The boy was nowhere to be found. Chanyeol waited above that very spot for what seemed like ages; checking again and again that this was indeed the place where he had almost dried up. Chanyeol couldn’t see very well through Dubu’s fluffiness in the beginning, but he found that as he waited, his vision of the people below became clearer.

So he waited.
After what seemed like a month in which Chanyeol had not moved from the spot as so not to miss the boy if he came out; the boy came out. Except this time, he wasn’t alone. He had a little girl with him that Chanyeol disliked on sight because she was constantly chattering and jumping around and not letting the boy look up at the sky. He needed the boy to look up so he could look down and thank him, Chanyeol thought, thoughts slightly hazy now.

His vision of the boy grew even more vivid; he was beautiful. The wind blew his hair into his eyes and he smiled an easy smile; his eyes crinkled when he smiled. Chanyeol found himself smiling back at him, even though he knew the veterans said people below couldn’t ever see past their clouds.

Baekhyun, the girl had called him a while ago.

Chanyeol said it too. “Baekhyun.”

He searched Baekhyun’s face for any signs of recognition, and slowly, Bakehyun stretched an open palm towards the sky.

Chanyeol stretched his hand down, and for a moment, he could have sworn that their fingers touched.

Baekhyun looked at his hand in surprise.

Thank y- Chanyeol began, but that’s when it happened.

Dubu suddenly didn’t feel like a cloud anymore. It felt more like glass and shards of it floated off when Chanyeol touched it. His eyes widened in realization.

His breath became rapid. Even in his panic, he caught a glimpse of Baekyun and the girl running for cover. He frantically tried to hold the cloud to his chest.

Then he stopped. There was nothing left. All that was left of Dubu was Amber’s and Sungyeol’s bits. He hugged them to himself tightly, burying his face in it because Dubu, Dubu, he was going to be nothing now and then he began falling.

The pieces of cloud in his arms floated upwards out of his grip and his last memory was that of reaching out to try and reclaim them.

-0-

Sungyeol had just heard that his snowball fighting partner was back in the Eastern hemisphere and was navigating towards him. He could see Chanyeol’s silhouette on the horizon now, the sunset colouring the sky pink and yellow behind him.

But something was off. Chanyeol seemed to be clutching pieces of his cloud close to him and yet they kept breaking off and falling to the earth like hail.

This wasn’t what it was like when he was sent below, Sungyeol remembered, with growing terror. He was sent below because he had let himself dry out—and this was probably the biggest secret in the universe, because no one was allowed to talk about why they got sent out. He was sent as a soul, and born as a child to live his life down there.

But Chanyeol? Chanyeol was falling.

Sungyeol raced towards him, lunging for his hand and caught it—only to have his hand slip through his like Chanyeol was suddenly solid and Sungyeol was just a cloud.

-0-

When Chanyeol opened his eyes on that day, and every day, for years and years in his happy life, he knew something was missing.

But he couldn’t name what. In time he learnt to ignore the feeling since he’d had it for as long as he could remember.

But ignoring feelings rarely make them go away and sometimes Chanyeol would just double over and hug himself and wonder why he felt so empty. These were mostly drunken thoughts, after he lay on someone’s couch after someone’s drug-and-booze-filled house party in high school.

It was a night like that one.

There was someone on top of Chanyeol, and he didn’t know who. He pushed him off, groaning; he staggered to the balcony that overlooked Kai’s swimming pool.

He felt like retching. He really shouldn’t have had the last few drinks, he thought, leaning over the balcony for support. Kai would actually kill him if he threw up in his pool. It was while Chanyeol was peering at his own reflection in the moonlit pool that he caught sight of the stars lighting up the night sky. It was such an incredibly clear night, he marvelled, trying to look up without falling over.

And that was when he saw a face looking at him from the balcony on the other side of the pool.

He froze.

And then the man was gone and Chanyeol felt as if he’d just lost what he spent his entire life looking for.

-0-

The houseparty guests were taking their sweet time in leaving even though Kai was throwing a hissy fit at them. He didn’t appreciate his hissy fit being interrupted by a hung-over Chanyeol.

“What?” He snapped, and snatched a glass of alcohol from someone’s hand.

Chanyeol leaned onto the sofa for support. “Hey, could you tell me who’s the dude who lives across from you?”

Kai spared him a cursory glance, considering asking him why he needed to be told anything aside from get out especially since he knew Chanyeol had thrown up in his pool last night, but decided they were both too hungover for an argument.
“Some undergrad kid. Why, he say something about complaining to the landlord?”

Chanyeol shook his head. “No, no, he just uh…” He couldn’t seem to describe what exactly the man had done in their meeting last night aside from giving him a migraine, so he trailed off.

Kai shooed him out with a threat to send him the bill from the cleaners for the pool later.

-0-

This was the fourth time in a week that he’d been sent out of class for falling asleep on his desk. Baekhyun leaned his forehead against the cool door of his apartment, and sighed. He hadn’t been able to sleep ever since his neighbor had had that obnoxiously loud house party. He told himself it was because the music was loud that night and it messed up his internal clock for the rest of the week, but he knew deep down that it wasn’t his internal clock keeping him up.

It was that highschool kid retching on the balcony. Or more specifically, the memory of him. The eye-contact they had shared haunted him, and Baekhyun didn’t know why.

For the first time in his life, Baekhyun couldn’t pin-point what he was missing, and even gazing at the sky didn’t help.

-0-

The observatory in the small town of Lacas was only open on the weekends. One of the first things Baekhyun had done when he moved into town from his parent’s hillside cottage was to get a membership. Tao complained that Baekhyun had too much free time, and that he might as well help him score that blonde-and-rainbow haired freshman but Baekhyun didn’t think they needed any help scoring each other. Said freshman was gooey-eyed over Tao already, and Tao was likewise giggly around him and the two of them nauseated him. He told them so, and they rolled their eyes and blushed into their upsize cokes.

His oversized sweater didn’t do much to fight off the cold in the observatory; Baekhyun shivered as he watched the stars and the clouds waltz across the sky.

“Um.”

The guy next to him should have known better to interrupt Baekhyun’s cloud-watching time. He turned towards him, frowning.

“Um, your teeth are chattering.” The boy said, and suddenly the dark observatory was still not dark enough for Baekhyun to not know who this was.

He gaped.

“Do you need a jacket or something because I’m not wearing mine for now…” Chanyeol trailed off. His face heated up and he suddenly wished he wasn’t wearing his sweater either.

Their gaze met, then broke away awkwardly, and then met again as if magnetic. They held this time, and Chanyeol touched the delicate hand resting on the side of the seat while desperately trying to remember the name of the blend of he did before getting here, because it was wonderful.

And all he could think—all they both could think, and they didn’t know why—was like finally.

-0-

Trying to explain that they were drawn to each other sounded suspiciously like love at first sight to their friends, so they tended not to go into the details of what happened that night aside from meeting in the observatory.

The combination of Baekhyun’s tireless tutoring and Chanyeol’s considerable IQ—when he decided to use it—got Chanyeol into the college he’d always wanted to get into.

Baekhyun rolled over and wriggled a bit as their signal that he had to get out of bed. Chanyeol always ended up half on top of him during the night.

“Mmm, what?” Chanyeol slurred, laughing at Baekhyun pinned under him.

Baekhyun loved that laugh. “Get off me, you elephant, we’re late.” He said, poking Chanyeol’s side. That got Chanyeol up pretty fast. He cursed looking at the time and ran to the bathroom.

“Hey, dibs on the shower first!” Baekhyun shouted, and threw a pillow but Chanyeol shut the bathroom door before it could hit him. He heard a triumphant “HA!” from inside.

He sniffed and went to go make coffee instead. He was considering making Chanyeol pick up the pillow from outside the bathroom door when Chanyeol came out with a towel wrapped around his waist.

Baekhyun appreciated the view from behind his mug of coffee while Chanyeol tried to find a shirt that was clean and wearable to brunch with the guys.  

“You hid my shirts again, didn’t you?” Chanyeol complained, turning around with his boxers in his hand.

“Me, why would I do that?” Baekhyun played innocent.

“Because you like what you see.” Chanyeol grinned, and took a few menacing steps forward. Baekhyun put his mug down and fled into the bathroom. Then; “Ewww the bathroom is all steamy, you jerk!”

Chanyeol chuckled and stuffed Baekhyun’s eyeliner in his pocket.

-0-

As usual, they were running late. Bakehyun tried to get his eyeliner out of Chanyeol’s back pocket—he knew it was there and hell if he was going anywhere without it on—only to get a mouthful of Chaneyol.

“What?” He said, through the kiss.

“I thought you were getting frisky.” Chanyeol grinned at him innocently but Baekhyun wasn’t falling for this.

“Gimme my eyeliner!”

“You’re feeling me up!” And Chanyeol squeezed his behind to return the favor. He got smacked over the head for his efforts.

“Drive the damn car, Baekhyun!” Chanyeol laughed; “I would if someone would stop feeling me up while I was driving!” Baekhyun retorted with his tongue out.

Chanyeol’s eyes were glittering with mirth when Baekhyun looked over at him and then he was getting the eyeliner out of his pocket—he knew he had it, that jerk—and they were laughing, like always.

Baekhyun never saw the truck. 

-0-

A/N: THIS IS NOT THE ENDDDDD, GUYS. :D Don't worry, I won't write such a depressing story. I can't bear to kill these babies off. :D