Chanyeol-centric
Continuity: Throughout the fic

#11:You’ve Got A Friend In Me

When Chanyeol was three, he learned that he was the only friend he had. Rather be depressed, he found reasons to make himself happy. If he was his best friend and playmate, well, what could be more fun? There would never be an argument about what to play, nobody would fight him to be Captain of his pirate ship, and he never had to worry about being pushed over in a game of tag. Chanyeol had lots of fun by himself, and for a long time he was happy.

When he was five, Chanyeol tried to throw himself into the river behind his house because he felt like his skin was on fire. When the Matrons came to test him, Chanyeol found a new reason to be happy, because he wasn’t the only one who had a strange mark on his chest. He was also very glad that there was a reason behind his skin burning hot enough to fry an egg.

Okay, that was an exaggeration—his skin was never that hot, even though it felt like it.

Chanyeol was escorted to the Sanctuary along with Jongdae, who was as quiet and shy as Chanyeol was loud and outgoing.

“Why are you so happy all the time?” Jongdae asked him on the second day of their journey.

Chanyeol sat down and thought about his answer for a long time, almost a whole minute.

“Well, why not?” He finally asked. “I like being happy.”

“Doesn’t anything make you upset?” Jongdae asked, seemingly awed.

Chanyeol thought again. “Yes, a few things…but right now I’m not upset. There’s times to be upset and there’s times to be happy, and since I’m not upset I might as well be happy!”

Jongdae had smiled shyly. “That’s a good way to think of it.”

Chanyeol hugged him. “I like you,” he said. “You don’t talk much but when you do, you say nice things. We’re going to be friends.”

Jongdae gaped at him. “I’ve never had a friend before…” he admitted.

Chanyeol gasped. “Really?! What a coincidence, neither have I!!!”

The stared at each other for a few seconds. “So, if neither of us has ever had a friend, how do we know we’re friends? What do we do?”

Chanyeol tapped his finger against his chin. “I guess we make it up as we go along,” he finally decided.

It turned out that Jongdae would eventually get along with Minseok a little better—they were both on the quiet side and preferred reading and card games to wrestling in the mud and making up pirate songs, but that was okay with Chanyeol because both of them were still his friends. They found other things to do, like playing with stray cats and making up stories about the oddest things. Jongdae once made up a whole tale about how a vase in the classroom got cracked, involving a wizard named Root and a terrible rain storm. Joonmyun wrote it down and told it to Sehun and Jongin sometimes when they couldn’t sleep, they said it was the best story ever.

Sometimes Joonmyun would sit on the back steps of the Sanctuary and watch Chanyeol play by himself. He was never able to keep up with the speed of Chanyeol’s imagination, and trying tired him out. He needed to save his energy for dealing with “his babies,” as he called them. Chanyeol referred to them as “Joonmyun’s little duckling and not-at-all-terrifying kitten.” Jongin was the kitten.

“Why on earth is Kai the kitten?” Joonmyun—Suho—once asked him.

Chanyeol launched into a very loud explanation. “Because kittens are like, ‘Look at me I’m a big, scary thing and I have sharp teeth and claws and I can hiss!’” Here Chanyeol imitated a kitten hiss. “And they think they’re so tough but really they’re just little balls of fluff that you want to cuddle and coo over and feed crickets to. But they rarely let you because tough kittens don’t like to be cuddled. Jon—Kai is a lot like that.” He paused thoughtfully. “But I don’t want to feed him crickets…no, I don’t think he’d like that.”

Chanyeol nodded and smiled brightly at Suho, who was staring at him open mouthed.

“You’re brilliant,” he finally said. “You are brilliant and funny and I love talking to you, don’t ever let anyone tell you aren’t brilliant, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol nodded enthusiastically and picked up his sword (a tree branch) again, screaming at his opponent (a shrub) that he will find the princess (a sparrow who hopped under the shrub and probably flew away while Chanyeol had been talking to Suho).

His only question was, who the heck would ever tell him he wasn’t brilliant?

----

“You’re stupid,” Baekhyun said nastily. “Go away and stop talking to me.”

Chanyeol looked on a little sadly as he ran off. “I’m brilliant,” he called. “Suho said so.”

Baekhyun didn’t look back. Chanyeol sighed and slouched off to find Suho.

“Why doesn’t he like me?” He whined. “We like all the same things! High places, birds, wrestling…we should be best friends but he doesn’t even like me.”

Suho patted his head sympathetically. “He will, he just needs time. He’s never had someone want to spend time with him like you do.”

Chanyeol pouted. “How much time?”

Suho shrugged. “Maybe years.”

Chanyeol nearly cried. It had been almost four years since Baekhyun had arrived at the Sanctuary. “But I want us to be friends now!!”

Suho sighed. “Well how did you become friends with Chen?”

Chanyeol flailed his arms. “We just sort of did, I don’t know!”

“Well whatever you did with Chen, do with Baekhyun.”

It wasn’t the best advice Suho had ever given him, but it was the only advice he had so Chanyeol took it and ran with it.

He found Baekhyun hiding in what had formerly been his secret hide out—a reading room in the north tower—he’d been too nice to kick Baekhyun out so now they both used it.

Baekhyun was sitting in a chair with his knees pulled up to his chest and his head down. Chanyeol marched up to him and pointed at him.

“We are friends,” he yelled. “And henceforth we shall act like friends. We will play pirate games and I will attempt to defeat you so that I may marry the fair sparrow Princess, and we will pull pranks on Kai when he makes Chen cry and we will coerce Kyungsoo into going along with crazy schemes and we will have fun together.”

Baekhyun looked up and Chanyeol dropped his hand. He had obviously been crying, and he looked utterly miserable.

“Get out.” Baekhyun said lowly.

Chanyeol stood his ground. “No.”

Baekhyun shot out of his chair and pushed him. “Get out!” He screamed, punching Chanyeol’s arms and chest. “I don’t need you! I don’t need anybody! I’ve never needed anybody and I’m not going to start now!!”

Baekhyun was too upset to put any real force behind his punches, and soon Chanyeol was able to grab hold of his wrists and make him stop.

“Why wouldn’t you want to need anybody?” He asked.

Baekhyun struggled in his grasp. “Because people are awful,” he cried. “They use you and they don’t really care about you.”

Chanyeol felt close to tears himself. “I care about you.”

“Why?!” Baekhyun yelled. “Why do you care? I’ve never been nice to you, you don’t owe me anything.”

Chanyeol turned around and sat in the chair Baekhyun had vacated, taking advantage of Baekhyun’s state to pull him down too. The chair was big enough for the two of them to sit side by side, with just enough room for Baekhyun to attempt to squirm away.

“I don’t want to care about you because I owe you anything,” Chanyeol explained. “I care about you because I like you and I like you because we’re friends.”

“Who are you to decide that we’re friends?” Baekhyun demanded.

“I’m me,” Chanyeol said, surprised. “Isn’t that enough?”

He was completely flabbergasted when Baekhyun cried even harder, but secretly pleased that he did so on Chanyeol’s shoulder.

----

At some point, Baekhyun stopped fighting Chanyeol’s attempts to be friends. It may have started that very afternoon when they were ten years old and Baekhyun cried on Chanyeol’s shoulder for the first time, it may have been several months after that. Neither of them knew and neither of them cared, because they were friends and that was all that mattered.

----

“You have the best timing in the world, you know,” Baekhyun told Chanyeol while he gasped on a bed in the Infirmary.

“I do?” Chanyeol asked.

Baekhyun gestured outside. “It’s going to rain all week, so this is the best time to be unable to do anything at all. You won’t miss out on any fun.”

Chanyeol smiled widely, completely distracted for a moment from the pain. “I really do have the best timing, don’t I?” And then he flinched and dug his nails into Baekhyun’s skin as the pain came back.

“Talk to me,” Chanyeol pleaded. “Say anything, just talk to me.”

Baekhyun Chanyeol’s sweaty bangs off his forehead and placed a cool cloth on his skin. “The Sparrow Princess will be mine as soon as the rain stops and I can properly duel you for her hand.”

Chanyeol laughed hoarsely. “Her wing,” he corrected through his giggles. “We never decided how she got turned into a Sparrow, you know.”

Baekhyun spun an elaborate story for Chanyeol about a girl who looked like an angel and a jealous warlock who wanted to marry her. He gave her roses carved from diamonds and rare potions that would preserve her beauty forever and ever, and she sent all of them back because the warlock never gave her what she really wanted, which was true love. He was infuriated and turned her into a bird, and she had to watch her kingdom mourn her until she finally learned to fly. She now waited for a Prince, or a Guardian, to take her as his bride.

Chanyeol fell asleep halfway through the story, but Baekhyun kept talking. He hoped Chanyeol would be able to hear him while he was unconscious and his dreams would be about love and magic, instead of burning pain.

----

Two weeks later they went out to the bush where there little Sparrow Princess lived.

“Princess,” Chanyeol announced dramatically. “We are through fighting for your hand.”

Beakhyun nodded and got down on one knee. “We have decided that we will both marry you.”

Chanyeol followed Baekhyun and together they pushed the rings they made out of wire and beads under the bush.

“We will allow you to decide on your own who you wish to marry,” Chanyeol said, and they got up and walked back to the Sanctuary together, arms around each other’s shoulders.

The next day the rings were gone, and they never saw the little Sparrow again.

----

At fourteen years old they became too big to fit side-by-side in the chair in their hideout, but that didn’t stop them from trying it anyway. Usually it wound up that Baekhyun would drape his legs over Chanyeol’s lap (he maintained that Chanyeol was too heavy for the reverse) and their arms would get tangled and they’d constantly elbow each other “accidentally” in the ribs. It wasn’t perfect, but they didn’t mind.

“Do you think we freed her?” Chanyeol asked one day.

Baekhyun looked up from his book of maps. “The Sparrow Princess? That was just a story, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol waves his hands around excitedly, nearly hitting Baekhyun in the face. “But what if we made it real? What if we imagined it into reality and she became a human?”

Baekhyun grinned and rolled his eyes. “You’re the single weirdest person I’ve ever met.”

Chanyeol smirked at him a little too smugly. “And yet you stick with me…so what does that make you?”

Baekhyun looked up and eyed Chanyeol seriously. “I guess I’m just as crazy as you are,” he admitted with a shrug. Chanyeol hugged him so hard they fall out of the chair.

“You bet you are!” He hollered in Baekhyun’s ear.

Baekhyun whacked him on the arm and shouted that if Chanyeol was going to tackle him he should have the decency to do so on something softer next time.

----

Baekhyun opened his eyes, a bit flustered and miffed at Chanyeol for pulling away so suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” He asked breathlessly, looking around. The house they were in at the moment wasn’t particularly sturdy, he wouldn’t be surprised if it crashed around them while they were making out.

Chanyeol grinned down at Baekhyun. “Don’t you remember? ‘Next time you tackle me, do so on something softer.’” He patted the mattress under Baekhyun, his grin turning into a smirk. “I’d say this is a lot softer than a stone floor.”

Baekhyun looked furious. “You stopped kissing me so you could brag about what a good memory you have?!” He yelped.

Chanyeol leaned down again and kissed his cheek. “What can I say? You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

Baekhyun blushed and socked Chanyeol on the arm. “You’re awful. Shut up and kiss me, I don’t want to hear you say another word unless you’re confessing your undying love for me.”

Chanyeol pretended to zip his lips and pressed his mouth to Baekhyun’s collar bones. “I love you my wonderful, flustered, insane—”

Baekhyun decided after that the best way to shut Chanyeol up was to do it himself.

----

Two drabbles in two days? My, my, I’m on a roll!

Well I figured I owe it to you all, since I’ve been neglecting this story as of late ^^;; and I’m going camping soon so I wanted to update again before I go. Plus this is chapter 20 so it's special :DDDD

Also, I don’t think I’ve yet written a drabble where someone didn’t start crying .___. And I miss writing my favorite character (the Tree of Life) so while I’m away I’m going to be plotting two new drabbles—one involving all the EXO members together and not crying, and one involving the Tree as the central character.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, see you all when I get back!!!

PS I’M GOING TO THE 2NE1 CONCERT TOMORROW :DDD