Note: Please read the A/N all the way at the bottom because I'll be explaining some stuff I consider pretty important to this story. 

When the company calls him, he was putting on his shoes, just about to go to practice. 

"Kris go prepare. There's a meeting this afternoon. The company wants all the members to officially meet each other." Such simple sentences, and yet they make Kris dazedly hang up the phone, only one shoe on. And later he himself doesn't even realize how long he's been in that position on the porch. 

When he comes back to his senses, he touches his face only to realize how his tears have already started falling silently. For this day, he waited so long. He imagined this scenario countless of times, and thought that the moment he receives the news, he would be screaming in joy. But the Kris now just slowly rests his face on his palms. 

"Haaaa...." Closing his eyes, furrowing his eyebrows, Kris instead smiles. The half open door allows the morning rays to seep in through the crack, falling at his feet. Kris's mouth is smiling, but his eyes are crying. 

For this phone call, he waited 3 years. How many nights have he spent giving up on himself, how many new years he's spent along. 

He forever remembers that initial moment when he slams open the door, his shouted promise to his mother inside their house still resonating in his ears. 

"I'll become a son that can protect you before coming back!"

He remembers the younger him that was so foolish to make such a promise. And the price he paid is 3 years. 3 years in this strange country had changed everything. He grows out his hair, speaks fluent Korean, never played another full game of basketball, and pulled out two of his teeth. All in exchange for a phone call of "I'm really fine, I did it." 

Kris sits on the floor, one hand supporting his head, the other covering his face.

Sitting at the porch with a half open door, he's like a child, smiling and crying alone, and then cries and smiles again. He can't even distinguish if he's sad or happy, homesick or afraid. 

Just, just. 

The day he waited for finally came. 

Just as Kris slips back on his facade of coldness to walk out the dorm's door, Yixing coincidentally comes running from across the street, still clad in his training clothes. 

"We did it! Really! This time it's real!" That idiot screams to Kris while running, crossing the sidewalk, and wordlessly throws himself towards Kris. 

He opens both arms, and fiercely hugs the guy who's a head taller than him. There's a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead because he didn't even think after receiving the phone call, and just ran crazily the entire distance from the company home. His first thought was that he wants to congratulate his good friend, his brother. 

Kris stares at his friend, and just smiles before hugging him back. "That's right, Yixing. We really did it," he replied. 

Time is really scary. Suffering and waiting aimlessly can ruin a person's all hopes and spirit. 

But they did it, they survived together. 

Letting go of Kris, Yixing immediately pulls that cold guy towards the direction of the company. While walking, he animatedly describes his emotions when he received that phone call, and Kris like usual just smiles and nods occasionally in response. 

"And then my dad said...Ah, that's right..." Yixing stops his footsteps, and hesitantly asks, "Did you contact your mom yet?" 

Kris walks two steps, turning around to see his friend's face full of concern. Seeing the seriousness on his face, Kris slightly smiles, and lightly nods his head. 

"She...told me to come home soon." 

Seeing the smile on Kris's face slowly become wider, Yixing also feels that unexplainable feeling of pure happiness, and unconsciously starts smiling stupidly as well. 

"Oh...then tell her that in the future we'll definitely go to Canada to hold concerts there. By then I'll go visit her again." He finishes his sentence, and the two stop their footsteps, and just like this they paused on the streets for two seconds, staring at each other...and then, suddenly, they both burst into a fit a laughter. 

Walking on the path to the company, they both push and pull each other while laughing and joking around. The them now actually seem like teenagers, shouting until their throats are hoarse, as if they're kids who just got off from school. There's no feeling of solitude from fellow workers distancing themselves from them, no pressure of being a trainee. 

Their hopes and ambitions, their dreams, before being destroyed by the reality of growing up, has finally been achieved by them. 

"Kim Jongin, Kim Junmyeon, and Park Chanyeol    obviously    Do Kyu