Part Two: "All Alone"

When Chanyeol was six, he had tripped on his own feet, and his dad was there to pick him up and brush the dust off of his shoulders. At the age of eleven, Chanyeol fell off his bike and scraped up his arms, so his mother cleaned his wounds and scolded him for playing outside without her supervision. And when Chanyeol was fourteen and was sent home because he picked a fight with a boy, his father slapped him across the face and his mother sent him to his room without a word. Chanyeol falls very often, but as he grew older, the people that used to catch him began to slowly drift away into their own matters and lives. He thought he did everything wrong, and he thought he was a burden. But really, it was just a part of growing up, wasn’t it?

Chanyeol sat up on his rooftop, perched up high on the shingles as a sharp wind blew his bangs up onto his head. He could hear his parents arguing from their bedroom even outside his bedroom window, but then again, Chanyeol’s parents are only a room over. They always yell about someone’s drinking habits and someone’s smoking habits. Chanyeol doesn’t even know why they were married in the first place, he couldn’t remember the last time the looked like they actually loved each other as a husband and wife. He can’t remember the last time they even somewhat looked like a family, but it was probably never. Chanyeol is fairly certain that they argue over what they’re going to do with him, their son who only stays in his room and gets called into the counselor's office every single week.

Baekhyun is a different story in a completely different genre of novels. He was born into a well off family and into a well off life. He got all the toys he pleased and all the pets he wanted. All of the baby sitters were nice to him and all the cooks happily made pancakes in the morning while the nice gardeners would let him pick a flower or two whenever he pleased. The only thing missing was his family. In order to afford it all, his parents left him at home to all the staff and nannies to take their titles as CEO’s in two separate companies. And to be the son of two important people meant to act the part of one, starting at the age of ten.

“Baekhyun, stop it!” A brown haired woman in her forties snatched away the bag of chips from Baekhyun’s slender hands.

“What, why?” Baekhyun reached for the junk food desperately but the woman held it away from him quickly.

“You know your mother doesn’t want you to eat any of this. She doesn’t want her son breaking out in front of the cameras, remember? You have to maintain the image-”

“Of a perfect son.” Baekhyun didn’t realize his own misery until people started to tell him he couldn’t do this or that, it was like he didn’t even own his life anymore. The worst part was that he was being told what to do by someone he has only seen on Christmas eve, and even those days were unpleasant.

“Haven’t you ever thought about running away?” Chanyeol mumbled as he stared into the empty void of the night sky. The pair of lanky teenagers were laying down on the itchy grass near a the park’s playground, simply watching the starless sky laid above Seoul.

“Yeah, on multiple occasions actually.” Baekhyun sighed weakly, running away always sounded wonderful but so out of reach.

“Then why haven’t you done it?” Chanyeol turned his head to look at Baekhyun, who was ripping the blades of grass out of the ground and twisting the flower stems between his thumb and index finger.

“Well, it’s kind of stupid. I wouldn’t have money, a house or food. I mean what’s the point in putting in so much effort when all I’ll do is come running back?”

“Well, it’s better than where we are now, isn’t it?” Chanyeol breathed in the clean air which he never had the privilege to at home. Everything at home smelled like smoke and sweat, which wasn’t very pleasant at all.

“Anywhere is better than where we are.” But Baekhyun didn’t even know where he was right now. He was just drifting in the currents and landed wherever the wind took him, he had lost himself in commands in orders that he still followed. “But where are we to begin with?”

“We aren’t anywhere, we’re just looking for ourselves, Byun Baekhyun.” Chanyeol replied with just the right amount of uncertainty to scare Baekhyun into wondering if he would ever find himself.

Chanyeol was seventeen when he found his first love who actually requited his feelings. Park Sandara wasn’t glamorous or glitzy, she was a modest girl  who sat in the back of class with a quiet voice. But to Chanyeol, she outshone the rest of the girls because within five minutes of talking to her, he felt so good and ecstatic that he just had to tell Baekhyun about her.

“She’s so lovely, Baek! She listens to me and just makes me feel so much better inside, y’know?” Chanyeol sighed contently as he sunk into Baekhyun’s bean bag chair in the corner of the large room.

“Oh, well that’s great, Chanyeol.” Baekhyun weakly smiled as Chanyeol went on and on about how Dara was caring and compassionate. Baekhyun was truly happy for his best friend. He was just a little upset at how this girl Chanyeol just met made him more happier than Baekhyun ever did.

“And she said ‘yes’, Baekhyun!” Chanyeol cheered at his success in landing a date with Dara this weekend.

“Well, that’s great, Chanyeol. I’m happy for you.” And all of a sudden, Baekhyun felt all alone again.