∞ when you convert the number 1/3 into decimal, you get a recurring decimal of 0.333 ∞












-
close.












in all honesty, it doesn't come as a surprise when chanyeol greets you with the usual bright smile gracing his lips, taking you into his arms with an i love you on this cold rainy morning. the sky is a leaking tap today, a shade of nondescript grey - smudging everything into a swirl of dirty grey confusion as if everything were water-colour, easily dissolved.












you reply to the muscular arms which trap you in with a mere smile, not trusting yourself to say anything in fear of your thoughts - don't ing touch me - tumbling out of you mouth.












both of you knew - the reason why the whole thing is really a huge roll of sadness minced together to form  a pretty picture. and perhaps somewhere, buried deep within the array of lies and truth mashed into a blurry line, you'd think about how pathetic the whole situation seems to be instead of embracing it with silent delusions.












if you had asked him why his meaningless i love you sounded so sad, it would have been a rhetorical question because he would've embellished his teeth with more white and replied it's not with a brighter smile, hurting your eyes so bad that you had to hold back a wince and turn away (but then again, you probably would have turned away anyway, at the rate of faked smiles and sad i love yous). and with this voice in your head - you aren't sure of whether it's telepathy or you plain thinking - you'd know that it's because of you that his words were laced in this
manner, sad.












so if it goes like that - if you're supposedly the one behind his sadness - you wonder who then is the one behind yours?












it would occur to you as a ridiculous strike of memory that oh, it's chanyeol and somehow, you would realise that everything is going to turn out to be this endless cycle of saddening each other because chanyeol caused your sadness because you caused his and ultimately, both of you are harming yourselves by letting yourself be affected by each other. this is perhaps a perfect example of unhealthy relationships and self-destruction but you won't be able to find a damn to give anyway because in your mind - unlike the chicken and the egg question of what starts first - chanyeol is the one who sets off this chain.












you have absolutely no intentions of letting him get away scott free with it - starting the pain - despite knowing that you'll always have the shorter end of the stick; the ultimatum is that you'll always lose. well, the masochistic and sadistic side of you is in consensus on this, everything is never too much to handle - just so regret grows as a monster and haunts the conscience of chanyeol down.












right now though, you don't ask any questions and you don't delve that deep, only coat your thoughts in the grey fog and blur your vision with grey mists - because lies are like that. if you ever decide to wipe the warm mist that has formed over your vision on this cold rainy morning though, you might then perhaps be able to see clearly enough to realise everything that lies in between.












when you pull away, you take another glance at his dimpled cheeks and curve of lips. another look at his distracted eyes and stray strand of hair.












you turn away.












-
open.












the walk to the entrance of the airport is an additional fifteen meters in the rain, another two point five millimetres of water soaking through your favourite sneakers into your socks. your manager is holding a blue umbrella over you and you vaguely hear him cussing about how he hates rainy weathers.












might as well, you think as you take the umbrella from him. the closing in of fans and the shutter of camera lights never fails to take you off guard because somehow, you never get used to the fancy lights and loud flashes.












on that day, you decide that you don't feel like dealing with the harsh cadences of voices and sound waves passing through one another displacing particles but you are not allowed to do so in the form of wearing your headphones (you scoff at your mind quoting the manager it's rude and unappealing to public. but of course, what did you expect to get out of the whole idol thing?)












so you fight back the itch to grasp the purple headphones round your neck and settle it
comfortably over your head. the urge is still always tingling throughout your fingers and it's taking everything for you to hold back and not give in to the temptation of the cushion over your ears that softens the voices.












when you walk through the entrance of the airport and a larger crowd of fans greet you with blindingly bright posters and more flashes, you pass the umbrella to your manager and proceed to tug your beanie over your ears, considering that it's the very best option. it works as a poor excuse to soften those annoying screams ofoppa! and ge! but your manager isn't sending you subtle looks of disapproval so you think you can settle for that. in the midst of all the chaos, you almost forget that you have the naive unicorn lay image to uphold, that you're not yixing in the eyes of the screaming fans.












you in a breath of air and mumble inhale, exhale, inhale ,exhale and then you look up, catch a camera, smile. there's a shutter and a flash and a squeal of fans but you push them all to the back of your minds, making a beeline to the check-in counter with the purple backpack hanging loosely over your left shoulder. the fans are reaching out to grasp hold of luhan and minseok, everyone, really - their shirts or something - and every flail of hands which manage to bypass the bodyguard's bulky bodies to a hair's breadth away from their denim jackets earns a silent, almost inaudible hiss of the manager's - keep them away.












somewhere behind you, you can hear jongdae's carefree laughter and you can imagine
chanyeol's face scrunched up with his huge glasses over his eyes - his loud voice booming over the screaming fans and banners ed in their faces. kyungsoo probably has his shoulder knocking against jongin's - some things never change - and kris's height is leading the way. but chanyeol isn't far beside you and he has his hands dumped over baekhyun's narrow shoulders, blowing air onto his neck as if baekhyun's is as sensitive as your own.












you ignore the pang of heartbreak that aches somewhere in your chest as if it isn't already the norm and give a little wave to another fan some one point three meters to your left.












it's okay if you don't love lay because lay would have loved you anyway.












-
close.












the composition teacher had once mentioned that it is not possible for one to remember the exact tune or melody of a song without writing it down. yes, you may remember the whole theme, concept or idea, but the details will be left unanswered, a complete blank after a while.












to remember or recollect the details, you associate it with a word. any word which first comes into your mind at the sight of your inspiration, it's somewhat like writing. the composition teacher's voice still ringing as a baritone in your head, you remember the squeak of black markers against the clean whiteboard which results in the words remember through themes and word associations scrawled messily across the smooth surface.












he flashes a couple of pictures as an example and asks you to associate it with a word within five seconds, claiming that it'll be the word you use to remind yourself about the details of the picture, no matter how weird or strange the word may seem to be.












in those moments, you laugh because for every picture appeared, the first word that comes into your mind ischanyeol and when zitao peeks into your notebook and nudge you in disbelief, you laugh again.












are you kidding me?












i think i'm kidding myself.












back then, you replied with a sweet smile, the distillation of bliss before those dark dark nightmares come galloping into the picture and painting it with blobs of black.












right now, you're trying as hard as you can to not remind yourself about how this cup of lemon tea reminds you of the way chanyeol sips on it, biting on the straw and always requesting for extra ice, or how the picture of the beanie you're supposed to model resembles the one chanyeol showed you in his picture of himself when he was 14, or how the little girl wearing the flower headband reminds you of the way chanyeol tried to tie the flowers together using thin twigs on your first weekend off as trainees, eyes fixed on the green stem and brows furrowed, tongue sticking out in concentration.












you slump down on the beech wood chair, wondering what started everything and when this relationship became loveless.












you regret associating everything with chanyeol because now that he's gone, every memory is broken into shards and fragments which pierces deep into the core of your heart and slowly rips it apart.












you only remember in vague terms now, details now all gone.












perhaps it's for the better good, perhaps then it won't hurt as much. but you can't help but mourn after the lost details because you liked knowing everything, music, dance in it's exact form with precision and details. the vagueness of the whole experience is unnerving and the last memory of both your true laughter - kind of - hurts.












-
open.












two hundred and seventy degrees and thirty-seven paces forwards will be the drawer where the keys to the practice room is kept. rusty by now you imagine - bunched up with the many other old ones which are used to unlock the doors of the sm building - last flakes of metallic grey paint peeling off.












you could sneak into the empty room and steal the keys if you wanted to, it's the sort of thing you would've done when you were an inconspicuous trainee amongst the many and unaware of the consequences, of competition. you could imagine the boss tutting and making a comment about being new as a trainee here in sm entertainment and managing to get into trouble with the management committee within mere months.












and perhaps chanyeol would be standing right beside you, head dipped low in such a way that he reminds you of a sad puppy, ears flattened to the side of his head with mumbled apologies even though the playful glint would still be seen burning in his eyes if he isn't actually looking down. you try to hide a smile at that image because that's what chanyeol's always been good at, adapting to the environment in different situations and pleasing people with an effort equivalent to that of lifting a finger.












it's always been easy with chanyeol around.












when the management employee question you both about whatever you guys were doing in the middle of the night when your sunbaes are overseas and all the other trainees are asleep, chanyeol hurries to answer, leave a good impression - yixing - lay was teaching me how to strengthen my dance moves -  eyes filled with so much sincerity that you don't think anyone would refuse them.












the employee narrows his eyes and turns his gaze to you and you muster up your sincerity and ignore the thumping in your heart in the very last minute, nodding profusely so that chanyeol's last-minute excuse would be accepted.












both of you get away with sneaking into the practice room to compose music and strumming the guitars in the middle of the night where moonbeams shine through the window and illuminate the cloud pattern for the first time, but that wasn't the last time both of you tried.












it's just a rusted key to the practice room (which held so much memories that under so much pressure it couldn't hold them all in and exploded in such a soft blast that you don't know until you find the memories scattered about) now. without hesitating you turn back and walk away, braving the darkness to your dorm on the second level of the building. where the contrary dim lights escaping the gaps under the door of the practice room tell youthis is the way to go.












-
close.












there is rain spilling over the roof in the small shelter you have just stepped under again. you remember the path ahead - a dark grey drain covering every two meters on the pavement next to the tar black road, light grey metallic bus stop with an endorsement of chanyeol's face for nature republic standing proudly next to it - in dissonance with the usual immeasurable amount of precipitation falling from the sky onto the grey concrete of the streets in front of you.












once again you aren't sure of what you came back here for.












this is the place where you both first bumped into each other some years ago, on that day, rain drips from the edges of the roof of the shelter like every other rainy day. you remember how small the space was made having to share it with another taller human being. there wasn't any endorsements back then, hell you weren't even expecting yourself to spend so many years after locking eyes with the guy who was lolli-ice on a cold day.




you had briefly wondered whether or not that would warm another person up upon seeing his
heartwarming smile. you gave him a small, shy one in return because he was a stranger, after all,you had no idea whether or not he would be a wolf in a lamb's skin (spoiler; he is). the jabs of your shoulders brush against his upper arms and your mind unconsciously takes consciousness of your height differences, feet scuffing along the small area of the covered pavement and wondering if you should move away and get half your shoulder drenched in the rain.












you do that in the end and that was probably what led to his pulling of you in to such proximity that you're tucked safely underneath his awkward half-embrace.












chanyeol's lips were what softly dyed your cheeks red when you mumble an awkward - the rain's stopped - and he admits that he'd like to stay with you in this position for a little while more in raw and blunt emotions, not a single hint of embellishment. the both of you stay under the rain, you're adjusted to fit perfectly in the crook of his arms (and you still think you are; no one ever fitted into them that nicely).












he didn't answer your question as to whether eating lolli-ice during a cold day under a cramped shelter would make one feel warmer. he does, however, teach you later that week that kisses under the same place with a brush of wind whipping in your faces makes your heart bloom a petite peony, petals beautiful and colours rich, warm.












you think perhaps the saying is true when flowers are most beautiful when they bloom and the moment right before they die because you could feel the petals of your peony withering and – it hurts.












chanyeol had taken your hand and handed you a cup of warm coffee when he told you - let's end this. icy cold wind nips at the styrofoam cup of the coffee in your hand and everything instantly drops to a five degrees celsius cold when it's spring.












you think since it's so easy for him, it shouldn't be any more difficult for you. sure. you'll forget his last words of loving you - just this morning when the sun hangs like a ball of fire high in the sky.












perhaps if you are really really conscious of your thoughts, you'd find out why you came back here. here's a clue: it's not the lolli-ice












-
open.












when the producer locks you in a room with chanyeol and guitars to film an episode of exo showtime, you curse him -  you to hell and all the way back - softly before proceeding to follow the script. compose/play songs. lay and chanyeol are very good buddies who confide in each other. it's simpler than many of the others and you should be able to do it.












confide. you scoff at the underlying tones and decide that alright, confide.












both of you are in mutual agreement to start with a duet which you bet will probably be cut out anyway because it's not in the script and guitars are boring. you could feel his eyes on you, every strum in harmony matching yours and you simply play on, eyes concentrated on the guitar and pretending that you can't feel his eyes burning into the way you play your instrument.












you are slouched over the body of your guitar and chanyeol's leaning to the back of the chair, fingers continually strumming into what you'd identify as our song. you think you caught a hint of a smile that moment before his eyes drift to the chords you're strumming and the fact that there's no longer an us between you and chanyeol kind of fades in the moment.












chanyeol starting… you receiving - it continues for quite a while before it stops abruptly and he asks if you'd like to compose a new song. it comes so much as a norm, as something he'd ask sometime during the crickets chirping in the night when both of you would make this practice room your small escapade, that you find yourself agreeing without so much as a second thought.












a happy song? he continues and from your peripheral vision 45 degrees to your left, you catch the camera and you're abruptly reminded of the fact that you're filming.









despite the nostalgia that lingers as wisps in the air, you can't help but think about how - despicable - chanyeol is for doing this; reliving something which is supposed to belong to the both of you for everyone. you shake your head no i want to do a sad song.












chanyeol immediately follows up with a supposedly playful no you can't and you sigh internally, giving in to him like you've always done and - okay i'll try to do a happy song.












he starts off with the upbeat strums and you force yourself to accompany his playing despite the fact that you don't want to, but in the end you really do not know how you can do it with him because somehow, he isn't the chanyeol from the days of random guitar strumming already. we're filming. you remind yourself. everything's just for the sake of filming so you swallow your indignance, stop behaving like a baby, and deal with the crap the producer puts you through.












when the producers decide that there's too much of chanyeol playing and you need some air time for yourself, they give chanyeol a little wave. you act as if everything's normal when chanyeol's cued to say hyung, you should play too. 












stiff fingers strum monotonously in a one, two, three, four, one two three, four and the impromptu tune that's formed sounds contrastingly melodious. you begin to make up lyrics to this happy song and since you can't do a sad song, you'll do sad lyrics. chanyeol manages to follow and accompany your tune, surprisingly, and with you singing your lyrics it morphs into something similar to the songs both of you composed when both of you were bored.












just a little few notes more - you think to yourself as you sing and the song completes.












like this?












you made this just now?












you don't know what you are supposed to do with the question. because well obviously this wasn't from just now, the way both of you were playing, it was from years ago. but then you're on this show and you're lay who's supposed to be someone who composes good music on-the-spot together with chanyeol so you affirm it naturally - yea, just now.












we didn't plan this right?












we didn't plan this.












you parrot whatever he asks in this manner and you ignore the look he sends you commending you on your improvised lying skills.












isn't this good?












yes it is.












it's time to put the confide to use, so you manipulate this conversation a little, half guessing chanyeol's answers in a split second.












but isn't this - sad? it's kind of sad for me.












it seems as if you haven't been feeling good lately.












hook.












ahhh, i feel down












what did you say? cotton buds? 












you know he gets your mispronunciation but you play along. you're lay.












cotton buds.












cotton buds? cotton buds are the things i got for my birthday. 












it would have been funny in any other context but you're lay.












agh… not for the ears. i meant i'm feeling down. down, down. yea, i'm feeling down.












chanyeol turns away to hide his smile and you can't help but wonder whether everything's really for show.












ah down.












down.












feeling down. 












it's kind of stupid how this conversation's going for entertainment purposes, and the part of you who's enjoying all of this is in absolute denial.












it's just that nothing seems right, you begin the confiding, meaning every one of your words because nothing really does seem right. you turn to chanyeol and catch the glimpse of panic in his eyes. taking this opportunity to toy with him, you gesture, you know what it is, right? 












chanyeol's face is a literal blank right now and you fight back your urge to laugh at the fool he's making of himself with all the over thinking.












reel.












it's just that i feel hurt. you gesture vaguely to where your heart is, to where chanyeol had left a hole in.












don't go there, don't go there, you can see the red warning signals he's sending you right then already. you're a nice person and you're smart enough to figure that it wouldn't do to reveal your relationship, or ex-relationship to the public. so you continue, my waist is hurt. 












his posture relaxes and he leans into the chair, you can see the breath of relief he lets out and the smile which slowly overtakes his face. let it all out, hyung.












ah i really… need to dance. but my waist is hurt. it's getting better… you slowly close your eyes as if you're retreating into this zen mode when you really don't know what all this tension you created is for. and it briefly occurs to you that it's for the fun of it and it would increase the chance of more time getting broadcasted.












but now… you break the silence again. racking for something that would seem vaguely entertaining and out of anyone's expectation. chanyeol's eyes goes into his wild panic mode again and you snicker softly to yourself.now i've injured my knees.












chanyeol's posture laxes again and you think it's pretty enjoyable - looking at the way chanyeol tenses and laxes because you're the one who's pulling all the strings and you have some vague sense of control over him right then. that's why i feel cotton buds.












a flash of incredulousness passes before chanyeol gets a grip on himself hand his knuckles turn a shade whiter around the body and the handle of his guitar. variety skills. ah… it seems like you'd feel cotton buds because of that. 












chanyeol, don't you feel upset lately? (over our break up? over our lack of interaction? don't you at least feel affected by me?)












no, i'm always happy. he answers, shaking his head without any hesitance and you think right. from the way his fingers run lightly over the strings near the mouth of the guitar and he shifts, seemingly uncomfortable in the position which he had stayed in for such a long time. right. you stare into his brown eyes and do a little soul searching for him, help him find out that no you are an idol who's free to express every sort of emotions, not a freaking clown.












he fidgets slightly.












sinker.












the whole thing's become too fun for you and you can't help but increase the intensity of your stare and guilt-trip him, resting your head leisurely on your hands.












oh really? yea, you do look happy. you affirm, hiding a smirk at his message of are you really doing thisaccompanied with almost pleading eyes. his fingers are still running over the length of the guitar strings nervously.












you're jealous, right?












i'm jealous.









there's no reason not to be happy. he reminds you, he's the happy virus of exo, he's supposed to be happy twenty-four seven. you don't think you feel even a tinge of jealousy running through your veins because there really is nothing to be jealous of someone who's forced to plaster smiles all day long.












will you play a song for me? a song to make me happy? it's kind of ridiculous now as you think of the request after it came tumbling out of your mouth. it's really as if you are enjoying the whole thing just like the-old-times and you'd ask him to play songs for you when you want to just slump down and drown yourself the the rhapsody of the both of you.












you're beginning to hesitate, the fear of rejection comes crawling back round your nape and it's fingers slowly, slowly wrapping themselves around when chanyeol opens his mouth. he doesn't speak - however - just starts playing the guitar, mouth curving upwards into the all too familiar
smile.












for a moment you try to delude yourself into thinking that maybe, maybe if you just reach out, grab his hand and ask to reconcile, or perhaps just call out to him when he's a meter from disappearing in your rearview mirror, you can get him back and make this end like a fairytale - happily ever after.












you catch another wave of hand by the producers when your eyes drift past the mirrors of the practice room and somehow it paves a way out of your delusions for you. you don't want to go that way but there really is no choice left. and as you walk, kicking dead leaves out of your way,
you think that perhaps the smile was faked and forced all along. perhaps he wasn't ever looking at you but into the depths of the camera. stupid, stupid, stupid, you think, when the strumming of the guitar stops.












i'll give you a present too. you say, since this is not the-old-times and everything's for show.












chanyeol's gone and this person sitting over here across you doesn't look like the sort who'd give things for free.












-
close.












five hundred metres away from the recording studio would be a facade of black, red and white tessellating, forming the entrance of a shopping centre. at times, you would discern the face of exo - endorsing for some product in an embarrassing-to-die-for cringeworthy commercial which would actually make an impact on the sales of the item - pixellated on the large led screens. some others, it would be an extravagant marriage proposal by some rich bastard overly drunk on the idea of romanticism in the form of large i love you, will you marry me? with disgusting hearts floating all around it. you reckon he'll get a hangover by the end of the first seven days of his marriage.












there is a fast food restaurant in the shopping centre - only this you remember from the day you were seventeen, your hopes of debuting on the edge of falling off the high-rise windows of the sm building and a sudden craving for chicken with chanyeol. you remember just wanting to go home.












when you drag chanyeol away from baekhyun and coerce him into eating chicken with you, he doesn't question anything. he happily obliges. and with his mouth full of half-digested chicken and gross, he would still try to make a conversation. all of his fingers are gleaming with a thin layer of
oil when he asks do you think we would use chopsticks when we eat chicken on tv shows, to act high end and gracious and eloquent? 












back then, you shrugged. but as you remember how chanyeol was using chopsticks to pick the chicken drumstick up during showtime, you find that it's rather perturbing to see chanyeol without oily fingers when eating chicken.












at the end of the recording - exactly seventeen minutes to three am in the morning - you yawn. good job for today, the management team would say as a normal procedure, all of you bow as some sort of thank you and you would catch jongin nuzzling into the crook of kyungsoo's neck in the shadows. baekhyun is avoiding chanyeol like the plague on this day and you are too busy keeping your heavy eyelids up to notice him approaching you. and when you do it's kind of too
late.












love you, he says within a breath's distance away (and it still sounds kind of sad to you). his hands reach out and before you realise, you feel the pad of his thumb pressing firmly against your cheeks. there's a sticker in a form of a heart stuck to your cheek and you are robbed of your speech, only staring at him in disbelief.












when he skips away to yifan and proceeds to paste an exact sticker on his cheeks, you realise that chanyeol's probably high on the lack of sleep and slightly deranged so perhaps he can be forgiven for this game of wild goose chase.












once again the realisation hits you hard because you've always forgiven him.












you know you can't possibly stay unaffected by him like the way he stays unaffected by you (because maybe he's never really cared from the start like you did - you aren't sure anymore). a part of you still holds the hope that one day, he'll look at you with something which resembles the
truth instead of the plastic which society had stuffed him up to be and maybe then you'll not feel like you've been taken for this long, long ride and gotten dumped onto the hard gravel of the ground after he's done with you.












the way he left is just too harsh - too fast for you to accept because everything's just gone within a blink of an eye and you're abruptly shaken awake to the reality.












it is an acute sense of loss as you turn your back to chanyeol - now sticking hearts on sehun - and leave with the rest of the m members. but then again, what did you expect, anyway? memory, that penrose staircase which extends infinitely forward in front of you , grows with every single step forward, the future indistinguishable from the past.












-
open.












the contrary green of the traffic light you see from your window seat of the van is gesturing to you, telling you that this is the way home. you refuse to tear your eyes away from it even after it's way behind you and disappearing, until chanyeol's head fall onto your shoulders and a contented sigh escapes his parted lips.













-












∞ and maybe that's how love is like, recurring, endless, infinite ∞

a/n:

- can i just rant abt how i can't write canon for  

- thank you so much for reading um, leave a comment perhaps?