Dear Mayor Oh,

I’m Park Chanyeol, a big fan of yours. I’m a student at Seoul Middle School, and now I’m entering the third grade. I’ve been watching you on TV and on the street when you were running for the campaign, and I was really glad that you were chosen to be the mayor. I really adore your vision about developing the city little by little to build a greater future, and I’m waiting for you to do your missions you told us about during your campaign.

It’s such a pleasure writing to you, and if I ever meet you, I’d be really glad and flattered so much. Thank you for reading this letter, Sir.

Your biggest fan,

Park Chanyeol

It’d been a few days since Chanyeol sent the Mayor a fan letter. At the age of fifteen, he quickly took a role model, and that was the Mayor of Seoul, Oh Sehun. He only dared himself to write to him after two years later, when he was in his last year of middle school, since he figured he was old enough to break free from his timid days.

He wondered how the Mayor’s reaction would be if he read his letter. Would he be happy to see that he had a fan, a young one at that, who looked up after him to become the next leader figure? Would he be touched with the writing of an innocent 17-year-old supporter of his?

Ding dong! The bell house rang loudly, and Chanyeol stood up from his seat, wondering who could that be. He didn’t expect anyone to come at the moment, and his parents weren’t home too.

Anyways, he went downstairs to open the door, but he met eyes with a boy instead.

The boy seemed familiar for a bit, but then he stretched his hand with an also familiar envelope.

Wasn’t it his– his letter? To the Mayor?

“Are you the one named Park Chanyeol?” he inquired.

“Yes…?” Chanyeol hesitated for a bit.

“Your letter was sent to my house, and I figured I should return it to you.”

“W-what?” Wasn’t it supposed to be sent to the Mayor?

“Yeah, well, this isn’t the first time it happened… anyway, I’m returning this to you, okay? Make sure it’s the right address you’re sending to.”

Chanyeol was left dumbfounded as the boy his heel, leaving him with the letter gripped in his hands.

“It didn’t get sent?”

“No, it didn’t, okay. A boy came instead and gave me back the letter,” Chanyeol explained, sighing as he put his head on the table.

“Well… he is a boy, though, right?”

“What do you mean Baekhyun-ah…”

“Don’t you have a crush with him or something along those lines?”

Chanyeol promptly got up from his lying position on the table. “What do you mean? I have a crush on the Mayor of Seoul?”

“Mayor of Seoul?” Baekhyun scratched his head, looking confused as ever.

“Baekhyun, don’t tell me you don’t know the name of the mayor in our city.”

“Uhm…” Baekhyun looked at his left, then his right back and forth. Chanyeol looked like he’d be ready to prey on the poor boy.

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol called him in a calm voice, which scared Baekhyun way down to hell. If Chanyeol became calm, that meant something was terribly wrong.

“Whose address you gave to me before? Wasn’t it the address of our Mayor, Oh Sehun?”

“N-n-no, it wasn’t…”

“Then whose was it?”

At this point, Baekhyun wanted to hide under the table, but not under this table where he was sitting at with Chanyeol. He’d prefer the table where Kris was sitting at instead.

“It was… my cousin, Oh Sehun’s address.”

“HOW COULD THIS BE??? NOW HE’D THINK THAT HE’S GOT A SENIOR STALKER SECRET ADMIRER WITH SCARY SMILE AND HEIGHT AT THIS SCHOOL!!!!!!”

“Well, it kind of fits you—” Jongin’s mouth was instantly clamped by Joonmyun, who shot him a glare. “Chanyeol, I don’t think it’ll be that bad—”

“But this is not fair! Life is not fair! Why should I be his guide? Why can’t it be Baekhyun? I mean, he’s the cousin!” Chanyeol screamed them all out with his deep voice, which was kind of freaky, suffice to say.

“You know that Baekhyun didn’t sign up to become the guide for new students. You volunteered for this instead.”

“But it’s embarrassing!”

“And why is that?”

“Because… I drew a heart at the back of the envelope I was supposed to send to the Mayor. A big one, too.”

Jongin promptly facepalmed at this. “Yeah, the kid will definitely think you’re a scary secret admirer.”

Chanyeol continued with his deep, raspy sobs, while Joonmyun, having no choice, tried to comfort the younger boy.

Sure enough, he met with that boy again. The boy was small and had long hair, small eyes, and incomplete teeth. How could that be when that kid was already fifteen?

“So, ehm, we knew each other already, right?” Chanyeol tried to talk to the boy, but it sounded rather awkward.

“I know you, but I don’t think you know me. Though, I guess you might know me from my cousin already.”

“Ah, yeah, but we haven’t formally introduced each other anyway, so let’s start over. I’m Park Chanyeol, nice to meet you.”

He stretched out a hand for a shake, and after some time letting his hand hanging on the air, the boy shook it. “I’m Oh Sehun, and I know that my name is the same as the mayor, and I know that you like him, too.”

“Wow.” Chanyeol let go of Sehun’s hand immediately. “What an introduction. Did you read the letter?”

“Of course, since I thought it was for me,” Sehun shrugged, “but I realized you were writing for the Mayor. So I know you like him.”

“So… you won’t think of me as creepy secret admirer, right?”

“Nope.”

Deep inside, Chanyeol was sighing in relief that he wasn’t being misunderstood by a new student.

In about one week after the new students’ entrance, Sehun became a hot topic, partly for having the same name as the Mayor of Seoul (there were a lot of cases where he was being called the Mayor in the school) and partly because of his good looks. He was cute and handsome, so that naturally drew some girl students and, occasionally boys, in.

“What’s so good about that kid? He’s so awkward with other kids, and he mostly goes everywhere alone.”

“You only said that because you’re not desirable anymore by other students.”

“Well, what should I say? You made it that way.”

“Do you want me to punch you or—”

“Hey, guys.” Chanyeol came with a tray for lunch, interrupting Kris and Baekhyun’s bickering.

“What is it, Chanyeol-ah?” Kris asked, a bit annoyed at the intrusion.

“I’m tired of Oh Sehun. Can you take over my guide position, Baekhyun?”

“I didn’t sign up to become a guide for new students,” Baekhyun deadpanned.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Chanyeol started to whine.

“What the hell did he do to you then?” Kris asked.

“Well, he just came to my classroom without my knowledge and hid my bag. What do you think?”

“He’s still hiding it?” Baekhyun asked after he jolted a bit from his seat. Chanyeol responded with a nod.

“Then it means he likes you, you know.”

“What?” Chanyeol couldn’t believe what he just heard. “That kid can’t like me.”

“Why can’t he? I mean, he dared playing pranks on you. He usually wouldn’t do that to anyone else but people he liked.”

“Is that so?” This time, Chanyeol actually wondered about it.

“Or maybe he really doesn’t like you.” This time, it was Kris.

Baekhyun slapped Kris’ thigh hard, making the latter cringed a little. “Can’t you stop being an ?”

“Well, what do you know of him anyway? My guess might be right, right?”

“You don’t know him at all because you don’t have any connection with him! I’m his cousin, so I should know about his attitude better than you!”

“But he may just fake it in front of you!”

“Sehun doesn’t like to fake around, you know!”

“How should I know? I don’t know him in person!”

Chanyeol got up from the seat, tuning out the bickering. He wondered if Sehun might like him, in one way or another… no, wait. Why would he think about that other way?

“You should mention the ‘s’ properly, Sehun-ah.”

“But I did!”

Truthfully, Chanyeol could only hear Sehun saying all the ‘s’ as ‘th’. He didn’t know that the younger had a lisp when talking in English, which he thought was cute actually.

Which brought him to the horror that he might just like this kid.

“Try again.”

“The walked down the foreth and found the thnake thurrounding her, and the wath thcared ath hell, and tho…”

“Stop it, Sehun-ah.” Chanyeol gave a look at the younger. “You’re butchering the ‘s’ letters perfectly.”

“That is why I hate English courses, Hyung,” Sehun whined as he leaned his head on the table. “My classmates will tease me about me butchering the ‘s’ letters.”

“You can like, train yourself more?”

“I tried since my kindergarten days, but it wouldn’t change at all!” This time, Sehun buried his head into the open book that he read earlier. Chanyeol immediately made a move to keep his junior away from the book before it became soaked. It was Chanyeol’s book, so.

“Hey, come on. It’s not that bad. Just like Mayor Oh says, you should never give up chasing your dream.” Chanyeol patted Sehun’s shoulders as if to comfort him, but then the latter looked up, eyes already wet in tears.

“Do you listen to that same-name-as-mine Mayor that well?”

Chanyeol only rolled his eyes, as if the answer wasn’t obvious enough. “Then what do you call me his fan for?”

They stayed in silent for awhile, before Sehun suddenly asked.

“Hyung, can you swim?”

“Huh? Of course I can.”

“Then if there’s a flood and you can only save one person, who will you save? Me or Mayor Oh?”

“Huh?” Chanyeol actually thought about it for a while before answering, “You.”

Sehun had that unbelievable look on his face, and he actually looked glad, before Chanyeol started speaking again.

“Mayor Oh can swim, and I don’t know about you. Well…can you swim? If you can’t, I’ll surely come for you first.”

Sehun’s face dropped drastically, as he grabbed the books scattered on the table and the floor, leaving Chanyeol dumbfounded.

“H-hey, what are you—”

“I’m going home, Hyung. By the way, I can swim.”

It only took a short while before Sehun disappeared behind Chanyeol’s door.

“But you took my books too…” Chanyeol muttered under his breath.

Chanyeol actually wondered the whole day what he might do wrong to Sehun, because the latter would just avoid him. When he approached the boy during lunch, he moved to God knows where. When he saw the boy on his way home on his bike, he pretended as if he didn’t see him. When he texted the other boy to come for another tutorial, the boy didn’t come.

“You might have hurt his feelings lately,” Baekhyun supplied as he sipped on his orange juice.

“But I don’t think so…?” Chanyeol replied hesitantly.

“Maybe you didn’t realize that it’ll hurt his feelings? What was the last thing you talked about with him?”

“Hmm…” Chanyeol tried to remember, as it eventually came to him. “He asked me who I’d save first if there was a flood, him or the Mayor.”

“And you answered?”

“I said him though. But that’s because Mayor Oh can swim.”

“Ei… of course he’ll get mad at you,” Baekhyun responded with a pitiful head shake to his friend.

“W-what? He’ll get mad because of that?”

“Yeah, by any chance, if Mayor Oh can’t swim, which one would you save first?”

“I—I—”

“See? I totally get it why he’ll be mad at you,” Baekhyun said as he sipped on his juice again.

“Aish, can you stop sipping on your juice? It’s so noisy.”

Baekhyun looked somewhat scandalized as he let go of the straw in the juice. “But Kris never minds!”

“That’s because you guys are a couple, you dimwit. If it wasn’t the case I think he’ll say the same thing to you.”

“What? I’ll tell Kris what you said about him! And me!”

Chanyeol’s eyes widened as Baekhyun took out his phone and started dialing the number that he oh so remembered. “Baekhyun, don’t—”

Suddenly a girl student started screaming. “Guys, someone is drowning in the swimming pool!”

There was suddenly a bad feeling inside Chanyeol’s guts, as he dashed first to the swimming pool, ignoring Baekhyun who was already on the phone talking to Kris.

And who knew that the feeling turned out to be right.

Chanyeol dived head first into the swimming pool, and then he swam to the motionless body in the middle of the pool. He didn’t even care anymore if his uniform got wet, he only cared about his life.

Once he managed to bring Sehun out of the pool, he lied the boy down on the floor, and checked if he was still breathing. He started to panic when he barely felt any pulse from the boy’s wrist.

He started doing the CPR procedure; he tried pumping the boy’s heart and gave him CPR mouth-to-mouth, and then he did it all over again. Not too long after though, Sehun spurted out the water inside his lungs, and his breathing was labored, but he was alive. Chanyeol couldn’t get any more relieved than this.

“You…you’re still alive, Sehun-ah,” Chanyeol croaked in his almost losing voice. He actually wanted to cry at the spot that he managed to save the other boy, who just looked at him and started spreading a nice smile in front of his eyes.

Wait. A nice smile? What could Chanyeol be thinking about that?

“Yeah, I guess… thank you,” Sehun whispered weakly but still loud enough for Chanyeol to hear. The elder pulled him in a warm hug.

“I thought you can swim, you idiot.”

Silence. “Sorry I lied…”

“Stop saying sorry. I’m the one who’s supposed to be sorry.”

Another silence. “Well, you don’t need to say so, because you’re too naive to know you made a mistake.”

They both chuckled wholeheartedly, and just enjoying the warmth of each other’s body.

“Kris, please delete those pictures.”

“Nope.”

“Yes, please?”

“No freaking way.”

“Why are you so bad to me?”

“Hey, think of it as an exchange to that punch I was supposed to give you for calling Baekhyun a dimwit.”

Chanyeol immediately shrunk to his seat. Then a hand patted his shoulder lightly.

“Hyung, don’t worry, you should never give up chasing your dream,” Sehun stated jokingly.

“As if you’re the mayor.”

“Well, they do call me the mayor, what can I say?”

Baekhyun, who was busy looking at the pictures of Chanyeol saving Sehun to Chanyeol giving Sehun CPR to Chanyeol hugging Sehun in Kris’ phone, giggled helplessly into his hand.

“Are you guys a couple already?” he asked quietly.