It is so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun,
 to have lived light in the spring,
 to have loved, to have thought, to have done

Spring always came in soft breezes and bashful sunrays, hitting the skin playfully while dancing carefully around in gardens and sceneries. Shy spring never made a big entrance like shining summer or wild winter, instead spending its time wandering around the streets and filling dark corners with desperately needed light that brought life and hope. Spring was the child of the seasons that never wanted to grow up.

It was on a spring day that I met him. It was beneath a clear blue sky, surrounded by a soft breeze that we met each other for the first time, but certainly not the last time. Byun Baekhyun was like spring, came in the form of sweet surprises and small secrets that were all hidden behind shining smiles. He came, riding on a spring’s breeze while charmingly overlooking reality. He came, believing the world was to be grasped by both his hands.

I took a quick glance at my watch, smiling contently at the fact that I was still on time while rushing to the train station. The scent of blossoming nature and the sound of spring singing tugged at the corners of my lips, wanting smiles and laughter to escape from my mouth like a little child who wanted candy. I gave in to this, smiling easily and effortlessly as I looked around for the platform I had to be.

I held onto the straps of my backpack excitedly when I finally arrived at the platform, gaze wandering around the environment. The sight of many others, who also waited for the train to come, felt comfortable, and made the wait much more bearable and pleasurable. The impact spring had was really astonishing, beyond words. It could wash away the tiredness and exhaustion, could bring hopeful smiles and grateful laughter.

My gaze lingered around some more before it landed on a particular young man, who was wearing the same kind of uniform as I was. He was no epitome of perfection, no flawless handsomeness that would overshadow everything else. Instead, he was the confident child at heart that had nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing what he wanted to do. He was the easy-going, comedic boy that let no pain hit home because spring did not allow sadness to cause any harm.

He was staring at the clear blanket above while wearing a serene expression that made him seem as though he was living in a world of his own, where the sky was painted in his own set of colors that only he was permitted to admire. It was as if he was living in a world surrounded by masterpieces that I could never even begin to imagine.

A mesmerizing smile crept on his lips when he all of a sudden reached out for something, something that meant so much to him that he even forgot to look at both sides and was so dangerously close to falling on the platform and in front of the approaching train. It was at this frightening moment that I quickly grabbed onto his arm, desperately pulling him back before something terrible would happen right in front of my eyes.

“Are you okay?!” I asked him frantically, my own heart beating immensely fast because of the cold fear.

The boy glanced at me, eyes blinking a few times before his face lit up, eyes turning into crescent moons while his lips curved into a wonderful smile, “Did you see the contrail?”

“Excuse me?” My eyebrows knitted together slightly in confusion and unbelief.

He pointed a finger into the sky, “A plane just flew above us, and it left a vapor trail behind. But it disappeared almost right away,” His eyes shone as he continued, “which means there’ll be clear skies tomorrow.”

“H-How…” I glanced up to the sky, trying to find out how he came to this conclusion, “How do you know that?”

“Do you know how clouds are formed?” The boy grinned cheekily when he saw me shaking my head, before pointing to the clear sky, “When water vapor in the air can’t absorb oxygen, it’ll form ice particles, which results into clouds. Airplanes fly at a height where there are almost no dust particles in the air, so normally clouds won’t form up there.” Genuine joy swam in his eyes when he looked me in the eyes, “The thing is, when a plane flies by, the gas the plane releases creates the necessary dust particles for clouds to be formed. If the amount of water vapor in the air is really small, the formed contrail, which is essentially cloud, will disappear almost immediately. That means the sky is clear and there will be nice weather tomorrow.”

“Wow…” Shock and surprise were replaced by admiration, enthusiasm beating the fright out of the body way too easily, “That’s really interesting!”

 “You’re a little weird,” He said with a chuckle.

“Y-You’re one to talk! You almost fell of the platform just now!” I quickly defended myself, earning amused laughter from the young boy.

He wore the most brilliant smile as he stood next to me, waiting for the train to come that would bring us to our destination, spilling not one second looking somewhere else than at the bright, clear sky that seemed to mean the world to him.

He smiled so brightly, so brilliantly – there was just no way I could ever imagine that behind that innocence laid so much hidden unhappiness and anger. Maybe, if I had looked behind his pretense deep and thorough enough, had looked him straight in the eyes intense enough for even a second, I would have been able to understand him more. Maybe, if I had not been so caught up by this spring’s hope that clouded my childish mind, I would have been able to prevent certain bad things from happening.

“Byun Baekhyun’s really a weird kid!”

I looked behind me, the mentioning of Baekhyun’s name behind me catching my attention instantly. Byun Baekhyun – or the mysterious boy that had almost gotten himself killed in front of me – turned out to be the rumored transfer student from Seoul that the school had been speculating about for weeks already. There was not much known of him, other than that he came from Seoul, which automatically caused him to be labeled as the ‘cold charming city boy’ that would most probably look down on his classmates from a small, unknown school in Ulsan.  However, it turned out that the rumors only held onto a very small element of truth, because Byun Baekhyun was anything but the average youngster who came from big cities like Seoul.

Baekhyun spent the time others spent eating and playing around staring at the sky, letting the peaceful silence and soft breezes dance around him, swirling into a world of his own that only Baekhyun could see. He would sometimes say something in class, words that would always manage to surprise us and leave as speechless because it always sounded so confusing and difficult. Honestly, harsh reality came crashing in quite literally that Baekhyun would not be some charming prince that everyone expected him to be.

“He’s a little… Unusual, but nevertheless he seems like a pleasant guy,” The other responded genuinely.

“He keeps talking about difficult things I can’t understand, though! And just now, he even asked me how he would be able to get to the rooftop! The rooftop! Why would want to get on top of the roof of the school?” The first female classmate exclaimed in hopeless despair, most probably feeling tired of the continuous load of incomprehensible talk she had had to listen to just now.

“If only he would stop living his life in a whole other world than us, then maybe we would be able to get along.”

It was on a Friday, when the classes were over and almost everyone had already left school, when I decided to look for the rooftop that rarely anyone put effort in searching for. It had not been entirely planned, but I had been asked to bring a book back to a particular classroom where there was a small stairs leading up. It was well-known that the school’s rooftop was not something to brag about, certainly not. It was really just a small space on top of the school that could only afford a handful of people, metal bars and barriers preventing us from ending our lives way too soon if we decided to be young and reckless. I swallowed the hesitance and acted on my courage, climbing the small, weak-looking stairs hesitantly.

“Baekhyun-sshi!”

Baekhyun stopped in his track to glance back at me, a gentle smile of acknowledgement appearing when he saw me.

I smiled happily at the fact that I had been able to find him, before speaking, “Y-You… You were looking for the rooftop, right?”

He blinked his eyes a few times at this, “How did you know?”

“T-That doesn’t matter!” I hastily said before grabbing his arm, “Are you busy?”

“No, I was just about to go home,” Was Baekhyun’s reply as he glanced down at my hold onto the fabric of his uniform sweater.

“Then let me take you somewhere.”

The moment Baekhyun saw the sight that could only be seen from the little space on top of the roof, he let out a soft gasp of surprise. For everyone else, it might not have been anything too big of a reaction, but when you looked more carefully, you would be able to see his eyes brightening and smile widening, and that was more than enough of a reaction. Baekhyun soundlessly enjoyed the scenery painted in front of him that seemed to look so silent all of a sudden. It looked much like a photograph, ripped off human sounds and presence, but never stolen of its liveliness. It was a kind of nostalgic feeling of having never appreciated something that always seemed to be irrelevant, but that turned out to mean the world. All of a sudden, things looked so painfully pretty that it almost hurt physically to think you would never be able to grasp it.

Baekhyun glanced at me before breaking into a brilliant smile, “How did you find it?”

I smiled back awkwardly, slowly taking place somewhere beside him, “I was just lucky. Why did you want to find this place in the first place, though?”

He pointed at the blanket of soft bluish white above the both of us, “The sky looks so much closer when you are farther from the ground.”

“What makes you love the sky so much?” I asked him curiously.

He shook his head slightly at this, “It isn’t exactly love. It’s… It’s more like that it’s the only thing that meets the eyes that seems to always change but remains constant at the same time. No matter how similarly, there’s no way you’ll ever be able to see the same sky twice.”

I was about to say something back, when he pointed to the airplane that was flying above us, telling me excitedly to watch the contrails. Contrails never meant anything to me, never meant enough to me for me to pay attention to it, but seeing the bright innocence swimming in his eyes, I decided that it would not hurt to give it some attention.

“Alright, let’s play a game,” Baekhyun said cheerfully.

I nodded while taking a sip of my drink, “Sure. What do you want to play?”

“When an airplane passes, we’ll have to say whether the contrail will last longer or disappear almost immediately,” Baekhyun said before taking a generous bite of his bread.

“Alright,” I said with a small, playful grin.

We spent the remains of our lunch break with our faces directed to the sky, the brightness almost blinding our eyes but the eagerness of finding an airplane overtaking everything. Birds were singing love songs and the wind was blowing on tree leaves to create soothing sounds, a combination that never failed to make one feel happy and secure. If I listened more carefully, I would even be able to hear Baekhyun’s soft breathing, the way air left and went into his body, and that sound might even overshadow every other sound I had ever heard.

“There!” He said while pointing eagerly to the airplane, and I quickly looked for it too with excited eyes.

“I say it’ll disappear immediately!” I shouted.

“I say it’ll last for at least a minute!” He yelled.

“Hey, why did you bring an umbrella with you?” My friend asked me as she pointed at the red umbrella I was holding onto, “It’s such beautiful weather today.”

A sudden shadow appeared next to mine on the ground, catching my attention immediately. Even though it was only a silhouette, I could still make out the shape of an umbrella being held by the other, and when I looked to my side to meet his eyes, my eyes brightened and my lips curved into a smile that only those who shared the secret would understand. 

And the best thing was that he smiled back with the same amount of childish happiness.

“Sometimes I wonder if you see the world differently from me,” I said as I leaned down against the wall, bend knees being securely embraced by both my arms.

One time turned into two times, two times turned into many times, many times turned into a habit, and soon enough I found myself spending so much time on that little place on top of the roof it all felt way too familiar and comfortable for my own good. Baekhyun would tell me about everything, and I would most of the time act as the attentive listener. Not that I minded any of this, because Baekhyun had the most soothing voice that sounded like the most perfect lullaby in my ears. Others would not understand, but for me, his way of talking sounded like a brilliant piece of music.

“We all see the world differently,” Baekhyun said while chuckling, “there’s no way we would ever be able to speak confidently of seeing the same world. What’s in front of us is merely the reflection of what we want to see. The shade of reddish yellow would not seem the same for you and me, would not feel the same for you and me.”

“But yet,” I said hesitantly, “aren’t we seeing the same world?”

“Who knows? To share exactly the same world, that needs something more than merely wishing to share a world together. Maybe this world isn’t even real to begin with. Then all we see are merely constructions of our own imagination.” Baekhyun nodded his head a couple of times before continuing, “Could two people construct the exact same kind of world?”

I was so close to saying yes, they can, so close to saying what I assumed he would want to hear, but something stopped me from saying those words, because that same something that I found when I looked into his eyes told me that it most probably was not the answer he wanted to hear. It might be the truth, might sound like the truth, but it was not the truth he wanted to accept anymore.

“There was a time when someone told me that happiness could only be achieved by sharing the same kind of world,” Bitter melancholia was laced around his words like thorns, “but there was no way anyone would ever be able to live in the same world as she did.”

“Byun Baekhyun? Is Byun Baekhyun present?”

I glanced up from my physics book at the question of the teacher, realizing that Baekhyun’s seat was empty, again. It had remained vacant for almost a week already, the silence coming from that seat hitting our hearts like a cold wind of both uncertainty and fright. Several times I had waited for him at the small rooftop place, sitting there patiently for him to show, but he never showed up again. He was nowhere to be found, seemed to have vanished all of a sudden and without a trace left behind, that it almost seemed as if he had never been here in the first place.

There was a sudden knock on the door before the door opened, revealing the principal of the school, speaking with a blank expression that was showered with exhaustion and worn-out gentleness, “I’m sorry to disrupt the lesson, but I need to speak to your teacher for a moment.”

The teacher quickly told us all to continue working on our homework before leaving the door, closing it behind him with a soft bang that sounded a hundredfold louder in my ears than it should, because in some way, the look the principal had thrown the teacher showed that it would be about Baekhyun. I threw a quick glance at the empty seat before turning to look outside the window, feeling saddened that there were no airplanes flying by or contrails to find.

Maybe Baekhyun was watching contrails again somewhere in his own world.

Rumors automatically started spreading again about Byun Baekhyun, this time about what might have happened that explained his absence. All sorts of stories started circulating, from him disliking this school to the death of his grandfather that he adored so much, which all were based on nothing but imagination. The hopeless dramatic ones would claim that he was being bullied, while the fierce outstanding ones would argue that Baekhyun felt like he was too good for this school.

I took all of this with a grain of salt, knowing very well that taking such rumors too seriously would never bring me any good, but that did not mean I was not terribly eager to know where Baekhyun was.  I spent my time thinking about he was doing, whether he was alright and not doing anything reckless. I spent my time hoping he would be smiling right now and that he was enjoying being in his own little world that he argued only he could see. I wished that, wherever he was, he would not lose that angelic smile that he always wore.

“Baekhyun-sshi!”

I exclaimed in surprise when I got on top of the roof and found Baekhyun sitting there. It had been three weeks, and I had been so close to giving up on going up there because it felt so futile being on top of the roof without him, when I found him sitting there silently.

He was not wearing the school uniform, but instead a casual striped t-shirt and simple jeans. His hair was ruffled but stylish, and for a second I was certain I had been mesmerized by this Byun Baekhyun that so closely resembled something ethereal and heavenly beautiful. The soft breeze caressed his hair gently and made the fabric of his loose cotton t-shirt dance playfully.

Baekhyun glanced up at me before smiling, his eyes turning into crescent moons, “Hello.”

“W-Where… Where have you been?” I said almost in a whisper because I was so shocked to know that Baekhyun was really sitting in front of me right now.

“Something…” His smile faltered a little, “Something happened, but it’s alright now. It’s alright now.”

“Are you leaving the school?” I asked uncertainly, the fright hesitantly laced around my carefully spoken words.

Baekhyun let out a sigh at this, a smile dancing on his lips, “I don’t know.”

“Why’s that?” I asked him as I sat down next to him, my arm brushing against his for a second.

“I…” And for the first time, it was him who looked me in the eyes, searching for something I wish I would know what, “I don’t know if there’s something here worth staying for.”

“Do you know why I like contrails so much?”

Baekhyun had not spoken a word anymore about whether he would stay or not, and I did not want to push him to give me an answer, a response he might not even know himself yet. I was just so incredibly grateful and happy to be able to spend more time him with him. He might be gone in a month, a week, or even tomorrow, but at least he was here at this moment. And that was all that really counted when it came to Byun Baekhyun. That was all that ever really counted.

“No,” I said while handing him a cookie I brought for him, “tell me.”

Baekhyun took a deep breath before speaking, “Because airplanes leave contrails unintentionally. It’s not a desirable product of the airplane itself, but a by-product that comes and goes. It was left behind, just to form something that can meet the eye for just one moment, before it vanishes again. Even so far away, it still gets its chance to be something that’ll be noticed.”

“Who told you about how contrails work?” I asked in curiosity.

He smiled nostalgically at my innocent question, “At one point, I chased so many contrails that I got to understand some facts.”

“Chasing… Contrails?” I said, eyes blinking in confusion.

The other nodded his head eagerly, “Chasing contrails. It’s always a challenge to chase it before it disappears.”

I glanced up to the sky while thinking about what he had just said, trying to make sense out of it. It was not that easy to understand, but not that difficult to comprehend either when you thought about it more philosophically. Sometimes, you needed to think out of the box and sneak your way into another person’s world, and you would understand what this person would mean. Sometimes, it really was not that difficult to pave your path to join someone else’s. At least, that was how it was when it came to Baekhyun for me.

“Where do you get?” I asked him while looking at him with wide, curious eyes, “Where will the contrail lead you to?”

“Depends on what you wanted to reach when you started chasing.”

Baekhyun was like the spring, in the sense that his presence was always appreciated but never acknowledged. Baekhyun was like the spring, in the sense that his appearance was bashful but always eagerly confident. Baekhyun was like the spring, in the sense that he was utterly whimsical and never understandable if you did not understood what his world was like.

So, that was probably why people thought he was a weird person, an unusual boy that they would rather not spent too much time with, because he was not someone who you would talk football or Korean pop idols with. He was a person that would rather talk about life, about the world we believed to see, but were never sure of. He was a person that liked to test the limits of his own imaginations, a curious boy that tugged at the boundaries of a creative mind with a childish attitude.

He was a person that understood that in order to understand life, you had to accept that you will never get an answer.

However, even though all of the above applied to him, Byun Baekhyun was nevertheless a human being. He was also a human being who would stumble over pebbles and stones, would trip and fall. He was also a human being who would get hurt and would get scars that would last with him for a lifetime, just to remind him of the road he had to walk on. His scars came in the form of strained smiles and forced laughter, in the form of anger and sadness swirling in his eyes. His scars came in the form of something that he never wanted to accept.

“What do you say about spring rain?”

Sunlight hit the skin with an amount of hotness that was hard to ignore, signaling that spring was in full bloom right now and summer was not that far away anymore. I glanced up to meet his curious eyes, thinking about the question intensely before replying.

“Spring rain feels refreshing,” I answered honestly.

“Refreshing?” He spoke with furrowed eyebrows, “How so?”

“I like the way rain feels on the skin when it’s warmed up by the sun, the way the world smells like when the water drops linger around the place. It’s the kind of refreshing feeling no other rain can ever beat.”

“Don’t you think that spring rain feels weird?” He urged.

I laughed a little, “Maybe, but sometimes, it’s that unusual combination of those predictable things that makes the world just a little bit more beautiful.”

“Could I talk to you for a moment?”

I was so concentrated on doing my work, that I did not even realize that the principal was standing in front of me. Feeling anxious all of a sudden, I quickly nodded before standing up and following him out of the classroom, ignoring the questioning stares others were throwing at me. As I walked through the door, I could not help but let my gaze linger at that hauntingly empty seat that no person had taken place on for weeks, once again, a pang of disappointment and sadness hitting me because of this.

The principal brought me to his office, pointing at a seat for me to sit before taking place opposite of me, eyes boring holes into my head. I felt terribly uncomfortable because of this, but decided to remain silent and tolerate the uneasiness. There were more important things to attend to than the way the principal was looking at me, I understood.

“I… I heard you’re friends with Byun Baekhyun,” He began, which I had somehow expected would be the topic of this conversation.

I chewed on my lower lip before answering, “Y-Yes, he’s a-”

“I want to ask you something, and I know it’s something between the two of you and you might not want to tell me, but I need to know what you two have been talking about. Whatever you two have done, told each other, I need to know it all.”

I swallowed hard at his stern expression, “W-Why?”

“Because he almost jumped off a building last week.”

If I had been more careful, had tried to pave my way into his heart with pebbles instead of sand, maybe I would have been able to prevent certain bad things from happening. If I had not backed away because certain things seemed too frightening for me to face and had not seen life in a way too colorful way, maybe I would have been able to understand his words more than only on a surface level. Maybe, if I had not been so persistent in my beliefs that time could soothe anything and bring happiness at some point, I would not have caused us both to uselessly chase contrails.

“I did wrong.”

That was the first thing I said the moment I saw Baekhyun again. That was the first thing I said, with the loudness of an angry person and the intonation of a hopeless person, because at some point between talking to the principal and thinking about the memories I shared with him, I realized something crucial. I realized that I knew more about him than everyone else in this school, but I was also the person who had been the blindest regarding Baekhyun’s situation.

Baekhyun was sitting on the ground, a lollipop in his hand that he was about to give to me, before a confused expression appeared on his face, “Excuse me?”

I bit my lower lip harshly at the thought that I had been the one who caused certain negative happening, “I should’ve never brought you here.”

“What are you-” Baekhyun began, before realization wash over him and an angry expression replaced his previous expression, “They told you.”

“You should stop acting so immature, Baekhyun,” I said as I kneeled down in front of him, “because that’s not how you should be handling things.”

“They shouldn’t have told you,” Baekhyun said through gritted teeth.

“Why? Baekhyun, they’re right, you know-”

“What?!” He snapped at me angrily, causing me to flinch, “How could they possibly be right?! They have no idea about anything! They should just keep quiet and let me be! Why do they have to interfere with everything?!”

I took a deep breath, eyes fluttering close for a moment, before I put my hands on his shoulders. The way he immediately tensed filled me with mixed emotions, but I decided to disregard that because there were other things to worry about, things that I should have never overlooked.

“Hiding in your own world won’t do any good, Baekhyun,” I spoke gently, “it’ll only make you run away from reality more and more until you can’t return anymore.”

“I thought you were different! I thought you understood me!” Baekhyun yelled furiously while slapping my hands away, causing sadness to explode inside of me, “You were supposed to chase contrails with me!”

“Baekhyun, chasing contrails won’t bring you back the person that taught you to chase them!”

The person that never let anyone in her world, the person that had told him about contrails and made him look for them; this person had always also been the destination Baekhyun had been looking for so dearly. If that meant risking his life, he did not mind that at all.

That was the truth, the bitter truth that he needed to realize, yet that broken-hearted look and hurt eyes made me regret saying those words so badly, because I had been the one who caused him to have hopes again. I had been the one who, in one way or another, promised him to chase contrails together, caught up in his game that I should have never participated in.

“I-I didn’t mean to hurt you-” I frantically started, but his cold voice cut me off.

“So, you regret spending your precious time doing futile things like looking for contrails?”

My eyes widened, “It’s not like that! I never ever thought that! You taught me so much-”

“Then why are you like them?!” He screamed while standing up abruptly, startling me, “Then why are you saying the exact same nonsense as them?!”

“Because I don’t want you to die!” I yelled, the tears starting to form in the corners of my eyes, “I don’t want you to die because of chasing those damn contrails…”

Tears always showed so much weakness, because each drop represented some kind of emotional load that the body wanted to let it leave the body as soon as possible. Tears always showed everything words could not embrace and gestures could not show. Tears were the kind of last desperate method of showing that what was being said came from the bottom of the heart. Yet, I never wanted to cry in front of Baekhyun, never wanted him to know that I felt so much for him that I would so easily break down, because Baekhyun was whimsical and unpredictable and holding onto him was like holding onto the seasons.

“You should understand…” Baekhyun said, his voice all of a sudden way more gentle and concerned, “That I’ve my own reasons to-”

“To what? To kill yourself?” I said between soft sobbing and tired tears.

A sigh escaped his mouth before he kneeled down to embrace me, the way his arms were wrapped around my body feeling terribly secure and comfortable. His scent was a refreshing combination of sweet spring and rare rain, laced with strawberry flavored lollipops and a naive longing. He leaned his head on top of mine, and I counted his heartbeats in futility because it went way too fast to ever keep up with.

“I thought you lived in the same world as me.”

When I opened my locker, I should have known that I would find what I thought I would find. I should have known that I was bound to get sad and angry because of Baekhyun. I should have known, yet I had refused to believe any of those thoughts. Yet, when I found the small umbrella in my locker, I could not help but think about how things could have been different, what I could have done differently, if only I did not do a certain thing and did not say a certain thing.

Baekhyun patted my head gently and rhythmically as he waited for me to calm down, patience showing yet again as one of his best virtues. At some point, he even started humming to some song I had never heard before, but would never ever forget again.

“Oh! An airplane!” Baekhyun said cheerfully, “Alright, what do you bet for?”

“I…” I was hesitant about saying anything, uncertain because my heart felt happy and sad at the same time, but decided to respond nevertheless, “I think it’ll last for at least a minute.”

A tear escaped my right eye as I held onto the umbrella, because, for the first time, I did not feel happy about having been right about the contrails.

I sat down on the small place on top of the roof, gaze glued to the clear blanket of bluish white above me as I wished for an airplane to pass by. No matter how long I had to wait, I would wait until one would pass by, and no matter whether the contrail would disappear almost immediately or not, I would chase it. I would chase it with all I had.

Minutes combined into an hour, and after a while so much time had passed I was sure the school was empty and the school would be locked, but I did not want to give up. This sadness inside of me was eating me up alive, and if there was a way to find Baekhyun again, I would do anything I could.

“Byun Baekhyun has left the school.”

“Please…” I whispered, “Please lead me to where he is…”

Whether it was that the heavens had decided to listen to my plead or really just luck, an airplane could be noticed coming from a distance. Excitement burst inside of me as I quickly stood up to have a better look at it, waiting impatiently for it to pass me by so I could follow its contrail. A hopeful smile unconsciously and effortlessly crept on my lips as I followed it with my eyes, counting the minutes, seconds before it would pass above of me. My heart dropped, however, when it finally did.

Because it did not leave a contrail behind.

Spring air and soft breezes would always remind me of a period in my life when a boy crashed into my life and showed me what living is for. He was a person who painted his own world in his own set of colors, boldly and confidently living in his own created world that only he could see. At one point, I had been able to enter this world and see this world for myself. It had not been pretty at all, but it was indeed breathtakingly beautiful. It had not been colorful at all, but it had consisted all the imaginable and unimaginable colors possible. It had not been soundless, but it had been filled with a kind of silence that always seemed to sound so lovely in the ears.

And even though I told him that chasing contrails was futile, I had never ever given up on it.

“Hey, look! It’s an airplane!” A friend of mine said as we walked around the streets, “There’re so many airplanes flying here above Seoul, such a difference from Ulsan.”

I glanced up at the airplane that passed by, leaving behind a very clear, visible contrail that would most probably not fade for some time. I was about to glance away, when all of a sudden I felt the urge to run after it, to chase after it. All of a sudden, this haunting feeling downed upon me that if I let this moment slip, I would regret it forever. No matter how many times I told myself to stop listening to this gut feeling, I always listened to it in the end, because I did not want to lose my one chance of meeting Baekhyun again. Even if it was only a childish belief that I was holding onto, I still did not want to let it go, never wanted to let it go.

“Remember to take an umbrella with you tomorrow,” I said to my friend before rushing off, leaving my friend behind while I chased the contrail.

Flashes. It came in flashes. It always came in flashes. Memories with him always came in flashes. It was never a clear, continuous film, but always broken parts that came to vision in flashes. Heavily colored flashes that blinded me for seconds, but I never minded it because I was rather blinded by memories of him than sighted but with no memories of him at all. I ran through streets, ignoring the complaining of my body and the warning bells ringing in my head that I should stop this nonsense, making sure to keep myself safe while chasing it.

At some point, I arrived at a kind of river that looked endearingly pleasant and attracted me immediately. It was not extravagant, was not the most beautiful river in this world, but it had character. It had its elegance and its confidence, which made it a gem even amidst millions of other rivers.

I glanced around frantically before my gaze landed on a particular person that seemed so terribly familiar, to the point that I was so frightened that I had mistaken him for someone I wished him to be so dearly. My heart rate skyrocketed at the sight of him, and I was just certain it was him. Years had passed but certain things would never change. The way his lips would curve when he was smiling was so distinctly him that there was no mistaking it. The way he was always so childishly confident and lost in his own world was something only he could convey into an aura that felt so pleasant.

“B-Baekhyun…”

He glanced at me, eyes widening in surprise at seeing me, “It’s really you…”

“I can’t believe it…” I said, the exhaustion crashing down on me, but my smile never wavering, “I can’t believe it…”

He approached me hesitantly, as if he was not sure whether his vision was playing tricks on him or not, “What brought you here?”

I pointed to the sky, “I was chasing contrails.”

He smiled his brilliant smile at this before throwing himself on me, burying my face in his coat as he held onto me tightly, making me smile happily. My fingertips lingered on the fabric of his soft coat, clenching onto it like a child as I listened to his heartbeats.

“I was chasing contrails too.”