Dear Baekhyun,

I forgot the recipe, oops. I’ll write it on a cue card so you don’t have to keep digging up this letter to make it again and again (that's how much you're going to like it).

Don't worry, me and Yoora got mixed up a lot, too. I went through a rebellious phase when I was 13 and grew it out to almost below my shoulder blades and I looked a lot like Yoora. She even said it was a little creepy. I don’t know how women can live with long hair, it’s so tedious to take care of. You gotta shampoo, shampoo again and use half a conditioner bottle to get it untangled. It’s baffling.

Today was sad. One of my friends, Kyungsoo, who’s in the hospital again (he has Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I think that’s what it’s called) told me he’s scared he won’t be able to send letters to his soulmate (he’s turning eighteen on January 12^th). The doctors are being vague on how long he’ll live or if it’ll even go away.

He’s had NHL (it’s the abbreviation for Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, my hand cramps if I Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma out a lot) for nearly a year now (it’s a year sometime in early January) and they keep saying he’s getting better but he’ll go back in and they’ll say it’s gotten worse and he’ll be readmitted for a month or two. He’s already dropped out, since he’s missed so much school. His parents are worried for him, they’re scared he won’t see twenty.

He’s not that optimistic at this point, he thinks he should just go the assisted suicide route if it doesn’t get better in six months, but his parents are rooting for chemotherapy. He heard a story that if you die while your letters are waiting to send to your soulmate, they send automatically to them, even if they aren’t eighteen. It’s sad to find out your soulmate is dead before you even meet them. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through that, Baekhyun. Thanks for not being sick or getting in any accidents.

But I showed him your letters, he seemed genuinely happy for me. I feel like I made him really sad, since he knows I will meet my soulmate and he probably won’t. He’s stubborn, though, and he won’t admit that he feels sad. He’ll only admit it when he is in pain because of it, and even then, he’ll try to stifle it. He’s a strong guy, mentally and physically.

He’s like my Jongdae. Soo’s been my friend for a long time, since middle school. Not nearly as long as you and Jongdae have been friends, but we have the same bond. I spend most of my free time with him and I’ve spent several long nights at the hospital with him. He’s grateful though, I’m sure.

We have a little group of friends from school that hang out with him. There’s me, Sehun and Junmyeon. Junmyeon visits whenever he can, but he moved to Busan for university (he’s a year older than you and me). Sehun is a year younger than me, we live in the same neighbourhood. It’s funny, Sehun looks older than me and Junmyeon, but he’s he youngest. He’s turning seventeen in April.

My mom says hi, by the way. She wants to see a photo of you. I showed her the photo of Baek-beom and said you and he look alike, but she wants to see a real photo of you. I do too, I don’t have a photo of you. Just send it with your next letter. A recipe for a picture, that seems like a fair deal.

This letter’s been pretty hefty, so I’m going to leave it at that. Have fun digesting all of that, Baekhyun. I like your name a lot, by the way. Not as much as you love the name Ye-rin, but maybe just as much.

Love,

Park Chanyeol

P.S.: Don’t make fun of my typos. No one should make fun of me if they need a 48 case of instant mac and cheese to subdue their guilty pleasure. That’s just gross.