back then: that for a love like that there was no recovering. He almost didn’t care.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says after a while of rambling about classes. “Listen, ok?”

Something in his voice takes Chanyeol’s full attention.

“D— Do you remember what you told me the day I graduated?”

Chanyeol’s breath gets caught in his lung with a dizzying ferocity. His finger slips on the phone and for one sickening moment he almost drops it, his stomach feels as if he swallowed a bunch of cloves, and when he finally gets a hold of himself, he’s breathless with terror.

“Chanyeol?” Baekhyun sounds small, like the first night they got to spend alone and watched a horror movie and Baekhyun came on the middle of the night crawling at Chanyeol’s bed, looking for comfort. Chanyeol swallows.

“I’m here,” his voice sound hoarse. “I remember.”

“Good,” Baekhyun says, and he sounds truly relieved. He takes a breath, all crackly static. “I’ve been thinking about what you said and— I know I’d never thought about it. About boys, or you… I— I wasn’t lying.”

If all, hearing it for the second time doesn’t easy the sting, but he forces himself to breathe and endure the burn.

“I know,” he says, proud about the way his voice sounds steady. “I’ve already told you nothing would change, just forget it, okay?”

Baekhyun doesn’t say anything for a moment and Chanyeol can almost hear his weighing words in his brain, picking and discarding like the way he used to learn the perfect skateboard trick to impress his older brother, the silence lingers for a while, tied up by the knowledge that two years of heartache weighs between you.

“The thing is,” Baekhyun finally talks, “I don’t want to put it out of my mind.”

Chanyeol stops breathing.

“You have always been my best friend and I was thinking that maybe we could try, maybe,” Baekhyun says, too rushed. “It doesn’t have to be a big fuss, like we could try doing the same things we usually do, and— see how it goes?”

Chanyeol is dizzy, faraway, like he’s diving through a dream. “You don’t have to do this,” he finally finds his voice. “It’s okay, I know you don’t feel the same and I don’t want you to—”

“No, listen to me,” Baekhyun interrupts his ramblings; he sounds surer than he’d sounded just a minute ago. “You’re the most important person to me, even if it’s not in the way I am to you, but I— I just want to know if— that could change.”

Chanyeol is staring out of the window. Somewhere above him, he can hear the air conditioner, and somewhere outside kids are laughing. In the house, he can hear the sound of the washing machine. But between the satellite transmission of Baekhyun’s voice and the inch those sounds waves had traveled to slide home into his ear, the entirety of his universe had been taken apart so smoothly he can no longer recognize it.

“You want to try?” Chanyeol can hear himself say. “Being—” but he can no longer find the words.

“Being together?” Baekhyun hurries. “Is that weird? I just think we could try. I don’t know. It’s just that you— you are my best friend in the world, Chanyeol.”

He’s watching his face in the glass now, until his reflection starts to blur. He thinks about Baekhyun’s laughing face, and the way he absently puts his fingers on his mouth, the way he pouts when he just woke up, the way he blushes all the way up to his ears making him duck his head.

Chanyeol swallows, “Okay” he says, softly. “Let’s try.”

He feels just like how he felt on that spring day when Baekhyun’s favorite kite got caught up on a tree and Chanyeol, who just turned eight and was still afraid of heights, climbed the tree just to get it for him.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

It takes half an hour for Chanyeol to reach college by bus, he’s busier than ever, and his writing lessons have him running ragged as it is.

Baekhyun, though, is learning how to drive. He drops by as often as his schedule allows him to, his voice is an unchained bird floating through the halls and his laughter so sweet that bees could cluster at the windows with starving eyes. He could lit up the entirety of Seoul if he tried.

“It feels so surreal,” Baekhyun tells him, that night after dinner. He’s walking in that slow way he always does when he wants to talk.

“You mean, you making it into Juilliard?” Chanyeol ask, looking at the way Baekhyun is playing with his fingers but not in a nervous manner.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun is looking at his feet. “It’s just— you know, I hoped but I still can’t actually believe it’s real. Sometimes it feels as if I’m going to wake up and find out it all was a dream. Isn’t that weird?”

Under the city lights, the light on his eyes looks like the city skyline. He’s wearing a jacket too big to fit his body, but it fit more perfectly to him, making his hands look tinier than ever, and Chanyeol’s hand stings because it isn’t holding his.

“No, it isn’t,” Chanyeol says. “That’s just what it feels like when you hope for something. When you have hoped for it for the longest time.”

Baekhyun suddenly turns and Chanyeol walks into him. His body all soft lines and shocking heat, very real and solid, Chanyeol’s hands come up around him instinctively.

“Oh—” he starts, a Baekhyun says, “Sorry,” rushed and too loud. His eyes the size of the moon. “I, just—”

“Sure” Chanyeol mutters, as he feels himself blushing, flustered. “What is it?”

Baekhyun says nothing for a moment, and Chanyeol can see the way his jaw set, even in the night. It’s the look that changed a game, and a lot of his stories, in a few moments, his life, probably. Chanyeol can feel his heart kick against his ribs as he swallows, waiting.

“I’m sorry” Baekhyun says, softly. “About— everything, wait— not everything, not that you love me, because I could never be sorry about that but I know how much it hurts you, how much it hurts to wait. I know how much it hurts to want something so badly.” He swallows. “So, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for making you wait.”

He’s talking like he’s on a rush, his breaths billowing between him in a whisper. A young couple pass around him on the sidewalk, oblivious, they laughter echoes in the cool night air.

“It’s only a little hurt,” Chanyeol scrapes out.

“Don’t,” Baekhyun says closing his eyes, voice soft. “It hurts so much you could die. I know.”

Chanyeol’s fingers twinge, He distantly, realizes he balled his hands into fists, uncurling them aches, too, but at this point there’s nothing in him that doesn’t.

“Two years was enough to get me used to it,” he tries to say it lightly but it turns out raspy.

He can hear the cars in the distance. Baekhyun takes a step forward, he looks up at him with glass in his eyes.

“When did you realize?”

Chanyeol feels as if his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth. In another universe, maybe, the words would have risen from his mouth, like a river pulled by the moon.

In another universe, he says: the very first time we fell asleep and I woke up hungry for the peach of your mouth. One day, I realized your smile could make the flowers grown. When you pulled me into a hug and it felt as if my bones were made of cotton. When I took you into my arms that night you were afraid and I felt that as long as you were always with me there would be a place I could be at home. When you laughed and I realized I was struck with a love the size of the whole world. 

But this isn’t that universe. In this universe Baekhyun’s still waiting, now his brows creased like he’s trying to pinpoint the moment a jump turns into a fall.

“Since our last year,” he says, at last. “I knew it that time when I first told you I wanted to be a writer, when you said that I shouldn’t care about anyone else, because my art only means anything if it’s for its own sake.”

Baekhyun stares at him for too long, and he feels ghost bumps rise on his skin.

He looks at him in this light and it’s too easy to imagine the both of them three months after this night, walking outside after his concert, the flowers in Chanyeol’s red hands from clapping damp with sweat and his skin tingling so much it feels like he’s vibrating, hear swollen like a fist.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” Baekhyun would say, pink with the flush of his first love. “Isn’t weird how it worked out after all? Did you know it would turn out this way?”

“No,” Chanyeol would say, because loving him had been a surprise up to the very moment he learned to love you back. “No, I never did. But I hoped.”

But that’s three months for now. Baekhyun is watching the movement in the streets, people talking, people eating and drinking and a bunch of teenagers shouting. His lips are lightly parted and it’s starting to realize you’ve never wanted to kiss a boy before him.

“Let’s go,” Baekhyun says abruptly, but when he turns to face you, his eyes are as bright as fireflies. “Come on, Yeol. We can grab dinner in a bit.”

“Where are we going now?”

Baekhyun’s fingers find his and he clasps them together.

“Somewhere else,” he says.

And just as always, whenever he leads, Chanyeol follows.