When Chanyeol feels the sharp tug of a frown on his lips, he doesn’t fight it.

A man he doesn’t recognize occupies his favorite table, long, pale fingers curling around the handle of a porcelain cup as he brings it up to take a sip. Or at least that’s what Chanyeol assumes he’s doing. He could just as well be simply inhaling the aroma of brewed coffee, or blowing on the scalding liquid so that he doesn’t burn his own tongue. It could be tea. He can’t really tell for sure when all he can make out clearly is a head of jet black fluff tapering to a clean shave at the base, a slender neck, and a dark gray coat draped over broad shoulders.

“Must be a tourist,” he muses, eyes squinting behind aviator sunglasses.

Anyone who doesn’t look remotely familiar must be a tourist. This town where he and his sister were born and raised is small and tight-knit enough to easily validate assumptions like that, especially around this time of the season when excursionists are expected to begin trickling in. Except, Chanyeol hasn’t actually been around here for years so, hey, what does he know?

The breeze, chilly but pleasantly fresh, flits across his face with a subtle nip courtesy of the last vestiges of winter. His tongue absently darts out to skim over plush, wind chapped lips, hissing at the roughness and the slight sting. The cold season has never been particularly kind to his skin.

His gaze sails over the counter where he easily spots Kim Junmyeon. His old friend, who is also the chief barista and owner of the quaint coffee shop, is blinking owlishly at him, head tilting a little to the side. It’s cute; makes him look like he's years younger than Chanyeol instead of older.

Chanyeol grins, all pearly whites shamelessly on display. Junmyeon throws him an inquisitive look, eyebrows twitching, as if to ask what he’s doing here so early. Then with a small jolt, he takes a gander at a particular corner east of the hall—the one with the best view of the sea—and his expression instantly goes stiff. He looks worried, but Chanyeol is quick to wave his concern away with a big smile as soon as the barista’s eyes revert to him.

I’ll come back later, he mouths.

Junmyeon only blinks again in reply before his attention is wrenched away by the next customer in line. A petite girl with ash blond curls cascading halfway down her back—can’t be older than maybe seventeen—comes up to the register. Chanyeol notes the impossibly short skirt and strappy heels, and he smirks.

“Definitely a tourist.”

He takes the wheel in a firm grip while casting one last curious glance at the man in the coat. A sense of petty defeat feels like dead weight in the pit of his stomach. It’s not like the table has a name on it or anything, he tells himself. And, to be fair, he did come by earlier than he usually does. Like, three whole hours too early. The café doesn’t really get too crowded but it’s always a lot quieter during off-peak hours—a lot more conducive to any sort of creative process, unless you’re the type of person who thrives in chaos. And right now, at almost seven in the morning, is definitely not off-peak.

The window slides shut at the press of a button. Shifting the gear from park to drive, he releases the brake and gives the gas a calculated press. Surprisingly, he’s met with hardly any traffic. Then again this isn’t Seoul, so maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising. Vegetation is abundant here, but barely visible yet. It’s too early in spring to see lush greens and flowers in full bloom. They’ll get there soon enough. And when they do, the district of Jinhae will be the busiest it will ever be the whole year.

It’s early enough that the road heading away from downtown is almost completely free. The compulsion to add more pressure to the pedal, to rev up to something like a hundred kilometers per hour, creeps under his skin and skitters down to his toes. He keeps it steady at 60 kmph, though. He takes a right turn into an obscure passage off the side of the main road. It’s virtually deserted, littered with overgrown shrubs—or will be once spring hits full force. It’s quite easy to miss, may even seem sketchy to an outsider, but Chanyeol knows these parts like the back of his hand.

In minutes, he’s navigating down a narrow dirt path that’s probably more fit for a mountain bike than an Audi. It’s a shortcut that he remembers biking up and down hundreds of times as a child. Chanyeol’s family’s estate is on the suburban outskirts; old, but well maintained—thanks to his sister—and huge for a small town like this.

The land area is vast with a two-story guesthouse standing adjacent to the main house. A little higher up out back are two cottages with a fantastic view of the bay. They’re quite popular with tourists that come by every year for the Gunhangje Festival. During the off-season, big-city folks, most of them burned-out by the monotony of life, head down here for a couple of days to unwind. There’s also the occasional artist, writer, or composer on the hunt for inspiration. Chanyeol falls somewhere in the middle of those two categories, himself.

Lips bowing in a lopsided grin, Chanyeol turns up the volume the loudest it can go and sings—screeches—out the lyrics with complete abandon.

Because the sun ain’t shining no more
I don’t know why but I’ve seen it before
Ain’t got no joy, no man to lean on
He leaves my soul on the floor like a doll ¹

His head bobs to the beat, fingers drumming fiercely on the wheel. It’s not his usual type of jam—more like a guilty pleasure—and somehow that makes it all the more satisfying.

He drives along the stretch of a low brick wall until he reaches an arched gate coated in slightly-chipped black paint and gold accents. Slowing to a gradual stop, he presses a button to shut down the engine and shoves his sunglasses in the glove compartment before stepping out of the vehicle.

“Ah, cold!” his breath tumbles out in cloudy bursts. Shivers crawl across his skin as a strong blow of wind blasts through the branches. He instinctively tugs at the lapels of his coat, pulling it tighter around his body.

Temperatures are generally lower in the outskirts and so a lot, if not all, of the trees here are still mostly barren with sporadic sprinkles of green. Spring comes slowly in this area; cherry blossoms start blooming later than the rest of Jinhae-gu—usually around the same time when rain becomes a semi-regular thing—and linger barely long enough to make it worth the wait.

Chanyeol lumbers over to the gate. He keeps an eye out for any sort of movement as he sticks both hands in between the cold iron bars to unhook the padlock on the other side. It’s a struggle trying not to make any noise. Park Chanyeol is many things but quiet is certainly not one of them. Carefully, he pushes at the creaky gate and slips through the gap as soon as it’s wide enough to fit.

A stone path cuts across a capacious front lawn and then splits into three: one leading to the door of the main house, another to the guesthouse, and the third forming a path in the middle of the two, toward a set of steps that leads uphill to the back where the cottages are. They used to call it ‘the woods’ when they were little; when Yura would pretend that she was Red Riding Hood and designate Chanyeol as the Big Bad Wolf. Red Riding Hood would always end up beating up the Wolf, somehow.

Chanyeol considers heading that way, but he’s famished and he knows that there’s nothing in the cozy little kitchen but stale bread. He takes his time, worries his lower lip as he fiddles with the keys in his pocket, secretly hoping that everyone—particularly his older sister— is still in bed. He’s not quite up to being put on the spot right now.

But then the second he steps through the door of the main house, he finds Park Yura waiting right by the doorway, arms crossed on her chest. Chanyeol wills the impending panic away. Maybe she’ll just offer him food and not ask questions?

“Where did you go off to so early?”

Chanyeol breathes out a light sigh.

Well, there goes that.

He shrugs offhandedly in response as he slips off his shoes. She’s asking the wrong question; ‘Did you come home at all last night?’ is probably more on target, but he’s not about to point that out.

“Around,” he mutters vaguely, then adds in a rush, “I’m starving. Do we have any food?”

Chanyeol knows he’s struck a nerve when Yura bristles at the question.

“Just what the heck do you take me for? Of course, we have food. I’m a responsible mother of two,” she snaps, turning to stomp into the house. It’s the hormones, she’s going to say later.

Chanyeol barely manages to suppress a chuckle as he follows after her. It’s been over a week since he came back home, and in that time he’d like to think that he’s learned how to use his sister’s volatile moods to his advantage. That’s not to say that he always succeeds though, because he rarely does.

Yura abruptly stops in her tracks, spins around to face him. Chanyeol blurts out a “!” when he nearly runs into her. He quickly clamps both hands over his mouth when Yura shoots him a look that promises bloody death. Chanyeol knows very well what his sister thinks about people spouting expletives around her kids — never mind that one of them is yet to be born and the other is probably nowhere within earshot.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do.”

“I... don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Bull—” The struggle to leave ‘’ out of that is so palpable. Chanyeol wants to snigger but he doesn’t because his sister doesn’t seem very magnanimous this morning and he really does value his life.

“Answer the question.”

Chanyeol swallows. He averts his gaze and the height advantage allows him to peer over Yura’s head. He spots a plate of seafood pajeon, a bowl of rice and seaweed soup on the dining table, and he instantly perks up.

“Are those for me?”

“Park Chanyeol—”

“I was just driving around, noona,” he says indulgently, stepping past his sister and straight toward the food. “It’s spring. It’s kinda nice out early in the morning. And you’re the one who keeps telling me to get out more.”

Yura’s suspicious glaring doesn’t let up even as she moves to take a seat. Chanyeol is about to pull out a chair for himself when he begins to sense the silent scrutiny like a red, hot spotlight on his forehead. Glancing up with big, blinking eyes, his grin spreads wider in a manner that he knows—hopes—makes him look goofy and amusing enough to distract. For good measure, he walks around the table to plant a loud kiss on his sister’s cheek, one hand gently resting atop her protruding belly. Cheap trick, but it works.

Yura laughs softly, quickly reaching up to tousle Chanyeol’s hair before he can straighten to full height. She doesn’t ask any more questions.

“Is Yejun still in bed?” He later splutters around a mouthful and ignores the disapproving look his sister throws his way.

“I wish,” she says. “He’s waddling toward you as we speak, actually.”

Sure enough, Chanyeol hears a garbled noise behind him and finds a little boy with adorable tufts of dark hair stomping precariously toward him, stubby arms eagerly outstretched. There’s a big smile on his puffy face, several teeth still missing.

“Hey, buddy!” Chanyeol scoots back in his chair, turns to pick up his nephew the second he’s within reach, and the first thing Yejun does is make a grab for his pointy ears. Chanyeol scrunches his nose but leans in a bit closer anyway to let the kid win. He lives for his nephew’s happy giggles even if it means he ends up with abused, angry-red ears later.

“Don't let him anywhere near your soup if you don’t want it all over your clothes,” Yura warns him. “I’m not kidding.”

“I think he’s too distracted by my ears to notice anything else, to be honest—ow!”

Yejun probably decides to show some mercy and releases Chanyeol’s throbbing ear. He giggles, drool dribbling down the side of his upturned mouth, tiny palms clapping in glee. Yura only laughs at the scene and Chanyeol pouts at her before pouting at the baby.

“You’re just like your mom,” he mutters sulkily and lifts Yejun higher to mock-bite at his tummy, sending the kid into a fit of joyful squealing.

Yejun’s nanny intervenes right in time to stop the baby from knocking over a glass of water with his swinging feet. She takes the boy from Chanyeol upon Yura’s request so that Chanyeol can finish his food before it gets cold, or before Yejun succeeds in causing any accidents, whichever comes first.

“By the way, we have a guest arriving later.”

“Oh? That's great!” Chanyeol reacts without actually looking at her; too busy playing peek-a-boo with Yejun who keeps dipping his giggly little head in the crook of his nanny’s shoulder as a way of hiding.

“Weren’t you just complaining about how low our occupancy has been lately—”

“I'm talking about the cottage.”

Chanyeol freezes, hands in mid-wave. He stops making funny faces at the baby. He’s been dreading this—losing the privilege of utmost privacy, having the woods all to himself.

He turns to his sister, his brows pinched.

“Don’t kick me, but I really wonder sometimes why these tourists pick here to stay for the festival when they can find other places closer to downtown.”

Yura shrugs. “Maybe he’s not just here for the festival.”

Chanyeol snorts at that, and immediately lets out an undignified yelp when Yura kicks him under the table.

“Rude. You grew up around here, too, remember?”

Couldn’t wait to get out, though, he wants to say but sagely decides not to.

“Sure,” he says flatly and shoves a spoonful of seaweed soup in his mouth.

It’s honestly a little difficult to fathom. Where they live is a small town in the outskirts, a little far from the more touristy, more commercially developed parts of the district, though close enough to the center of festivities. People usually stay here specifically for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival because, really, what else is there this side of town that’s worth sticking around for?

“Besides, some people like the isolation.” She waves a hand theatrically in Chanyeol’s general direction. “Case in point.”

Chanyeol makes a face, but doesn’t bother with a rebuttal. He can’t really argue with that.

“Fine, you’ve made your point,” Chanyeol concedes in a passive tone. “Did you need me to do anything?” he dutifully asks even though they do have a small staff that takes care of much of the heavier labor around the property.

“Not much. Just keep the noise down, will you?”

Chanyeol frowns hard, hand jerking back, causing him to accidentally whack his metal chopsticks against the side of the rice bowl with a loud, indignant clink.

“It’s music; not noise,” he retorts, meaning to sound righteously indignant but ends up more like a whiny child instead.

“Sure, just keep it down. You won’t be alone up there in the woods anymore.”

Chanyeol’s mouth falls open, as if he’s looking to vehemently object, but in the end he just shuts it without another word. It’s really not that hard, actually. He can always hook up headphones to everything. He’s just been too lazy to do it.

After brunch, Chanyeol hurries back to the cottage, hoping to get some work in before he has to relinquish his unbridled freedom.

The cottage is a single bedroom loft with two bathrooms and a small kitchen. A king-size bed is the centerpiece of the bedroom. There’s a sofa bed in the living room and another up on the loft. With most of his equipment set up upstairs, Chanyeol has somehow managed to convert the small space into a music room of sorts. At some point in the past couple of days, he decided to move from the loft to the kitchen, thinking that a change of setting might jog his inspiration. It didn’t. And now music sheets and crumpled paper that he hasn’t bothered to throw in the trash pretty much swallow his narrow kitchen island.

Chanyeol pulls out a stool and grabs the guitar standing next to it. Every curve and plane of the smooth, glossy, rosewood body of his Martin D-45 feels familiar, like an extension of his limbs, almost. But it just hasn’t been working like it used to lately.

His right hand hovers motionless above the sound hole, the other loosely wrapping around the neck as it glides up and down the polished hardwood. Indecisive fingers hesitate over the ebony fingerboard while scales and chord progressions flit in the back of his eyelids, buzzing like restless bees. He gets into a fierce cycle of jumping and dipping between frets without actually translating anything to sound.

Can’t work with that. Too predictable. Overused. Not gonna work.

That’s how he spends the next three hours—hunched over a pile of music sheets and a guitar on his lap. He ends up with nothing to show for it aside from more messy scribbles and more useless, balled up paper.

With a deep snarl, he grasps his head in both hands, eyes squeezed shut. It feels like it’s about to crack in half any moment now.

He’s stuck. He’s still stuck.

He’d smash the guitar on the floor, or something rock-and-roll like that, but this was his father’s most prized possession. It was handed down to Chanyeol—just to borrow for a while to practice with when he was eight, and then to keep as his own when he turned twenty-one. It was the tail end of winter when his father figured in a fatal accident. Chanyeol had just graduated from university then. Nothing was ever the same.

“Don’t force it, man,” Byun Baekhyun, one of his best friends and business partners, tells him later. He’s holding the phone against his ear with one hand, while the other attempts to create some semblance of order to the clutter in his kitchen. The guitar is back on its stand a safe distance away from where he’s sitting. He gives it a quick glance as Baekhyun says, “It’s okay if you don’t come back with a full demo, you know.”

Chanyeol really only called to check in on the studio. He’s not quite the type to burden other people with his self-deprecating tirades. That’s just not a ‘Mr.-Happiness-Delight-Park-Chanyeol’ kind of thing to do. But of course Baekhyun would guess that something was amiss; and of course he wouldn’t let it go until Chanyeol talked. So he talked—though relaying a more watered-down version rather than the full extent of his frustration.

Raking a hand through his mess of a mop, Chanyeol unceremoniously dumps himself over the nearest cushion he can find. He would have bashed his skull on the side of the mahogany shelf next to the sofa if not for the battalion of pillows stacked by the arm, ready to catch his head. There’s a wide window just right above where the backrest ends, and he lets himself soak in the bit of sun that trickles through the makeshift awning of leaves on the other side. At least this tree looks like it’s got all its leaves back, he thinks absently.

He presses the phone closer to the side of his face as he looks up blankly at the countryside-aesthetic of rustic beams on the ceiling. So, very different from the plain, solid, ivory-painted cement of his own apartment back in Seoul.

“I thought the whole point of me being out here is to get my mojo back?”

“Well sure, by getting away from the stress in the studio and taking a break.” Baekhyun nearly yells in his ear. “You were not supposed to bring the stress with you, . Unwind. Get laid or something, I don’t know—”

Chanyeol chews on the inside of his cheek. He has been getting laid, actually, but he doesn’t tell him that. He doesn’t tell anybody that. Chanyeol rubs a warm palm down his face, exasperated, but none of that sentiment registers in his voice.

“I’m fine, Baekhyunnie, honestly.” He’s got the carefree tone down pat, complete with a practiced upturn of the mouth, despite the way he flattens a calloused hand over tired, bloodshot eyes.

“I’m more worried about how Sehun’s holding up over there.”

His young intern actually has a pretty good ear, a good sense of rhythm, and is very talented—also very mischievous. The kid tends to easily get distracted. Chanyeol remembers being his age and being pretty much the same.

Baekhyun doesn’t respond right away, probably weighing his options and trying to decide whether to go along with this lame attempt at diversion or not. Another beat passes and Chanyeol eventually catches a loud exhale that sounds a lot like resignation. He half-grins because he knows that he’s won.

“He’s doing pretty well, actually,” Baekhyun tells him. “Still a little , though. He gives Jongdae aneurysms on a daily basis.”

Chanyeol sniggers at the mental image of his good friend whining and complaining like a grumpy, old man. Jongdae was delegated the task of taking over Chanyeol’s projects while he’s away, which, unfortunately for him, includes mentoring (and babysitting) Sehun as part of the package. He’s one of the most musically talented people Chanyeol’s ever met. Also one of the kindest. But he’s also a little .

Chanyeol laughs, genuine this time. “He’ll survive.”

He glances over to the window when he picks up on some movement in his peripheral. No one comes up here usually, except for Yura or any of the staff. Sure enough, his sister gradually comes into view. She’s talking animatedly, hands flying in different directions. That’s when he remembers that they’re expecting a new guest today. He completely forgot about that. Curious, Chanyeol sits up, throwing one arm on top of the backrest.

“So am I ever going to get invited to la casa de Park?”

Chanyeol snorts at Baekhyun and his ridiculous knack for lending a random, foreign twist to absolutely anything. Makes him sound smart and fancy, he says, to which Chanyeol always just pats his head indulgently in response.

Chanyeol cranes his neck to try and make out whom his sister is speaking with, but all he sees is a silver, hard shell suitcase and a pale hand gripping the handle.

“I don’t think my sister can handle the two of us under her roof simultaneously,” he grunts as he tries to shift to a better angle — as good as his overgrown limbs can manage within the confines of the furniture, anyway. But there’s a stout tree trunk standing right in his line of sight.

“Aww, come on, Yura noona loves me!”

Chanyeol chortles, doesn’t expressly object, because he knows it’s not a complete lie. Yura thinks Baekhyun’s as fluffy as a little corgi.

Yura starts to move, prompting the man to step out from the shadow of the tree and finally allow Chanyeol a proper glimpse.

Jet black fluff tapering to a clean shave at the base, a slender neck, and a dark gray coat draped over broad shoulders.

“Oh, it’s him,” Chanyeol mutters under his breath, eyes wide.

“Him, who?”

Chanyeol snaps out of his daze. He shakes his head until he remembers that Baekhyun can’t actually see him.

“No one. Just a new guest.”

“Oh!” Baekhyun’s tone spikes. Chanyeol can practically hear him leering over the phone. He’s probably wagging his eyebrows, too.

He ignores the impending insinuation that he’s sure Baekhyun’s got brewing for him and chooses instead to put all his focus into watching the man’s back. He tries to take in as much as he can all the way from his ineffectual viewpoint. There’s something about the whole picture that the man paints — his gait, his less-than-perfect posture. Something about it feels like he’s seen it before.

The man carries his luggage up the steps to a small porch and then stops at the door. Chanyeol manages to briefly catch a side profile. He notes the straight nose, angular cheekbones, jaw line so sharp it could cut. His lips are pink and full and his eyes are hidden under dark sunglasses. He suddenly gets a strange rumbling in his stomach that has nothing to do with the fact that he hasn’t had anything to eat in hours. This man really does seem awfully familiar, he thinks.

“Is he hot?” Baekhyun asks a tad too eagerly, but Chanyeol can barely hear him at this point.

He holds his breath, eyes straining harder. The man slides his glasses down, and then he turns.

Chanyeol lets out a gasp, completely forgetting for a moment that Baekhyun is still on the other line.

“Chanyeollie?”

He can feel his air passage closing up as a heady mix of panic and disbelief seizes his chest. The man’s eyes are kind, always have been, and they reduce into crescent slits when he smiles. There’s a dimple on his right cheek — and all the blood leaves Chanyeol’s face.

“No way…”

He remembers sticking his index finger into that dip a few times. The man — boy, at the time — would indulgently smile wider to make the dent even deeper; to make Chanyeol laugh. He knows exactly how it feels pressed against his lips, too.

He draws a lungful of air, pulse almost deafening that he barely catches the hint of alarm in Baekhyun’s tone.

“Hey, are you okay? Is it someone you know?”

Oh, it’s someone he knows, alright.

“I’m... I don’t...” Chanyeol stammers, hands feeling like ice all of a sudden. “—”

It might have been because his father had been in a band that Chanyeol grew up having big dreams that revolved around music. Playing, writing, composing, producing—he wanted to learn it all and be good at all of it. His father had been very supportive and his mother, though not as enthusiastic about the idea, never tried to stop him as long as he didn’t take his academics for granted.

He could expertly play five different instruments by the time he started high school. He became popular for being the gangly kid who could bust out mean riffs on electric guitar. His mother finally put her foot down when he started having thoughts of either joining or forming a high school band during the very first week of his freshman year.

“Finish high school, get into a good university, and then you can have your band,” she had firmly stipulated and left no room for argument.

During the latter part of the school year, his music teacher came to him asking if he would be interested in participating in an international amateur musicians’ workshop organized by a sister school in Hunan, China. It was a month-and-a-half-long event that would span the winter break and culminate in a song-writing competition. The grand prize winner would be going home with a scholastic fund and glowing recommendations, possibly even get the chance to have their song released by a recording artist. It was a big opportunity and Chanyeol knew it. Luckily, his mother caved—sort of as consolation for the band thing.

Barely a week after winter break had officially commenced, Chanyeol found himself at Changsha Huanghua International Airport, along with his music teacher and two other students—a girl he recognized from his music class and a guy from a higher year. They were billeted at a local family-owned guesthouse near the school instead of a hotel in order to make it a ‘full cultural experience’, as their mentor had put it.

That’s when he first met Zhang Yixing—the kind, handsome son of the gentle woman who owned the guesthouse.

Chanyeol shuffles about aimlessly, stealing glances out the window every so often.

Yixing hasn’t come out since Yura left him to his own devices about half an hour ago. If he’s anything at all like the Zhang Yixing that he remembers then he’s probably asleep right now, snoring lightly, sprawled awkwardly under the covers. Possibly shirtless. He rubs a palm on either side of his face, tries not to dwell on the thought too much.

The lights are out, save for the main lighting in the sitting room. Typical. Yixing doesn’t like having the light on in his room when he sleeps, but he does like seeing a soft glow spilling through the narrow gap at the bottom of the door. It’s comforting knowing that he’s not in complete darkness, he once said, so he always has to leave the light on somewhere else.

Chanyeol picks up his guitar for the nth time and tries to get something—anything—out, to no avail. With a loud, exasperated breath, he replaces the guitar on its stand and goes to pull out a cold can of Cass from the fridge. It doesn’t quite help take the edge off either, not with his earlier conversation with Baekhyun playing like a broken record in his mind.

“It’s really simple, you know. Get your on that porch, knock, smile that winning smile of yours, and say ‘Hi! I nearly talked my best friend’s ear off back in high school because I wouldn’t shut up about you for over a year, would you like to have dinner with me some time?’”

“Hey now, first of all, that is not true—”

“Oh, please, I can guarantee you Jongdae will back me on this, my friend, don't even try.”

“That proves nothing since you both enjoy ganging up on me so much anyway. And... and he was the one who stopped replying to my messages first—”

“Seriously? How mature of you to let go of juvenile grievances from a ing decade ago.”

“I'm... It’s not—look, what if he doesn’t want to see me? What if he doesn’t even remember me?”

“And what if he’s there precisely to see you? You’ll never know unless you actually speak to the guy, will you?”

It’s not too often that Baekhyun actually makes a somewhat compelling argument. But more than that, it’s so unlike him to be this rattled over something so inconsequential in the first place. Or maybe not so inconsequential. Zhang Yixing was the first boy in his life after all.

Chanyeol chucks the empty can of beer in the trash, grabs his keys, and gets out.

“So what you’re saying is,” Junmyeon gingerly sets the large cardboard cup in front of Chanyeol then takes a seat across from him.

Junmyeon is always gentle, always patient, always ready to slip out of his apron and leave his post whenever Chanyeol shows up looking uncharacteristically gloomy. It doesn’t happen all that often, so when it does he tends to assume that it’s something serious. But even though it actually isn’t, as naturally motherly as Junmyeon can be, it really makes no difference.

“You dated this guy when you were in high school—”

Chanyeol squirms a bit in his seat. He doesn’t always come to anyone for things like this, much less old, childhood friends from his hometown. Save for Baekhyun and Jongdae, people he grew up with are not as open-minded to any sort of relationship that veers away from the norm. Even Junmyeon wasn’t as comfortable with it in the beginning, but he tried. He still tries. That’s good enough for Chanyeol.

“Not exactly. We were... actually, I don’t know what we were. There was never a label on it.” He admits as he sinks back in his chair, fingers lightly tapping the side of his caramel macchiato.

“Okay,” Junmyeon says carefully. “But you were... a vague, more-than-friends kind of something?”

“I guess?”

“And then he disappeared on you, and now all of a sudden he’s renting one of your cottages?”

He replies with a definitive nod while his hands come up to wrap around his hot coffee. Junmyeon’s head tips a little to the side as tiny grooves of confusion form on his brows.

“So what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be over there asking for an explanation or something?”

Chanyeol pauses midway through a sip. It doesn’t hit him until now that that is exactly the problem. He doesn’t like to admit that he’s still pressed about, as Baekhyun put it, a juvenile grievance from a ing decade ago. He shakes his head, a tired, feeble grin tugging on his mouth

“There’s really no point, though. It’s been over ten years, hyung—water under the bridge.”

“And yet, here you are.” Junmyeon fixes him with a knowing look. “It can’t be pointless if it’s something you still care about, and clearly, you do. Frankly, I haven’t seen you like this in ages.”

“Like what?” Chanyeol coughs out a laugh in a last-ditch effort to inject some ounce of humor in this conversation. Junmyeon knows him better than that, though.

“Like, completely off-kilter. You weren’t like this even after Yifan—” Junmyeon cuts himself short. Chanyeol stares down at his drink, fights the compulsion to press a palm against that spot just below his right clavicle. He’s not expecting any apologies for that slip. If there is anyone who has every right to rub that mistake in his face, it would be Junmyeon.

“Listen,” Junmyeon starts gently, throwing a light punch to his arm to get his attention. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Baekhyunnie is right. Do yourself a favor. You can’t hide from this guy forever, anyways. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Chanyeol doesn’t exactly get the spine to walk up to his new neighbor’s foyer until the next day. It’s sometime late in the afternoon when Chanyeol finds himself toeing the invisible boundary between his space and Yixing’s. The man appears to have slept in. He hesitates right on the stone path that borders the two lawns, crossing it back and forth several times until the light in Yixing’s room suddenly flickers on. Chanyeol feels his heart leap to his throat when he spies a moving shadow on the bedroom curtain. This must be creepy as , but he stays frozen on the spot, anyway.

The shadow totters on seemingly unsteady legs and nearly trips over what Chanyeol guesses is the old, wooden trunk at the foot of the bed. He laughs despite himself because, yeah, this is the Zhang Yixing he remembers.

“Okay,” he breathes, hands clenching at his sides. He shakes his head and puffs out his chest. “No big deal.”

Except, the moment he steps up to Yixing’s door, he gets a strong urge to hightail it back to his own place. He would have done exactly that if the front door hadn’t swung open even before he could attempt to retreat.

Yixing looks up and Chanyeol loses all mobility the instant his large eyes lock with Yixing’s droopy ones.

The man is obviously taller now, though not anywhere near as tall as Chanyeol. All the baby fat in his face is gone, making his cheekbones more defined, but he’s just like Chanyeol remembers him—fair skin; pink, pillowy lips; beautiful, gentle, brown eyes.

He's surprised that there’s no taste of bile in his mouth, no heavy weight of resentment in his heart, like he’d anticipated. There is something kicking and swirling in his chest, something he can’t quite put a finger on, but he knows it isn’t anger.

Yixing blinks up at him sleepily for a second and then quickly sobers up, suddenly fully awake. Chanyeol’s gut pinches at the look on his face.

“Hi, Yixing-ge,” he blurts out in sloppy Mandarin with a smile that he hopes doesn’t look too nervous, all the while trying to keep his voice steady.

Yixing wordlessly stares at him for moment. It’s quite possibly the longest five seconds of his life and there’s really nothing he can do but panic because, , what if Yixing really doesn’t remember him anymore? He’s going to kill Baekhyun. He’s going to drag it out for as long as possible and make it very slow and very, very painful, and—Oh! Yixing is smiling at him. And he’s talking to him. In lightning-fast Mandarin.

Well, there’s the flaw in his plan.

“I... what?”

Yixing chuckles, right cheek denting deeper, and Chanyeol’s heart kind of jumps a little bit despite the embarrassment that’s slowly creeping up his neck.

He has to admit that he didn’t foresee this little problem when he managed to dredge up the courage to walk up to the man’s porch. He recalls Yixing having a pretty good handle of the language when they first met because he happened to be taking a couple of foreign language electives back then. But that was such a long time ago. He’s probably forgotten all of it.

Instead of speaking, Yixing steps aside and waves him in. Chanyeol emits a low “waah,” as he is ushered into the living room which, in retrospect, is kind of a dumb thing to do because this is hardly the first time he’s seeing this place. He partially owns the entire property, after all. But that's his thing. He reacts. Dead air is the enemy.

Yixing merely sniggers at his silly reaction, almost as if he expected it. Chanyeol promptly plants himself on a chair by the kitchen island after Yixing gestures at him to take a seat. Now it’s his turn to give the man a once-over while he scans the contents of the fridge. Chanyeol takes in the plain white shirt and wrinkled cargo pants. Yixing looks like he’s dressed for early summer instead of early spring, but then he’s not too surprised because he knows that Yixing’s body temperature tends to be a bit higher than the average person — always warmer. His dark brown hair is a mess, sticking out in every possible direction. That’s... typical, too.

Chanyeol bites his lip to hold back a vague sound of amusement while his brain scrambles for something to say, and a way to say it that the foreigner will understand. Yixing seemed to be able to hold a conversation with Yura just fine earlier. Maybe they were speaking in English? Chanyeol knows plenty of English, but everything he knows seems to escape him at the moment.

“Um,” He has half a mind to whip out his phone and pull up his trusty Korean-to-English translator app.

Yixing shuts the fridge and turns to him looking rather lost. His expression is a cross between thoughtful and distressed, maybe because he didn’t find anything to offer his visitor. Chanyeol feels kind of bad now for putting him in this position.

He clears his throat and directly meets Yixing’s gaze when the man shifts his full attention to him.

“Do you...” Chanyeol powers through in halting English. “Do you... want food? Hungry?”

Yixing blinks. His eyes go all soft, and then his lips are curling up at the corners.

“Yes, that would be great, actually. I really have nothing in here but, well, water.” He replies. In impeccable Korean.

Chanyeol shoots up to his feet, jaw slack, and Yixing’s face scrunches up cutely as he barks out a laugh. He’s still grinning when he starts to move away from the fridge. And then it all happens so fast. Chanyeol is grabbed by the lapels of his coat, forcing him to bend at the waist to meet the smaller man’s height as strong arms lock around his neck. His own hands catch on the small of Yixing’s back, and when Yixing tugs him closer, face buried in his shoulder, Chanyeol forgets to breathe for a second.

Yixing smells like fresh laundry and aftershave and he finds himself not very keen on letting go. The warmth of his breath seeps through Chanyeol’s coat, the cotton shirt underneath, until he can feel it like a small patch of summer on his skin. Something he doesn’t quite have a word for washes over him, making him want to throw his head back and laugh, let all the pent up tension bleed out, because, wow, it’s been so ing long.

“I don’t remember you being this mean, ge. You’ve changed.” He complains, careful not to breathe directly into Yixing’s ticklish neck.

A second or two after the words leave his mouth, his smile falters. Something in his chest violently twists in objection at his own statement because—well, vanishing without a single word, no warning or explanation? Making someone fall in love with you only to leave them hanging? That’s pretty ing cold. He wills that sentiment away, though. Water under the bridge, he tells himself.

Yixing laughs quietly. He steps back to look him up and down, and Chanyeol is suddenly too aware of how disheveled he looks right now. He’d duck his head, maybe try to pat down his hair into submission and self-consciously rub his neck, if he weren’t so preoccupied with staring at Yixing’s face with thinly veiled awe. He really didn’t think he’d ever see him again.

Yixing clucks his tongue. “Aiyo, and you’ve gotten way too tall, Cànliè.”

Chanyeol purses his lips at the mention of his Chinese name. No one’s called him that in ages. Not even when he hung out with Chinese students back in university, or even when he eventually dated one of them. He’s never actually told anyone else about that name. Only Yixing knows, because Yixing was the one who gave it to him.

His eyes get even bigger when the man reaches up to playfully flick at his earlobe. He used to do that a lot when they were much younger too, mostly when he was bored. He’d say, “Your ears look funny, but they’re cute,” and then try to fold them in or tug at the protruding shell. Then he’d giggle, all mirthful eyes and dimpled cheek. Just like right now.

Chanyeol snorts, decidedly ignoring the flush radiating from the spot that brushed the man’s warm fingers.

“Don’t hate me just because you didn’t grow enough. And your accent still sounds funny.” That last bit’s a lie. In fact, Yixing’s Korean seems to have vastly improved. He doesn’t tell him that, though.

Appalled, Yixing lands a chastising slap on his arm and frowns. “Who’s the mean one now?”

Chanyeol scuttles back a bit upon impact, cackling. It feels so good to be able to laugh, even more so when Yixing chuckles along, his eyes sparkling in the light.

Winter in Changsha was unexpectedly savage that year. It was the perfect weather to hibernate, especially right after catching a red-eye flight from South Korea to China, but Chanyeol had wanted to get a head start; get familiar with the place, the people, get an idea as to what he was going to have to work with for the next several weeks.

Mama Zhang, as their gracious host had the students address her, had been surprised to see him not sleeping in like the rest of her new guests.

“Would you like me to help you with breakfast?” He started heading toward the sink to wash his hands, but the woman shook her head, holding up a hand to stop him.

“Don’t worry about it, Chan-chan.” Chanyeol grinned at the nickname. “This is your first meal here; let me make it for you. Next time, you can come help, okay?” she said in decent, if heavily accented, Korean. The gentle smile on her face reminded him very much of his own mother.

“Okay.”

He stood there watching as she deftly pulled out spices and condiments from the shelves.

“You can wait in the lounge. Or take a look around, if you’d like.”

That had been the plan, actually, but one look out the window and he concluded with a frown that it was probably not a good idea to step outside. His lips prickled where skin had already begun to crack despite a generous swab of moisturizer, and he was sure his face would start flaking in a few days. He’d have to wait until there was more sun out before he could try to venture into the patio. The garden that surrounded the house was massive. He bet it would have looked lovelier had it been any other season.

Chanyeol took a seat and plucked out a grape berry from the fruit basket on the dining table. A burst of sweetness infused with a welcome hint of tartness assaulted his taste buds. He picked another one and popped it into his mouth.

“Mama Zhang, how do you know how to speak Korean?” He asked with big, curious eyes.

“I have a son,” she smiled. “He’s graduating high school soon. He likes learning languages.”

She began gathering up her ingredients in a plastic box to carry out to the kitchen. Barely a minute after, the distinct squeaky noise of rubber soles skidding on polished hardwood echoed from the hall. It’s like someone had done a sudden swerve after realizing that they were headed in the wrong direction.

Before Chanyeol could toss another berry into his mouth, a raven-haired boy who appeared to be around his age, give or take a couple of years, burst into the dining room. His plump mouth was agape, shoulders heaving, droopy eyes flitting about like was lost. He gave a start when his gaze landed on Chanyeol.

“Oh?” He blinked.

“Oh!” Chanyeol blinked back, rising to his feet.

“Hello,” they both said at the same time, Chanyeol in Mandarin and the other boy in Korean. Chanyeol laughed aloud while the other chuckled quietly.

“You must be one of the students from Korea. I’m Zhang Yixing.”

He dropped his entire torso forward to give Chanyeol a ninety-degree bow. The display of reverence startled him, and for a second there he didn’t know what to do. Mama Zhang had mentioned that her son was graduating soon, which would then make Chanyeol younger than him.

“Ah, hi! Yes! Yes, I am. I’m—I’m Park Chanyeol.” He returned the courteous gesture as best he could. “I think you’re my...” He paused to scour his meager Chinese vocabulary for the right word. “...ge?”

Yixing’s smile broadened at that. All Chanyeol could see for the next three seconds was the deep dimple that formed on his cheek.

“Yes, I think so. I’m Yixing-ge. Or Yixing-hyung, or just Yixing—I really don’t mind. It’s nice to meet you.” His accent was there, though less pronounced than that of his mother. Chanyeol thought it was cute.

Mama Zhang’s head suddenly popped out from the kitchen doorway, addressing Yixing with a fond smile that the boy easily gave back. The exchange was way too fast for Chanyeol to comprehend fully, but he did manage to catch something about fruits. He paled.

“Oh, are these yours? I took a few grape berries, I’m sorry.” He sheepishly opened his palm to reveal the last piece that he got from the basket.

Yixing vehemently shook his head. “No, no, that’s okay.”

He draped a brown parka with a fur-lined hoodie over one of the chairs, while the backpack that had been hanging on his shoulder landed on the tabletop in one quick swing. He ped the main compartment just wide enough to pull out a small, waxed canvas lunch bag. The strap was tugged free from the slot before he unrolled the top.

“These are actually for guests. Mama just told me to grab a couple to take to school.”

Hugely relieved, Chanyeol sat back down and slipped the grape between his lips, all the while keeping observant eyes on the other boy. He was wearing a simple pair of washed-out denim and a navy blue, V-neck pullover. It didn’t seem like he had an undershirt on and Chanyeol wondered if he was serious about going out in the freezing weather with that few layers on him.

“School? Isn’t it winter vacation now?”

“It is,” Yixing answered, grabbing a green apple and a banana, one in each hand. “But I take foreign language electives over the breaks. So that I can chat with you guys like this,” he told him with a lopsided grin and a playful glint in his eyes. Something about it oddly made Chanyeol want to giggle like a little girl.

“Cool. You can practice your Korean with me sometime.”

Yixing smiled at him gratefully. “You know, I might actually take you up on that.”

He slipped his arms into his padded parka and then pulled the backpack over his shoulders. No ear muffs. No gloves. No scarf. Chanyeol was a strange mix of worried and amazed.

“Aiyah, I’m running really late. I’ll see you later!”

He was already out of sight when Chanyeol noticed the lunch bag on the table. Without thinking, he made a quick grab for the canvas and was about to go and try to catch Yixing when the boy barged back in, grimacing as the side of his shoulder slammed into the doorway.

Chanyeol was laughing before he could stop himself, earning him a mock-indignant slap on the arm. Yixing was bashfully laughing along, though, so Chanyeol knew he wasn’t really mad.

“You need to be more careful.” He handed over the food bag, mirth still lingering on the quirk of his lips. “And you forgot your fruits.”

“I know. This happens to me all the time.” Yixing muttered with a resigned sigh and extended a hand to retrieve his snacks. “Anyway, thanks!”

He gave a brief wave with the hand that wasn’t holding the bag; but then as he turned away Chanyeol noticed something else.

“Yixing-ge, wait!”

Rubber scuffed loudly against the floor as he came to an abrupt stop. Chanyeol’s grip on his backpack kept him from spinning around.

“What are you—”

Chanyeol yanked down the zipper of the bag.

“—oh.”

His voice came out equal parts taunting and incredulous when he asked, “Are you always this forgetful?”

This time, it was Yixing who burst into laughter first. Chanyeol blinked in surprise when the shorter boy turned and reached up to pat his head, just like how one would a well-behaved puppy.

“Ah, what would I do without you?”

Chanyeol hasn’t been back long enough to be abreast of the hottest dining spots in town.

He suddenly wishes he’d listened to his sister when she told him to go out more and explore the area a little, because right now there are only three places nearby that spring to mind: the new shabu shabu place that Junmyeon had taken him to a week ago (not bad at all, but unless you’re really lucky, you’ll need to make a reservation at least three days earlier if you don’t want to waste time waiting in queue), the old bunshik restaurant near the stream (great view, but—maybe not), and the samgyupsal joint about a block away from Junmyeon’s café (definitely not).

In the end, Chanyeol decides he’s going to try his luck. Yixing slides into the passenger seat and they head downtown for some Japanese food. He skips the heater, presses a button to open the front seat windows just partially. It’s a short drive, anyway, and he knows Yixing will enjoy the view better like this. But then Yixing presses the controller beside him, prompting his window to pull all the way up.

“Let’s not leave the windows down,” he says, then takes the liberty to activate the car heater himself.

Chanyeol turns away from the road for a quick second to give his passenger a doubtful look. He’s staring intently at the controls, probably trying to figure out how to get the temperature adjustments to work.

“Won’t you feel too warm, though?”

“You get cold faster than I sweat and your skin hates the cold,” Yixing states matter-of-factly, mostly still distracted by the slew of Hangul-labeled options on the touch screen. “Anyway, I can just take off my jacket if I need to. Close your window.”

They happen to come by a red light then and Chanyeol takes this chance to stare at him, flabbergasted. He didn’t expect Yixing to remember that. Just as he’s secured all the windows, Yixing suddenly emits a muffled cry of triumph beside him. He turns to Chanyeol and asks, “24 degrees, right?”

“What?”

Curious, he flicks a glance at the monitor to see what the other man has been up to. Sure enough, the temperature indicator reads 24 degrees Celsius.

“Right?” Yixing prods, sounding all too happy with himself.

Chanyeol blinks. “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

He turns back to the road, fingers tightening around the wheel. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth in an effort to curb... something. A laugh, maybe–or an embarrassingly high-pitched, banshee-screech, he’s not too sure. He really didn’t expect Yixing to remember anything about him, much less something as specific as his preferred room temperature. It’s just a silly little thing.

“Right,” he repeats under his breath, as if saying it one more time will make this all feel a little less surreal. As he listens to Yixing hum a tune under his breath, he thinks that maybe the heat coiling in his stomach might be enough to keep him warm for the rest of the day after all.

Chanyeol breathes out, exasperated, while he and Yixing stand at one side of the confined reception hall. A few benches are lined up across the receptionist’s stand, all fully occupied. Just like the restaurant itself.

“Well, at least we’re not number ten?” Yixing offers with an amused look on his face.

Chanyeol chuckles despite himself, jamming both hands in the pockets of his jeans. He goes to lean back on the wall where Yixing is already propped in a lazy slouch.

“Of course,” he nods earnestly. “Nine is a tremendous improvement.”

Yixing lightly elbows him in the ribs, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “That’s the spirit!”

Chanyeol’s shoulders shake with muted laughter as he shuffles his feet, subtly inching crabwise until his shoulder is flush next to Yixing’s. He hopes the other man doesn’t notice; but then the next second, he’s sagging against Chanyeol’s lanky frame, unabashedly depositing most of his weight onto him so that the taller man has to readjust his foothold to keep them from toppling sideways. Of course Chanyeol doesn’t complain.

“We don’t have to wait, though,” he mutters, body stiff as a board. He’s trying not to make any sudden movements that Yixing might misconstrue as a signal that he's uncomfortable and wants him to move away. Only because that would be rude. “I mean, if you’re hungry—”

Yixing shakes his head. “I can wait. Hey, but if you’re—”

“Hey, Park Chanyeol.”

The voice alone makes Chanyeol start. It’s a distinct timbre that he can associate with only one person. He looks up just as he hears Yixing’s quiet “oh,” beside him. Ice-cold dread lances through his gut.

For all the height that Chanyeol’s got on Kyungsoo, the man in an all-blank ensemble comes across terribly intimidating even when he’s just standing there, breathing. His eyes are big and unblinking as they rest on Chanyeol’s colorless face, like a cold blade ghosting over his skin.

It suddenly occurs to him that he can’t feel Yixing’s weight on him anymore. He looks to his side and tries not to frown when he finds the man standing with his back off the wall, a full step away.

“No reservation?” Kyungsoo asks, not unkindly but not like he cares all that much either.

“No. This... this was just a spontaneous thing.”

Kyungsoo an eyebrow at that, gives him a knowing look. “Of course, it is.”

Chanyeol doesn’t know what the heck he’s looking so smug about. Or maybe he does. He swallows his own spit as panic begins to stir in the pit of his stomach. Kyungsoo is looking at him expectantly now. He can feel Yixing’s eyes on him, too.

“This is Yixing,” Chanyeol pauses to clear his parched throat. “Zhang Yixing—an old friend of mine from China. This is Do Kyungsoo, my—”

Closet casual fling? Secret buddy?

"...friend. From... here in downtown."

Kyungsoo gives him a look, like he wants to scoff at the label. They’d probably have to know more about each other—other than the best way to the other’s for optimal effect—to be classified as friends. Kyungsoo isn’t the post-coital-snuggling type, whereas Chanyeol kind of is, but only if there were actual feelings involved. Otherwise, why bother? As things stand, all this is, is a mutually beneficial arrangement between two men who prefer over s, who happen to be stuck in a place that is largely intolerant of men who prefer over s. But Yixing really doesn’t need to know any of that.

Kyungsoo is calm, almost eerily so, when he turns to Yixing. He politely tips his head forward in greeting. Yixing, being Yixing, instantly bends forward at the waist. Chanyeol almost wants to laugh at the way Kyungsoo’s dark stare unexpectedly fades into something a little less cutting. Yixing does tend to have a thawing effect even on the coldest people.

“It’s good to meet you.” Yixing smiles.

Kyungsoo looks somewhat caught off guard. He’s even smiling back a little bit, courteous if nothing else, when he responds. “Likewise. Your Korean is very good.”

“It is, right?” Yixing beams, looking mighty pleased to hear it. “This jerk here doesn’t think so.”

Chanyeol yelps when he’s suddenly elbowed in the side again, more violent than the first time.

Kyungsoo’s mouth bends some more, making the heart shape of it more obvious. “He's lying.”

Chanyeol doesn’t refute it; he takes to pouting like a petulant child instead. He’s about to spit out a rebuttal when somebody standing by the door calls out for Kyungsoo. He’s with a group, apparently. Probably his colleagues and half of them are already filing in. Clearly they were smart enough to call in a reservation ahead of time.

“I should go. It was nice to meet you,” he tells Yixing before turning to Chanyeol. “Later?”

“Yeah.” Chanyeol automatically chirps. He doesn’t quite process what that question really means before the affirmation is out of his mouth. Once he does, two seconds too late, he tries not to visibly grimace as he sends himself a mental kick in the crotch.

If Yixing notices his discomfort or that little smirk on Kyungsoo’s face as he walks away, he doesn’t mention it. Chanyeol turns to him abruptly, practiced grin in place.

“Hey, you know what, let’s just go somewhere else. It looks like this is going to take a while.”

Yixing doesn’t even pause to think. “Actually,” he moves away from the wall to stand in front of the taller man. “I’ve got a better idea.”

“Yeah?”

Yixing’s eyes are gentle as always as he stares up at Chanyeol. There’s a small smile there, too, though not enough to make a deep dent on his cheek.

“Let’s go to the market.”

“I don’t understand why you’re not taking a music track in university.” Chanyeol absently muttered in amazement. “This is genius.”

He and Yixing were tucked away in the latter’s room, Yixing having had just returned from his language class and Chanyeol from a lecture on acoustics and music production. The older boy was hunched over a textbook on his desk while Chanyeol lay on his stomach on the bed, watching the other’s back. He had earbuds plugged in, connected to Yixing’s trusty old MP3 player where he stored his own music, both finished and not. Chanyeol was drinking it all in.

Yixing slowly turned in his chair. Chanyeol couldn’t hear a thing but he did notice that the boy’s mouth was moving. He unplugged his right ear.

“What?”

Yixing stretched his hands above his head as his legs extended over the polished floor, ankles hooking together.

“I said I haven’t really decided,” he repeated, arms crossing on his chest. “But Papa wants me to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor. I don’t think it’s a bad idea.” He paused with a thoughtful frown, the one that he always got whenever he wasn’t sure if he was forgetting something or not. “I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?”

“Yes–but, I mean,” Chanyeol switched off the music. He shifted on his side, propping himself up on both arms until he was sitting Indian-style on the covers. He holds up the MP3 player in his hand. “This is what you’re really passionate about, right? Music?”

Adults had often been quick to mock whenever he started spouting words like ‘passion’, saying that he was too young for big concepts like that. But he knew–he’d known from the start, that however people sliced it, passion was simply music for him. And over the course of two weeks, he’d come to see the same fire in Yixing, no matter how much he’d claimed that it was only a hobby.

“Sure, but things can change, you know. I’m just as passionate about helping people.”

Chanyeol didn’t doubt that for a second. In fact, he thought that the white glow cast around him by the desk lamp, like a visible, angelic aura, suited him perfectly. But, still.

“So put up a charity? Or donate to one? Volunteer?”

Yixing smiled that soft smile that made Chanyeol feel like a silly child.

“It’s not the same. Besides, I can still do music on the side as a hobby,” he said, almost like it was rehearsed.

If Chanyeol were to be completely honest, he’d say that these all sounded like excuses. That Yixing was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Chanyeol that becoming a doctor was the right choice. They had spent enough time together for him to figure out that Yixing was big on responsibility. He’d never met anyone his age with a more solid grip on his moral compass. Yixing would be the type to give everything up, to deny himself, all in the name of filial piety; for the sake of upholding his principles.

Chanyeol didn’t necessarily agree. If this were any other person he might have remarked something that could possible come off as antagonistic; but this was Yixing, and so he chewed on his bottom lip—a conscious effort to prevent potentially offensive remarks from spilling over. He couldn’t really do anything about the conflict and disappointment that flashed in his eyes, though.

Yixing chuckled, like he knew exactly what Chanyeol was thinking, what he was trying to do. He angled forward, elbows on his knees.

“Look,” he said, indulgently. “I’m going to help you with your final composition, right? Then you’ll win, and then your song will be recorded by a popular artist, and then that’ll be my small contribution to the music scene.”

Chanyeol stared at him like he was the most ridiculous thing on the planet. Yixing was grinning like a mad man though, and he simply couldn’t help but splutter out a laugh.

“I don’t know about this logic of yours, hyung, but hell yes, we’re going to win this thing,” he declared with a smug look on his face.

“That’s the spirit,” said Yixing as he got up and padded over to the bed. He playfully pulled at the outer shell of Chanyeol’s ear the second he was close enough. Chanyeol scrunched up his nose but didn’t bat his hand away. He was used to this by now, but he pouted anyway just to be a brat. Yixing chuckled, a combination of mirth and fondness dancing in his eyes, and Chanyeol’s heart swelled.

“Tell me what you want to eat. I’ll cook it for you.”

Chanyeol beamed.

“So who’s Do Kyungsoo?”

He chokes on a mouthful of Yixing’s homemade Fettuccine Alfredo. Yixing promptly reaches across the kitchen island to rub a soothing hand on his shoulder while sliding a box of tissue in front of him with the other.

Chanyeol quietly marvels at Yixing’s uncanny ability to catch him completely off-guard. He pushes the food down with big gulps of water then wipes his mouth clean with a couple of table napkins.

“I told you—”

“A friend from downtown– yes, I remember.” Yixing cuts in without inflection. “That’s it?”

“Yeah,” is his instantaneous response. He valiantly maintains eye contact even as Yixing begins to squint, searching his face intently like he’s a book with very tiny font that he’s trying to read. He does it to keep up appearances, make it seem like he’s being honest. It backfires, though.

“You’re lying.”

Chanyeol tenses. He forces a crooked grin, anyway, and hopes that it doesn’t look too stiff.

“How do you figure that?”

Yixing plants his elbows on the countertop as he leans in. Holding up the fork like a pen, he proceeds to wave the greasy tines in front of Chanyeol’s face. “You do this strange quirk of the mouth,” he says. “And you get a subtle, odd twitch in your eye when you’re not telling the truth.”

Chanyeol freezes, pales. He actually knows all of that to be true but he never knew that Yixing had taken notes. How does he even remember all of this? And what is he even supposed to say to that now?

“But it’s fine,” Yixing follows up easily. “You don’t really have to tell me. It’s none of my business.” He turns to his own plate, spearing as many mushrooms and bacon bits as his fork can hold.

It takes a couple of seconds to get Chanyeol’s voice to work again.

“I feel like I’m at a staggering disadvantage here. I don’t know when you lie.” He’s deflecting, and not being very subtle about it either. But thankfully Yixing doesn’t call him on it.

“Not my fault you’re not very observant.”

Chanyeol’s mouth opens to react–because that’s what he does; he reacts–but ends up just closing it again when, shockingly enough, he can’t seem to come up with anything to say back. He looks down at his pasta but he’s suddenly not very hungry anymore.

A layer of tension that wasn’t there before now seems to linger in the room, piling up thicker as dead air keeps on stretching. He tastes a bit of guilt in his mouth, though he can’t imagine why. He’s probably over-thinking this, he tells himself.

He catches a flash of silver when a fork suddenly jumps in out of nowhere to attack a particularly large bit of bacon on his plate.

“I ran out,” Yixing explains, shamelessly unapologetic.

Chanyeol blinks at him incredulously. He tries to go after his mushrooms as revenge, but Yixing is quick to fend off his fork with his own. Chanyeol gets an idea then. He glances at a random spot above Yixing’s head, pretends to be taken by surprise—complete with a startled, “what the hell is that!”—and Yixing falls for it. Chanyeol steals two mushrooms when the other man glances behind him. When he turns back, Chanyeol is already chewing away, a triumphant smirk on his face.

He’s pretty sure Yixing is trying really hard to look upset, with how he’s furrowing his brows and glaring at him. The attempt lasts a grand total of three seconds before the whole façade collapses. He splutters out a laugh and shoves at Chanyeol’s shoulder with enough force to make him jerk back, but not enough to hurt.

And just like that, the tension is gone. Easy as pie. Or bacon bits in white sauce.

When they’re well into their seconds, after Chanyeol has regaled him with stories about his misadventures with Baekhyun and Jongdae during their days in university, he looks up from his food and asks, “So what is it that you came all the way down here for, anyway?”

Yixing blinks at him innocently. “What, you don’t think I’m here to see you?”

Chanyeol snorts. “Okay, now I know that’s a lie,” he says, fixing him with a look. “You should have seen your face when you opened the door and saw me standing there.”

Yixing’s cheeks color faintly at that.

“Okay, you caught me,” he says, laughing. “It’s just that you were so adamant about leaving this place right after high school, so I thought you’d have left by now. I didn’t think you’d be managing your family’s property eventually.”

“Well, you’re not wrong; I did leave.” Chanyeol tells him. “And I’m more of a... financer. I don’t exactly manage anything here—that’s all Yura noona. I run a studio in Seoul with Baekhyun and Jongdae now.”

Yixing smiles, eyes glittering. “Wow, look at you. Congratulations, Cànliè.”

He takes in the sheer delight on Yixing’s face and it makes his chest swell with pride. He has come a long way from the young, starry-eyed, music-enthusiast that flew to China with nothing but dreams in his pocket.

“What about you?” He sets his fork down on the edge of the plate, folding his arms on the surface of the counter. Whatever little is left of his pasta has gotten cold by now anyway.

“Me?” Yixing, always the faster eater between the two of them, cleans off his plate and sets down his own fork on the very center of it. He washes down the last of his pasta with some homemade milk tea. “I’m a doctor now. Almost done with my residency.”

It takes a couple of seconds for that to sink in. Chanyeol finds himself forging a smile. It’s incredible how much effort it takes to keep his tone neutral.

“So you did end up picking medicine, huh?”

Retrieving his fork, he finishes his food in one swoop, mostly just to give himself a legitimate excuse to look somewhere else.

He shouldn't be shocked. He's not, actually. Sure, they’d had a lot of fun working together on Chanyeol’s music; had learned so much about each other and about the art of marrying sound to words, giving life to rhythm, that by the end of it, Yixing had started looking up universities that offered courses in music. But he had promised his father that he was going to become a doctor and Chanyeol knows that he’s not the type to go back on his word.

So when Yixing says, “No, I picked music,” he isn’t quite able to hide his surprise.

“You... picked music,” he echoes, unblinking eyes wide with disbelief.

Yixing hums in the affirmative. “And then I shifted to premed after a year.”

Ah...

Of course, he did.

“Because of your father?”

“Partly.” Yixing gathers both plates to bring over to the dishwasher. He seems to have no intention to expound on the matter so Chanyeol opts not to probe. He gets up and offers to help, but Yixing backs up, taking the dishes away from his reach.

“You're my guest.”

“Actually,” Chanyeol half grins. “Technically, you’re my guest.”

Yixing balks. He’s got his clueless/thinking face on and Chanyeol still finds it so cute even after all this time that he has to try to restrain himself from doing something ridiculous like... maybe poke his cheek. Or kiss it. Or, no, maybe just poke it.

“Right,” mutters Yixing. “Well, you cooked the pasta and washed the pot. You've done your part, so just... sit.”

What he means is that Chanyeol boiled the water and dumped the pot in the washer. It’s hardly comparable to all the work that he’s done, but Chanyeol knows better than to argue. A smile creeps up his face as he watches Yixing’s back. He recalls the time Mama Zhang shot him down pretty much the same way.

“How is Mama Zhang doing?”

Chanyeol doesn’t miss the sudden lapse in Yixing’s movements. His shoulders are tense as he puts in the last of the utensils in the rack.

“She passed away over a year ago.”

Chanyeol almost forgets to exhale.

“I’m...” He swallows, reeling from the shot of pain that ricochets in his chest. “I’m so sorry.”

Yixing gets the washer started then turns to lean back against the sink, hands gripping the edge.

“She was sick for a long time,” he says, his voice steady; somber. “We had to sell the guesthouse early on because she was working more than she was resting and it wasn’t good for her. Papa already had a different family; we didn’t want to bother him. I could have taken over but she had wanted me to focus on my studies. She didn’t know but I eventually took a part time job at a restaurant to help out with the expenses. We weren’t doing too badly, financially, but I just. I needed to get my life together. I didn't want to... I didn't want to be a problem for her.”

Chanyeol almost flinches. A problem.

He wants to ask if that was the reason why he’d stopped talking to him all of a sudden. If he was one of the things that he felt like he needed to purge from his life. He’s not mad, not really; he just wants to understand. But now is not the right time for that and Chanyeol knows it.

For a moment he just looks at Yixing as he unravels in front of him, as if finally breaking at the tattered seams, and his heart breaks a little. He looks exhausted.

Yixing takes a deep breath and averts his gaze, rolling his shoulders back, as though to recollect himself. When he turns back to Chanyeol, his eyes are a blank slate again.

“She asked about you a lot, though,” Yixing tells him with a rueful smile. “She knew we kept in touch.”

Chanyeol sees the opening. It's so easy to steer the conversation in that direction, but he doesn’t take it. Some other time, maybe.

“She was a rockstar,” he says fondly, sincerely.

“Yeah, she was.” Yixing's smile reaches his eyes now, at least.

He goes to the fridge and pulls out two cans of beer. He waves one at Chanyeol and brings it over to the table when he gets a nod in response.

“You still haven't told me why you’re here, though,” says Chanyeol. He puts the drink to his lips and tips it back.

Yixing slips into his seat with a thoughtful expression.

“You know how I fixate on things, right? I get very competitive with myself, too. Very determined.”

“Very stubborn,” Chanyeol pointedly states, arching an eyebrow. “Are you stalling?”

“I’m not, okay–let me finish.” Yixing lightly chuckles. Chanyeol leans back in his chair and tries not to look as proud as he actually feels about being the cause of that sound.

“I...” He hesitates for a second, takes a sip of alcohol. “Well, the bottom line is that I have some decisions to make and I’m taking this time to...” His brows knit together, probably searching for the right translation in his mental database. Chanyeol can almost hear the cogs turning in his head. “...recalibrate.”

Fair enough, Chanyeol thinks. They get a lot of those kinds of visitors.

What kind of decisions? He wants to ask, but it’s probably not his place to pry.

“Anyway, I found an ad for the Gunhangjae festival while sifting through brochures from the travel agency. I read ‘Jinhae’, remembered you, and thought, why not?”

“Remembered me,” Chanyeol scoffs. He wraps a hand around the cold can, unmindful of the rivulets of precipitation under his fingertips. “And yet you came down here expecting that I wouldn’t be here.”

He actually kind of means it, if he’s being very frank. And he should probably be a little bit offended that Yixing brays with laughter at his quasi-indignant expression, but he finds that he rather likes that sound very much. So he shoots the man a glare for good measure and is rewarded with a giggle.

“I'm sorry if this bruises your ego but I’m here, first and foremost, for the festival.”

Chanyeol feigns hurt for all of two seconds until Yixing reaches over to pinch his scrunched up nose.

“I’m really glad you’re here, though, Chanyeol,” he tells him earnestly, and all of a sudden his entire face feel like it’s on fire. He takes a swig of beer to hide his flushed cheeks—or to have an excuse for them other than simply being flustered under Yixing's attention. It's silly, really; it's high school all over again.

“Tell me what your itinerary’s like.”

Yixing ducks, lightly scratching the side of his neck. “Actually, I don’t have an itinerary,” he mutters sheepishly.

“Oh. That’s... fine. But do you have the schedule for the festival events, at least?”

Yixing blinks. “Umm.”

Chanyeol’s brows shoot up. “Are you serious?"

“I did look it up, though,” the doctor is quick to jump to his own defense. “I just don’t remember right now. I didn’t memorize it,” he says and Chanyeol tries not to snort because, honestly, he’d probably end up forgetting it either way. “I was planning to sign up for one of those local tour things that I read about online.”

He means the overpriced (in Chanyeol’s opinion, anyway; he’s always been a cheapskate) packages that some opportunistic locals organize to take advantage of the swarm of clueless outsiders during festival season.

Chanyeol shakes his head. “Trust me, hyung, you don’t really want to blow over a hundred thousand won just for that.”

Yixing takes a sip of his beer. He’s already pink in the face despite not having that much to drink yet. Chanyeol smiles because tipsy Yixing is as cute now as he was when they were teenagers sneaking in mildly alcoholic beverages into Yixing’s room. He can handle his alcohol much better now. Yixing, on the other hand, looks like he hasn’t grown out of being a lightweight.

“Are you saying you’ll be my tour guide?”

He really doesn’t have to ask, Chanyeol thinks. He humors him, though.

“Only if you keep making food for me.”

Yixing smiles up at him, flush-faced, droopy-eyed, and terribly cute.

Chanyeol’s heart betrays him and kind of skips a beat. Or two.

“Deal.”

The next morning, Chanyeol jolts awake at the sound of the alarm.

He defiantly rolls on his stomach, as if he can terminate the incessant beeping by sheer will alone. It gets exponentially louder, though, drilling into his skull mercilessly the longer it persists. Annoyed, he lazily flings out a long arm from under the covers, blindly s for the table clock, and narrowly misses the night lamp as he slams down on the snooze button hard. He buries his face in stacks of pillows, groaning when he senses the onset of a throbbing headache between his eyes.

Yixing had taken forever to finish a single can of beer last night. If Chanyeol didn't know any better, he’d say that the man had done that on purpose to extend their impromptu drinking session. Then again, it’s more likely that he was only pacing himself, just like a responsible drinker should. He kept handing Chanyeol one new can after another, which he didn’t turn down because the truth is, he may have sort of secretly wanted to hang out with Yixing more.

He didn’t exactly get smashed; just inebriated enough to get a mild hangover the next day, apparently. He’s about to let himself sink deeper under the covers and maybe even fall back asleep when he remembers why he set an alarm in the first place.

He’s meeting Yixing in about an hour.

On any humdrum day, he’ll probably wash his face real quick without bothering at all with his hair, and then throw on the first shirt he sees before hobbling down to his sister’s house for breakfast if he’s feeling too lazy to make his own. But not today. Not on the first day of Tour Guide Duty.

Today, he hits the shower, actually thinks about it when he picks out a shirt (“Blue! Yixing hyung likes—wait, what the hell are you doing? This isn’t a date—”), brushes his teeth, and slicks his hair back the way he knows it looks good on him.

Throwing the coat that he’s been using for the past three days in the hamper, he takes out a black, hooded, faux leather jacket to wear over his gray shirt instead. He goes for an old pair of jeans so that it doesn’t look like he’s trying too hard and because it’s comfortable. Not loose enough to pass for baggy, but not too tight that it looks like it’s cutting off his circulation. Also because it fits nicely enough that it creates the illusion of an , even though he barely has any.

So basically he set that alarm an hour ahead just so that he can think this whole look through. He supposes it's worth it, though, because when he enters the main house through the back door in the kitchen, Yura pauses, surveys him from his head to his feet, then gives him the oddest look.

“What have you done to my brother?”

Chanyeol flashes a big grin.

“Good morning to you, too, noona! Are those burgers?” He goes to stand beside her to catch a whiff. He loves the smell of beef patty on the pan.

Yura pointedly ignores his question, probably assuming that it’s rhetorical, anyway. She flips one of the burgers on the skillet and then presses down lightly on the other two with a spatula.

“I almost forgot that you knew how to use a comb,” she quips. “What’s the occasion?”

“Do I need a specific occasion to make myself a little bit more presentable?”

“Yes,” Yura smirks. “And I wouldn’t call this—” she turns to point the spatula at him, dragging it up and down in a vertical line. “—just ‘a little bit more presentable’. I mean, relative to your usual self, a full one-eighty’s more like it. Do you want one of these?”

“No, thanks. I’m about to head out anyway. And, hey, I’m not that bad!” He pouts.

“Maybe not,” Yura chuckles. “But it’s pretty obvious that you made a great effort. Humor me.”

Chanyeol picks up a morsel of cheese that probably chipped off from the big block when his sister was cutting out thin slices to put on top of the patties.

“I’m showing the new guest around before the start of the opening ceremony this afternoon,” he says, nonchalantly.

At that, Yura sharply glances up at him with wide eyes. “You? At the festival?” A brow arcs up. “But you hate those things. And you’ve already met Yixing?”

Chanyeol tosses the cheese in his mouth. “Mhmm.” He chews. Slowly. As if it can get him out of elaborating.

Hate might be too strong a word. He just... thinks it’s a waste of precious time. It's not because the performances are terrible because they’re certainly not, and he understands why folks from out of town would be so interested. But for him, someone who has participated in it so many times growing up, it's hard not to be immune to the novelty of it all.

The thing about his older sister, though, is that she’s a little bit psychic sometimes.

Yura pins Chanyeol with a dubious look. He’s probably doing the mouth and eye thing that Yixing was talking about yesterday, because now she’s squinting at him like she knows he’s hiding something.

She looks like she has something to say, but what would have been a very early interrogation is intercepted by light tapping sounds on the glass door panel. The smile that appears on Chanyeol’s face is automatic when he sees Yixing waving at them from the other side of the door.

He turns to his sister and drops a quick kiss on top of her head.

“Gotta go,” he says, and then he’s out before Yura can try to stop him.

He doesn’t want to linger by the doorway and so he blurts a clipped, “Hi, hyung. Let’s go,” then makes a grab for Yixing’s hand. He tugs him along until they reach the gate. Only when they’re inside the car does he notice that Yixing is slightly out of breath. Chanyeol’s very long legs are made for very long strides, after all.

“Sorry for dragging you away like that,” he says, guiltily.

“No, it’s fine,” says Yixing as he snaps on his seatbelt. “Exercise in the morning is good for the health.”

Chanyeol barks out a laugh. “You make a good point, Doctor Zhang.”

“You look great, by the way,” Yixing tells him.

Chanyeol smiles, blushing a little, and decides that the extra hour he took away from his sleep that morning was definitely worth it.

“Look at that, spring is here.”

Chanyeol can hear the smile in Yixing’s voice even with his eyes locked on the road. True enough, he catches an array of vivid colors as he drives along his usual route, splashes of yellows and reds and violets amid the greens, and for a second he wonders how all these could have sprouted overnight. He doesn't remember seeing this yesterday. Then again perhaps he wouldn't have noticed it now either if Yixing hadn’t pointed it out. Maybe they’ve been there, budding, all this time and he just hadn't been paying attention.

The opening ceremonies don’t start until about six in the afternoon, and so instead of heading to Jungwon Rotary where the festivities take place every year, he takes Yixing out to the border, to the very gateway of Jinhae. He figures they could start from the beginning.

The sakura trees near the outskirts have yet to come to life, but he knows it won’t be long now. It’s a different story downtown, where some roads are already lined with pale pink flowers. The sunny weather of the past couple of days must have made it warm enough to help hurry it along. It’s perfect for a walk or a nice hike, which works in every tourist’s favor. If they’re down here for cherry blossom sightings, chances are they’re in for a lot of walking and hiking.

“So where to first?” Yixing asks around a big yawn. Chanyeol wants to pinch his cheek but that’s probably going to end up in a small scuffle, and that’s not very good driving etiquette.

Chanyeol makes a careful turn around a bend. “You'll see.”

He can feel Yixing watching him closely. It makes his stomach tangle in knots.

“You’re winging it, aren't you?” Yixing eyes him, accusingly. “I get mocked for not having a plan and yet—”

“Hey, I'm a local, born and bred—I'm perfectly allowed,” he argues with a haughty tilt of the chin.

“Fine,” Yixing huffs in forfeit and sinks back into the passenger seat. Chanyeol chuckles; he knows Yixing’s not really upset.

“You have to trust me, hyung,” he says, and this time he doesn’t even try to quell the compulsion to pinch the older man’s cheek.

Yixing yelps in surprise and bats his hand away, laughing.

“Stupid. Of course I trust you.”

Almost fifteen minutes in, they stop by a Dunkin’ Donuts just off the main road less than ten minutes away from Jangboksan park. It’s Yixing who brings up the subject of breakfast and apparently neither of them has had anything to eat before setting off.

“Why were you in such a hurry to leave, anyway?” Yixing asks as they settle into a table by the window. “We could have had breakfast with your sister and Yejun.”

Chanyeol swallows down a small chunk of ham and cheese croissant.

“I didn’t want to be put on the hotseat so early in the morning.” He takes a sip of hot capuccino and tries not to giggle when Yixing does a curious head-tilt that oddly reminds him of a cute, little bunny.

“Hotseat?”

“I mean, the fact that I’m voluntarily setting foot anywhere near the festival strikes her as odd—for good reason, I suppose,” Chanyeol explains with a light shrug. “She knows I’m not a huge fan. And she doesn’t know about our—” He catches himself, hesitates. His feet shuffle uneasily under the seat as he rephrases that in his head. “—she doesn’t know that we’ve met before.”

“Oh.”

Chanyeol waits for a denial or a dismissal, maybe a ‘but that was such a long time ago, it doesn’t matter now,’ but it never comes. Instead, Yixing looks at him quizzically and asks, “Will it be a problem if she did find out?”

“Well,” Chanyeol's lips pull into a thin line. “I mean, I guess not? My family knows that I’m... you know. We just never talk about it. It’s not really easy for them.”

Yixing feeds himself a bite of his sandwich. “Yeah, okay. I get it,” he says. “That means you don’t openly date guys here, then?”

Chanyeol can’t help but cough out a sardonic laugh. Openly date guys here. Hell would sooner freeze over.

“Things like that don’t really sit well with most people here. It’s a small, traditional town,” he says, volume dropping slightly. “I’m pretty sure they know about me, though. At the very least they probably think I’m bi—or that’s what they prefer to think. That I have some shred of ‘normalcy’ left in me, as far their standards go.”

“That’s why you wanted to leave here so bad,” Yixing muses aloud and Chanyeol shrugs.

“That, and also the fact that I had no future in music here,” he says, to which Yixing wordlessly nods in response.

They fall silent after that. Not exactly awkward; just filled with the weight of things not being said.

“You know,” Chanyeol clears his throat, heart suddenly heavy despite the casualness that he manages to infuse in his tone. “If it makes you uncomfortable being seen with me, I can just take you downtown, or we can call this whole thing off. No hard feelings, I swear.”

“Why would I want that?” Yixing looks him straight in the eye and the intensity of it makes Chanyeol’s pulse stall. He looks almost angry. “I wouldn’t have come here if not for you.”

“I just thought—” He’s abruptly cut off when Yixing reaches across the table and cups the side of his cheek. Chanyeol holds his breath as fingers lightly brush over a corner of his mouth, his skin prickling at the point of contact. He barely notices the tiny crumbs falling away.

“Listen,” Yixing says, and he almost doesn’t catch that too, what with his heartbeat suddenly roaring in his ears. But Yixing looks serious, contrite, as he holds his gaze steady. The slight tremble in his voice is the only thing that gives his nerves away. “It’s probably too late, and maybe it doesn’t matter to you now. But I really want to tell you that I’m sorry.”

Chanyeol swallows. He would coolly ask, “for what?” just to deliver a reaction. But he does know exactly what Yixing is talking about. He’s not really up to putting up a front. Not right now.

“I don’t want to give you any excuses; you don’t deserve that. I just want you to know that I’m really sorry,” he says quietly, carefully. As if he’s afraid of saying something wrong. Like he’s thought about this many times before.

Chanyeol leans back in his seat, his gaze dropping to the half-eaten croissant in front of him. He stabs at it with a fork, swallows around a small rock in his throat. What can he say? ‘It doesn’t matter’? That would be a lie.

“You were the first boy that I—” The words tumble out before he can stop them.

Yixing nods, shoulders sagging like they bear too much weight. “I know.”

Chanyeol can see the anguish and the remorse reflected in his eyes. It really doesn’t suit him, he thinks, and it makes him feel so uneasy knowing that he put it there.

Chanyeol takes a deep breath. Maybe in the back of his mind he’s always known that the apology was unnecessary. He lets the corners of his lips curl in a crooked grin and then he holds up a closed fist over the small table.

“Clean slate?”

The tension clouding Yixing’s features gradually clears—though it takes a few seconds because he’s always been a little bit slow to react. And then he grins at last, bright eyes curving into half moons.

He reaches over the table and bumps Chanyeol’s bony knuckles with his own.

“Okay.”

The crowd in Jangboksan park is not nearly as packed as Chanyeol expected, which is nothing short of a small miracle. Most of the locals are probably busy prepping for the opening ceremony. He knows that there is bound to be an influx of visitors throughout the day so it’s a good thing that he and Yixing were able to set off early.

They walk up along a hiking trail bordered by seemingly endless lines of cherry trees and pines. Yixing takes pictures at every turn–of sculptures, flower beds, trees, shadows on the ground, blobs of light that seep through the gaps between branches. Everything fascinates him. Sometimes Chanyeol wonders why because they’re just plants and wood and stones.

In his opinion, when you've seen one sakura tree, one palace—or any ancient Korean architecture, for that matter—you've seen them all. He doesn't understand what Yixing sees exactly. Sometimes he wishes he does. But for the most part he thinks it’s enough seeing the childlike awe in his eyes.

The opening ceremony is surprisingly... eventful, to say the least—mostly because of Yixing’s reactions to the performances of the choir and the naval military band. Chances are they probably have much bigger and grander festivals back in China, but that doesn't stop him from openly appreciating what Chanyeol’s hometown has to offer.

Yixing is not familiar with the music; Chanyeol doubts that he knows the traditional instruments that the performers are using either. But at some point he starts humming another layer of accompanying harmony under his breath, and Chanyeol just lowkey smiles beside him. He doesn’t call him on it or react at all because he doesn't want to interrupt; he just wants him to keep going.

The minute the ceremony is over, Chanyeol finds himself sprinting after Yixing when he eagerly scurries off to the side of the stage to take pictures with the baffled performers. Chanyeol would probably be embarrassed if the whole thing wasn’t terribly amusing.

They stroll down the side of the road as Yixing continues to photograph everything–from the flyers stuck on the lightposts to the couples wrapped snuggly around each other while walking. He takes plenty of Chanyeol’s pictures, too—a lot of which are of them together trying to out-dumb each other on camera. They’re probably making too much noise laughing their heads off, but neither of them really care.

They reach Yeojwacheon stream just as dusk falls. The entire stretch of it, flanked on both sides by cherry blossom trees, becomes alight with color as soon as the sun is gone. Bright lights in different shapes and colors hang from the branches and the wooden railings.

Yixing drags him down to the many food stalls that line the fringes of the stream. Chanyeol gets them both a corn dog and a can of grape Fanta each, while Yixing secures for them a wooden bench at a quieter side of the long road.

“You owe me another meal, on top of the ones you already do owe me for being your tour guide,” Chanyeol tells him sternly as he gingerly hands over the food before sinking into the bench.

Yixing’s brows furrows thoughtfully. He puts down his can of soda in the space between them.

“How many meals are we talking about exactly? I'm only here three more days.”

Chanyeol pauses. He feels a twinge in his gut as he lets that sink in for a second.

“Three days?” It’s strange how everything suddenly tastes like sand in his mouth. Has it really been a week now?

“Yes.” Yixing chews silently, not meeting his eyes. He’s staring ahead with a blank look; Chanyeol recognizes it as his Thinking Face. A part of him wants to know what’s on Yixing’s mind, but another part of him is saying, “what for? He'll be gone again in three days.”

Chanyeol takes a long drink of his soda.

“Breakfast, lunch, dinner,” he reconsiders that for a second. “Or breakfast and dinner. We’ll be out by noon so you won’t be able to cook.”

“Packed lunch?” suggests the doctor.

“Will you have the time, though?”

Yixing finally turns to look at him with a ghost of a smirk on his face.

“I didn’t say I was going to do it alone,” he singsongs. “You can wash and slice stuff or something, and then I’ll cook. Teamwork.”

Chanyeol mulls this over for a bit. Or he pretends to, anyway. There’s only one foreseeable outcome to this, really.

“Fine,” he sighs. “Three meals, three days. That should cover it.”

Smiling, Yixing puts warm fingers against the back of Chanyeol’s neck in a gentle massage—as thanks, or maybe as a consolation, or whatever. Chanyeol lets him, all the while pretending that he’s not reeling from Yixing’s touch and the phantom trickling of an hour glass that’s quickly running out of sand.

The next morning, he goes to Yixing’s cottage instead of the main house for breakfast. He packs up their lunch while Yixing whips up a simple breakfast of veggie omelette beside him.

“What?” Yixing asks when Chanyeol giggles out of nowhere without even realizing it. He flushes lightly.

“This just feels so... domestic, what we’re doing. Feels like old times,” he confesses with an embarrassed laugh.

Yixing doesn’t react for a good five seconds. Chanyeol glances to his side, worried that he might have said something wrong. His breath instantly catches when he finds Yixing watching him with a soft smile on his face.

“I missed you a lot, you know,” Yixing tells him, and he tries to remember to breathe. “Without you, there was no one to cut up the peppers into ugly, uneven slices for me.”

Chanyeol squawks. “Excuse me, my pepper slices are exquisite,” he bites back indignantly. Although, yeah, he might have been a little less skilled in the kitchen back then. Or a lot less skilled.

Yixing throws his head back in a hearty laugh and it makes Chanyeol smile. The kind of smile that makes his eyes that much brighter; the kind that almost hurts his face and threatens to split it in half, and probably makes him look like a crazy person. Not the well-timed, calculated sort that he’s spent years perfecting to keep up an image. Somewhere along the way he’s forgotten the difference. But now he remembers.

Chanyeol pulls a face, cheeks turning a light shade of pink, when Yixing playfully tugs on his ear. He mutters something in Mandarin that Chanyeol manages to understand—and he flushes even more.

“So cute, my Cànliè.”

Chanyeol takes Yixing to the Eco Park and the man instantly falls in love with how peaceful the place is. They sit quietly by the small lake for about half an hour after Yixing is satisfied with all the photos that he’s taken. At some point, Chanyeol finds Yixing’s head on his shoulder and Yixing’s arm looped around his. They just stay like that for about ten minutes more and it doesn’t even occur to Chanyeol to complain about this intrusion on his personal space.

Around lunch time, he gets a few calls from his sister and from Baekhyun, asking if he’s still alive, what he’s been up to. Moonlighting as tour guide for free meals, he tells them, which isn’t exactly a lie.

Baekhyun just sniggers over the line, while his sister sighs and says, “Well, just. Just be careful, alright?” And he gets it. He knows what she means.

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing, noona,” he reassures her, and that’s the end of that talk.

He gets a call from Jongdae, too—but that’s mostly just him whining about how he’s hella stressed and would Chanyeol please tell Sehun to stop hanging around the dance studio next door to flirt with the new assistant choreographer called Kim Jongin because they have a ing deadline to meet?

“Ah, Jongdaeyah, let him be. Let the kid fall in love, maybe he’ll scowl less.”

Jongdae whistles and it’s like the sound of a dropping bomb. “Well, look at you, preaching about the transformative power of love,” he quips. “Don’t forget to use protection, okay? And lube. Always be prepared. Getting Laid 101.”

Chanyeol shakes his head, laughing. “You’re an .”

Jehwangsan park is their last stop for the day. Luckily, the queue for the cable car isn’t looking so bad, so they go for that option instead of climbing the 365 steps up to the tower. Yixing doesn’t take many pictures this time. He plants his arms on the railing, elbow right next to Chanyeol’s, and takes in the fresh air as it blows in strong gusts.

The view from the tower is one of a pale pink sea interspersed with a bunch of greens. The cherry blossoms are everywhere—around houses and buildings, along the roads—even as far as the foot of the long range of mountains in the distance. At that moment, Chanyeol sees the beauty of his hometown the way he hasn’t seen it in a long time. And all of a sudden he finds himself rapidly blinking away the moisture that has begun to spring in his eyes. If Yixing notices that his eyes are extra sparkly, he doesn’t mention it.

Chanyeol startles a bit when Yixing suddenly inches closer, reaching out an arm to hold him around the waist. He doesn’t resist, though. Instead, he leans into Yixing’s side when the man gently pulls him in.

“Your hometown is beautiful,” he says softly, earnestly. Like he knows exactly what’s on Chanyeol’s mind.

He doesn’t even bother to fight back the urge to plant a light kiss on Yixing’s temple as a ‘thank you’. Yixing looks up at him, surprised. But then the most beautiful smile blooms on his face and Chanyeol can’t help but return it.

“It is, right?”

But not as beautiful as you, he wants to add, because as cringe-worthy as it is, it’s not a lie.

They head back home before it gets too dark.

Chanyeol follows Yixing back to his cottage instead of heading to his own. He helps out with dinner and then he stays for a couple of drinks after. It’s almost tradition now.

They talk at length about music, about the slump that Chanyeol’s been in for far longer than he’s comfortable with, and it surprises him how he actually hasn’t thought about that since he saw Yixing again.

“I think,” says the doctor while lifting his legs over the sofa. He drops them on Chanyeol’s lap, stretching across the cushion the way the taller man can’t because he’s just too long. Chanyeol bounces his knees just to be a brat, but somehow he ends up absently massaging the sides of Yixing’s calves through his pants.

“I think your friend Baekhyun is right. Don’t force it. If it’s not coming to you on its own, then maybe there’s something else you need to fix.”

“That’s what I’m trying to sort out. That’s why I’m here,” he nods, long fingers gently sliding down the firm muscles of Yixing’s lower legs. He hears the doctor sigh, so he does it again. “Okay, your turn. You said you were here to recalibrate... why?”

Yixing chews on his lower lip. He sits up, but doesn’t remove his legs from Chanyeol’s lap.

“I was set to join an oncology fellowship program after I finish my residency, but my mentor wasn’t sure I was doing it for the right reasons. I suppose it’s not enough for him that it was something I promised my mother I would do.” He in a breath then blows it all back out as he heavily leans against the back rest. His shoulders slump like they’ve finally given out under the weight of years upon years of pressure—most of it he had brought upon himself, most likely—and Chanyeol fights the urge to pull the man against him and massage those tired shoulders too.

“But I get it,” says Yixing. “It’s a lifetime commitment. I need to be sure that it’s what I want to spend the rest of my days doing—dealing with terminal illness day in and day out.”

Chanyeol makes a sound of acknowledgment. “I know you went into this whole thing because you wanted to help people—you wanted to make a difference—and you’re already doing that. If you want to do more, there are other ways.”

Yixing squints his eyes at him, teasingly. “Like put up a charity? Volunteer?”

Chanyeol’s cheeks color slightly hearing his teenager version’s words being echoed back to him. Still, he addresses the doctor with a haughty jut of the chin and contends, “Why yes, Dr. Smartass. Those are still very legit options, thank you very much.”

Yixing vibrates when he laughs and Chanyeol finds it oddly comforting.

“Maybe,” he admits. “It’s still not the same, though.”

Chanyeol expected to hear something that. There’s still no knocking down Yixing’s principles, his priorities in life. God knows he’d tried to squeeze into that rock-solid wall once; tried to make a tiny dent, a tiny room for himself. That didn’t work out so well, obviously. Maybe if this were a year ago, when he still had some of that fight in him, he’d have tried again. But now...

“Yeah,” Chanyeol concedes with a sigh. “You're probably right.”

The view of downtown Jinhae from Anmin Hill is not all that different from any other similar vantage point, but Chanyeol is quite sure that Yixing will find something unique about it anyway.

They don’t come up until after the parade, which the doctor had so zealously dragged him to. Before that, he had wanted to see a temple and being the stellar (read: whipped) tour guide that Chanyeol is, he took him to two.

By the time they near the top of Anmin hill, the sun is already gone. Undeterred, Yixing simply adjusts his camera settings and clicks away while Chanyeol stands back and observes.

“It’s not just the physical element of it,” Yixing tells him when he finally asks why he keeps on taking photos of everything when a lot of them look the same anyway.

“It’s the experience of seeing it and being there. A lot of things factor in that.”

Chanyeol leans back under one of the nearby trees, watches the other man’s back. His shirt molds into every bend and shift of his shoulders as he fiddles with something on his camera while taking in the view of downtown Jinhae from the summit. Chanyeol notes the lack of layers, but only very briefly. It’s quite distracting how well Yixing fills out the one layer that he is wearing.

“Like what?”

“Like, the weather. The time of day.” Yixing makes a big, dramatic gesture with his hands to encompass the moonlit sky and the city below. To be fair, the night view is very different—with the city lights pulsing with life from where they stand. So, sure, he’ll give him that. Yixing moves to the side to get a different angle and continues, “The season. Temperature.”

“The company?” Chanyeol supplies cheekily, untangling his arms to plant his hands on either side of his hips instead.

Yixing turns around and points his camera at Chanyeol who automatically scrunches his face and puts two fingers in a V-sign over his right eye. Laughing, Yixing takes the shot.

“Especially the company.” He pockets the small camera as he approaches, smiling eyes fixed on Chanyeol.

It’s unfair, really, how arresting Yixing’s eyes can be. Chanyeol isn’t even surprised that he can’t seem to look away, or even move a muscle. And then all of a sudden Yixing is standing merely inches away from him under the shadow of cherry blossoms. He holds his breath.

“You’re the best tour guide ever, Cànliè,” Yixing says, mirthfully, reaching out to lightly brush Chanyeol’s earlobe between his fingers.

A feeble smirk forms on Chanyeol’s lips while he tries not to shiver from the touch.

“Of course I am,” he mumbles, mock-smugly.

Yixing chuckles, his voice growing softer. “I want to say thank you for these past few days.” He looks at the taller man intently, like he’s committing everything about him to memory.

Chanyeol feels his heart squeeze in his chest. He wants to tell him, “don’t say good bye yet; we still have tomorrow. And don’t think I’m not driving you to the station when you leave,” but he knows he probably won’t. Yixing doesn’t like good-byes very much; neither does Chanyeol, but maybe he can make an exception if it means he can spend a few more minutes with Yixing.

Cool wind blows through the branches, tousling the smaller man’s dark hair. It sends a few cherry blossoms drifting to the ground around them, and all Chanyeol can think about is how beautiful Yixing looks like this—partly cloaked in shadows, a soft glow dancing on his warm skin; framed within the backdrop of a glowing city, and the reflection of a silver moon over the rippling waters beyond it.

As if on instinct, Chanyeol’s hand moves to arrange Yixing’s fringe, brushing them out of his eyes. The smaller man lets him, shuffles just a little bit closer to make himself easier to reach. He’s looking at Chanyeol with such fond, fond eyes—open, earnest, and giving. And all of a sudden Chanyeol remembers. He remembers exactly why he fell in love with Zhang Yixing in the first place and his brain short-circuits.

His gaze drops to Yixing’s pink lips, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s leaning in—moth to a flame. His pulse is going so, so fast; his mind is yelling, “what are you doing, what the are you doing!” but he doesn’t stop. And Yixing doesn’t move away.

They catch the sound of footsteps and loud chatter just as he gets close enough that he can feel Yixing’s breath hot on his skin. It’s Chanyeol who lurches back first. He instinctively grabs Yixing’s hand, quickly drawing him flush next to him, deeper in the shadow. He holds his breath, heart still hammering in his chest, as what sounds like a big group of teenagers walks past.

“Great reflexes,” Yixing comments casually the second they’re gone. Like they didn’t just almost kiss—in a public place no less—and like they weren’t almost caught in the act. Like almost-kissing isn’t the dumbest thing to be doing right now because he’s leaving very soon.

“Uh, thanks?” He considers it a small blessing that Yixing can’t see the bright red blot that is his entire face.

“Come on, let’s go back. It’s getting late,” says the doctor. He steps away from the shade and only when Chanyeol easily gets pulled along does he realize that he never let go of Yixing’s hand.

The smaller man loosens his grip, but only to fan out his hand so that he can fit Chanyeol’s fingers between the gaps. Chanyeol’s brain is still lagging by a lot to manage any sort of reaction, and so that’s how their hands stay all the way to the car.

Chanyeol sits behind the wheel with tension bleeding out of his every fingertip. The radio humming steadily over the static gives too little relief and his hands itch to turn up the volume—but he supposes that would be rude.

The awkwardness that lingers in the silence feels so foreign. There’s actually a lot to be said, a lot he’s wanted to ask since day one. And now it hits him more than ever that he’s running out of time.

Chanyeol inhales through his nose as his restless fingers go tap dancing nervously on the wheel.

“Did Mama Zhang know?” are the first words he breathes out as they find themselves at a standstill on an intersection, waiting for the green light.

“What—oh,” Yixing rubs his hands together—a distraction more than anything else, Chanyeol guesses, because he knows that Yixing isn’t cold. The doctor gnaws on his lower lip while Chanyeol tries to keep his focus away from his mouth.

“I think she did,” says Yixing. “She never... she never asked. Sometimes she would start talking about grandchildren, and then it’s like she’d catch herself. Then she’d look at me with a sad smile.”

Yixing blows out a sigh and glances at Chanyeol with a wan smile. “She liked you very much, but like you said, it’s not easy.”

Chanyeol nods, grips the wheel a little bit tighter. “Is that why you stopped returning my messages?”

“Yes.” Yixing doesn’t miss a beat although he doesn’t sound very happy about that answer. “Also because there was so much happening—papa was going on and on about med school and mama got sick, then all of a sudden the business was hanging in the balance. I didn’t know how to deal with the question of my uality on top of it. I... I should have probably dealt with it better, though. You didn’t deserve that.”

Chanyeol is already shaking his head before Yixing is even done talking. Of course he’s going to blame himself—presume that it’s his responsibility to make everybody happy. Chanyeol exhales.

“Hey, I don’t blame you at all, hyung,” he says, his tone casual. “We were just kids, anyway. It’s not like we honestly thought we would spend the rest of our lives together, right? Who really stays together these days, anyway?”

He instantly regrets how that inadvertently came out sounding a tad too caustic, because now Yixing is eyeing him intently. He turns to the stoplight and watches it like a hawk. What the hell is taking the green light so long?

“You say that like you don’t... believe it can happen to you.”

“No, I do. I do,” he blurts. “But—you know, I just think that I’m, maybe, better without it.” The carefree, upbeat tone sounds so rehearsed and he hates that he’s using it on Yixing.

Yixing doesn’t say anything to that; he just keeps watching Chanyeol like he’s waiting for him to say more. Something more honest, perhaps.

The light turns green. Chanyeol hits the accelerator and keeps going.

“I think it’s probably better to meet someone who’s not looking for a committed relationship—”

“Just .” Yixing doesn’t say it like it’s a question.

There’s no judgment or condescension in the way Yixing says it, but it sounds distasteful in Chanyeol’s ears nonetheless. He doesn’t know why he’s so reluctant to talk to Yixing about this, anyway. It’s not like there’s any point in trying to forge a pristine image to impress him. Chanyeol sleeps with people he has no feelings for and then leaves right after. He’s trash next to someone as decent and as benevolent as Yixing. Grass is green.

“Exactly,” Chanyeol says without inflection. “Just casual . No obligations.”

“Is that what you and Do Kyungsoo-sshi—”

“Kyungsoo isn’t out,” he tells him instead of answering the question outright. He’s not even surprised to hear Kyungsoo’s name in this conversation at this point. “I’m going back to Seoul in a week or two so I’m good for a no-strings deal. That’s really all there is there.”

It almost seems like there’s something Yixing wants to say—or maybe ask—but he says nothing more; neither does Chanyeol. Yixing stares out the window the rest of the way.

They cross the town border just as it starts to drizzle and it escalates gradually until they finally arrive at the guesthouse. As they make their way across the lawn, the light rain suddenly turns into an angry downpour which, luckily, drowns out Chanyeol’s embarrassing yip. Yixing doesn’t appear to mind getting rained on at all, but Chanyeol grabs him by the hand anyway and they make a mad dash up to the back.

They end up in Chanyeol’s cottage because he’s the one navigating and he’s not quite thinking clearly.

“Chanyeol, we have to make dinner,” Yixing points out as they drip all over the welcome mat in the doorway. It’s a cramped, little area that hardly grants either of them any personal space. Chanyeol feels like he probably should get some distance between them, but to do that he’ll have to either step back outside or soak a larger portion of the floor. He opts to stay put.

Right. Cook dinner. They’ll have to make dinner while all of Yixing’s ingredients are next door. He cards fingers through his wet hair to push it out of his face then tries to wipe his hand down his jeans, which doesn’t help very much considering his clothes aren’t exactly dry either.

“Give me your key, I’ll go get your stuff,” he offers but Yixing shakes his head.

“I’ll do it. You should go take a shower if you don’t want to catch a cold,” he says and then he’s gone before the taller man can get a word in edgewise.

Chanyeol frowns at the closed door.

“He could have at least taken an umbrella,” he grunts as he toes off his soaked shoes.

He goes straight to the shower, just like the doctor ordered. Sighing, he rubs his hands on his face as hot water beats down on his back. He stays under the spray until his skin has gone all wrinkly and the tiles have fogged up.

When he finally steps out clad in gray sweatpants and a blank tank under a long, white robe, he follows the sound of light clanking sounds coming from the kitchen. He finds Yixing busy with a pot of steaming noodle soup. His hair is still damp, but he’s changed out of his wet clothes, at least.

Chanyeol furtively approaches as he dries his hair with a small towel. He’s not quite so dense; he does notice the shift in Yixing’s mood. It’s hard not to when he’s suddenly acting cold and talking in clipped sentences. He hasn’t been smiling either and that, Chanyeol thinks, is the worst part of it.

He clears his throat.

“Hey.”

Yixing makes a sound of acknowledgment but he doesn’t turn around.

“I’m sorry for dragging you. Again,” Chanyeol tells him sheepishly as he moves to sit on a stool by the island where a round, wooden pot coaster and two sets of small plates and bowls are already set.

“Don’t worry about it,” Yixing replies, flatly. Chanyeol purses his lips.

“You should have showered first, hyung.”

“I did.”

“Oh.” Chanyeol quietly berates himself for being an idiot. “Good.” he wraps the towel around his neck and tries to brush back his messy hair with his fingers.

“Is there anything you need me to do?”

“Not really.”

“Do you want me to... get us some wine?”

“Do whatever you want.” The microwave oven dings. Yixing quickly goes to take out a glass container of leftover dumplings from last night before the other man can offer to help.

Chanyeol sighs and finally asks, “Hyung, are you angry?”

A beat passes. And then...

“No.” Yixing turns to serve the dumplings but he doesn’t look up. Chanyeol might have lied a little when he said that he can’t tell when Yixing is lying. Truth is Yixing has never been a very good liar.

The doctor comes back with the pot which he carefully puts on top of the coaster. He removes the lid, releasing a cloud of mouthwatering steam, and Chanyeol’s stomach positively growls.

Chanyeol grabs the ladle from the side with one hand and reaches over to take Yixing’s bowl with the other. The older man’s mouth falls open, as if to protest, but Chanyeol’s having none of that now.

“I think you’re angry,” he asserts as he conveys the soup to the small bowl, making sure to scoop up lots of noodles because he knows Yixing likes it. To recompense, Yixing picks up his chopsticks and transfers three dumplings onto Chanyeol’s plate.

“I’m not. Eat your food,” he says sternly then mumbles a quiet, “Thank you,” when Chanyeol sets his bowl down in front of him. Chanyeol almost laughs because he’s really cute when he’s sulking and trying to lie about it.

“Is this about Kyungsoo?” He smirks. “Are you jealous?” He’s really only messing with him; but then Yixing looks up from his bowl, and there’s something in his eyes that makes Chanyeol’s smug expression waver.

“If I say yes, what would you do?”

Chanyeol freezes, his grin dissolving into a look of wide-eyed confusion.

“I don’t...” He blinks. “I already told you that he and I are not in a relationship—not one that means anything. In fact, I haven’t seen him since the day we ran into him at the shabu shabu place, which means I haven’t gotten laid in days and I’m... I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” Chanyeol ducks under the guise of examining the dumplings on his plate.

Yixing coughs out an amused chuckle. He takes the other man’s empty bowl and fills it to the brim. He’s always telling Chanyeol that he’s too skinny.

“I’m really not mad,” he says, placating, as he gives the bowl back. “But, yeah, maybe a little jealous.”

Zhang Yixing, always honest to a fault, Chanyeol thinks as he tries to fight down a fierce blush and the fluttering in his stomach.

If there is anything that Chanyeol stocks up on, it’s alcohol. Yixing shoots him a disapproving look the moment he finds out, but once the food is all gone and the kitchenware washed and put away, they grab as many cans of beers as their arms can hold.

They head to the room where Chanyeol dumps them all on the bed. He motions for Yixing to do the same as he goes over to the other side—the one that’s not facing the door. He sits on the floor with his back against the side of the cushion, legs folded under him. Yixing follows suit.

“Just like old times,” Chanyeol snickers as he pops open a can and hands it over to the doctor. The curtain is drawn but the sound of rain pelting down on the windows is loud enough. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to let up anytime soon.

“So I’m guessing there won’t be any cherry blossoms left by tomorrow,” Yixing muses aloud.

Chanyeol hums in agreement. “It might not be as bad downtown, though. We always seem to get more rain up here.”

Yixing tips the can back so suddenly that Chanyeol gapes at him in surprise. “Hey, slow down,” he says, laughing.

“I don’t like that you’re settling for a relationship that means nothing,” Yixing tells him, his voice quiet but firm. Chanyeol nearly drops his beer.

“What?” Weren’t they just talking about trees?

“You heard me,” is all Yixing says. He shakes his head. “I know it’s not my place to say this, but I just wanted to get that out.”

Chanyeol hears the “before I leave” at the end of that statement even though Yixing doesn’t say it. Chanyeol takes a long drink. He unfolds his legs and extends them in front of him as he leans back against the bed.

“I’m not settling, hyung. Just getting laid,” he offhandedly states.

Yixing pushes forward, craning a bit so that he can look at the other man properly

“And that works for you,” he scoffs, brows knitted in impatience. There’s a bit of color on his cheeks now, which probably explains why he’s being all short-fused and borderline rude. Chanyeol is honestly more amused than offended, though.

“It is what it is,” he shrugs. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had a one-night-stand?”

Yixing gives him a look. “I hardly think Do Kyungsoo-sshi classifies as a one-night-stand anymore,” he deadpans. “And I know what you’re thinking—I’m not drunk. This thing isn’t even half-empty yet.” He raises his can and gives it a little shake. “Give me a little credit.”

Chanyeol chuckles at Yixing’s pout. He’s probably too old to be called adorable but Chanyeol thinks there’s simply no other word for what he is. Yixing shifts suddenly, and the next thing he knows the man’s head is on his lap. He’s still wearing the robe and it’s probably a good thing because it makes him a softer makeshift pillow, somehow. Yixing folds up his knees, both hands on his stomach, and closes his eyes.

“I barely had time to sleep; I couldn’t bother with relationships, ual or not,” he tells him. “I dated this girl for a year when I was taking pre-med, though. Just to try it out, and to get my father off my case about having a girlfriend. That’s about all the progress I’ve had on the relationship front.”

“See, that’s even worse,” Chanyeol contends, blatantly ignoring the bitter taste rising in his mouth. “Because there are expectations and commitment. The poor girl.”

Yixing eases one eye open and frowns up at him. “Hey, I may have started out having questionable motives, but I didn’t half- it. I tried really hard.”

“Of course you did,” Chanyeol mutters. Yixing probably took her out on nice dates; cooked for her often; messaged her everyday, asking how her day went; gave her thoughtful presents, especially when making up for forgetting special occasions. Chanyeol takes another long drink, hoping to wash down the awful taste on his tongue.

“What was her name?”

Yixing briefly chews on his bottom lip.

“Song Qian.”

“Hm. Pretty.”

Yixing sits up again, facing him this time. For some reason, the sly grin that slowly spreads across his face almost makes Chanyeol want to hide. He gives a start when Yixing holds up an index finger to poke at the side of his cheek where a shallow dimple forms whenever he smiles or scrunches his face.

“Are you jealous, Cànliè?” The doctor singsongs and Chanyeol feels the tip of ears grow hot. He picks up his beer.

“Shut up,” he scowls then tilts the can against his lips while Yixing chuckles beside him.

They stay sprawled on the wooden floor, talking more than drinking, as the rain persists over the next few hours—dwindling to fine rain one minute and then intensifying to tremendous pouring the next. They talk and laugh about anything and everything; about things that make sense and things that don’t.

When they get to the topic of music, Chanyeol points at the bass guitar that’s sitting in its case next to the wall. The simple mention of guitars and Yixing gets this sparkle in his eyes that eventually makes Chanyeol take him up to the loft where the rest of his equipment are. He’s not surprised when the keyboard calls out to Yixing first.

Chanyeol holds his breath as he watches the doctor’s delicate fingers ghost over the keys. His eyes fall shut, and then he plays a melody that Chanyeol doesn’t recognize. It’s breathtaking the way music consumes him; the way he waves and pulses with it the second it starts pouring out of his fingertips. In Chanyeol’s mind, he can hear it accompanied by strings, maybe an orchestra. There’s a sadness, a graceful melancholy that Chanyeol finds himself latching onto, and he feels an ache in his chest that he hasn’t felt in a while.

Right at that moment he wishes Yixing hadn’t quit music. This is what he should be doing—though Yixing probably won’t agree. He closes with a smooth diminuendo, and then he just sits there, looking at the keys like a long-lost friend.

“That was beautiful,” Chanyeol doesn’t bother to veil the awe in his voice. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Yixing shrugs. “I haven’t played in a really long time.” He has the brightest smile when he glances up and Chanyeol’s heart stutters.

Chanyeol’s a little bit envious of his natural ability to easily come up with something like that on the spot. But more than that, he’s just really blown away. Yet again.

“I guess you can get the man out of music but you can’t get music out of the man.”

Yixing chuckles as he flops down next to him on the sofa. There’s a lot of free space and yet they’re stuck together so close that Yixing is practically half-sitting on the taller man. Chanyeol doesn’t complain, though. He never does.

“I wish I could do that,” he doesn’t realize he’s said it aloud until Yixing turns to him sharply, looking almost offended.

“Hey, stop that. You may be in a slump now but you’re a lot more capable than you give yourself credit for.”

“Yeah, but you...” Chanyeol sighs. He doesn’t know what compels him to do it, but he does it anyway. He lets his guard down—lets his mouth curve in a gentle smile; lets his eyes go soft as he looks at the other man in open adoration. “You’re incredible, Yixing.”

Yixing takes a breath, stares at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. And suddenly there’s a warm hand holding the back of his neck, tugging him down, and Yixing is craning forward to meet him halfway. He gasps, surprised, but he doesn’t pull away.

Yixing’s lips are soft and inviting and addictive, just as he remembers, and he wants to taste more. Yixing is the one who goes for it first, using his tongue to coax Chanyeol’s lips apart, eagerly into his mouth the second he’s granted access. A low groan rumbles in Chanyeol’s throat as he angles his head a certain way with the intention of nibbling on the smaller man’s bottom lip.

He’s not quite sure if he hoists Yixing from his original position or if Yixing does it on his own, but all of a sudden the doctor is on Chanyeol’s lap, his perched on his knobby knees. In spite of all the rearranging, they don’t break the kiss once, and Chanyeol can feel his lungs beginning to burn from lack of air.

Yixing grips his shoulders, pulling away slightly, but he doesn’t remove himself from Chanyeol. His breathing is erratic, eyes glazed over, mouth positively kiss-swollen. Chanyeol can’t say he’s not proud of his work.

“Is this,” Yixing heaves, trying to catch his breath. “Is this okay?”

The uncertainty is so clear in Yixing’s eyes as they search Chanyeol’s face. He sees fear there, too — like he’s afraid that Chanyeol will tell him that this is a big mistake and then proceed to dump him on his . He’s pretty sure that’s exactly what he should be doing right now, actually.

Chanyeol’s hands slip under the back of Yixing’s shirt and the doctor gasps upon contact, fingers curling tighter over the muscles of the taller man’s shoulders. Chanyeol can feel him shiver under his touch, and God, he wants so much more.

“Probably a very bad idea,” Chanyeol grunts, shaking his head. Yixing’s expression begins to crumble, but Chanyeol quickly pulls him closer. This time he’s the one who chases Yixing’s mouth for another kiss. He nuzzles his nose along the other’s jaw, peppering kisses all over his neck. Yixing arcs his back, straining to get as close as possible.

Chanyeol moans against hot skin when he feels the man’s pushing against his stomach. He’s in pretty much the same state, and he knows Yixing can tell because he in a breath so suddenly. He presses his mouth along Chanyeol’s ear.

“Bed,” he rasps, the sound of it wheedling a needy moan from the taller man. He nearly sobs at the loss of contact when Yixing moves away, but Yixing quickly grabs his hand and hauls him up from the couch with surprising force.

They trip a few times on the way to the bedroom because Chanyeol has long, awkward limbs while Yixing is just naturally clumsy. When they finally, finally get there, Chanyeol makes a grab for his waist and turns him around so that he can kiss him again. Yixing’s fingers skitter over the taller man’s broad shoulders and under the robe, pushing further and further until it slides down Chanyeol’s arms to pool around his feet.

Chanyeol lightly pushes Yixing on the bed and then proceeds to crawl on top of him while shoving the few remaining cans of beer to the floor. Yixing presses a hand on Chanyeol’s chest the moment their noses align.

“I’m still leaving in two days,” he says, voice somber, though his eyes scream nothing but want.

Chanyeol swallows.

“I know.” He pecks Yixing’s soft mouth. “So less talk; more action.”

Yixing laughs at his lameness before drawing him in for a kiss, and Chanyeol secretly stores that lovely sound away in the deepest recesses of his mind.

Chanyeol wakes up to darkness, the loud and steady rapping of the rain, and a featherlight touch skimming the right of his chest. When he looks to his side, he’s greeted by the top of Yixing’s disheveled hair.

“Hey,” he mumbles, voice gruff, thick with sleep. Yixing looks wide awake when he shifts in Chanyeol’s arms and meets his eyes.

“Hey back,” the doctor smiles, his own voice rough with disuse.

“Are you okay?”

Yixing heaves a suffering breath. “You’ve asked me that about ten times now.”

“Hey, you usually won’t feel the worst of the aftermath until several hours later, so excuse me for caring,” Chanyeol huffs, mock-indignantly.

He pouts while the doctor chuckles, obviously happy with the reaction that his teasing has elicited. Yixing can be really evil, too, he reckons. But then the man drops a placating kiss on his cheek and earnestly whispers, “I’m fine; just a little bit sore, but nothing unbearable. Thank you for caring,” before burrowing into the hollow of his neck.

Chanyeol smiles despite himself. You are so whipped, his mind taunts, but he doesn’t really care right now. He shifts on his side, sighing as he wraps his arms around Yixing’s bare torso.

“Cànliè,”

“Hm?”

Chanyeol stiffens when he feels warm fingers gently pressing on the length of an ugly, jagged, slightly protruding line below his right collar bone. He supposes that’s what Yixing was looking at earlier, too. His brain just wasn’t awake enough to set off warning bells then.

“What’s this?”

Chanyeol purses his lips. “Bad break up,” he says simply.

Yixing pulls away from him to sit up on the bed. The covers pool around his waist, leaving well-toned arms, chest, and stomach exposed. All Chanyeol wants to do right now is ravage him again and mark kisses all over his smooth skin, but the look of grave concern in the man’s eyes tells him it’s probably not the right time for any of that.

“Chanyeol,” the weight of his tone is almost suffocating. “That’s a stab wound.”

Chanyeol freezes. He’s a doctor, his mind reminds him. What did you expect?

“A very bad break up?” He tries for a bit of humor. Yixing isn’t having any of it though, and he fixes Chanyeol with a look that tells him exactly that.

Chanyeol drops the grin, the entire act. He shuts his eyes for a moment.

“Did I ever mention that we started out as five? It wasn’t always just Baekhyun, Jongdae, and I.”

Yixing shakes his head slowly, drawing his knees up and resting his chin on top of them. Chanyeol turns to stare up at the ceiling.

“Back in university, it was me, Baekhyun, Jongdae, Junmyeon-hyung, and Yifan. Junmyeon-hyung went back here after graduation to start a business and help manage his family’s estate, while the rest of us stayed in Seoul to put up a studio there. Yifan and I began dating not long after.” He chances a glance at Yixing and sees the grooves forming on his brow, the hard set of his jaw. He’s listening intently, never taking his eyes away.

“My family disapproved, of course, but I stood by him anyway. We dated for almost three years. I thought maybe he could be it, you know?” Chanyeol takes a breath. “Then one day, Junmyeon-hyung came up to visit. He talked to me and told me that Yifan might be embezzling the studio’s money. He said Baekhyun and Jongdae had been suspicious for a while but didn’t know how to tell me. I punched him. Square in the face. One of my very best friends. Probably the nicest guy I know. Besides you, anyway.” He sends Yixing a wan smile.

He has to pause there, clutching at the sheets over his stomach to keep his hands from shaking. Yixing shifts closer, folding his legs under himself. He pries one of Chanyeol’s hands free and holds it over his own lap instead.

“Then one day, I saw it. I checked the records. All the evidence was there. I confronted him about it. Obviously he didn’t take it very well. Then again maybe I shouldn’t have done it while we were in the kitchen. The knife was just right there—”

Yixing grips his hand tighter. He probably doesn’t realize he’s doing it. “Please tell me he’s in jail,” he pleads, the simmering rage in his voice so palpable and atypical of him that it takes Chanyeol by surprise.

“He’s not. He fled the country right away, went back to Canada, I suppose. I probably wouldn’t have pressed charges either way. I don’t think I’d ever want to have to see him again.”

The anger in Yixing’s eyes abates somewhat. Something else takes its place, one that Chanyeol can’t quite name. The way Yixing looks at him tells him that he understands. He understands everything now. So Chanyeol doesn’t bother with the rehearsed grins and fake laughter. He doesn’t pretend that it doesn’t still hurt to think about it.

Yixing brings up his hand to his lips and tenderly kisses his knuckles before lying back down to curl into his arms.

“I’m so sorry, Chanyeol,” he says softly, nuzzling the side of his face.

Chanyeol turns to kiss his forehead. “It’s not your fault.”

The digital wall clock opposite the bed reads 10:30 AM. It’s still raining out so they’re probably stuck indoors for now—not that Chanyeol minds. They should probably be getting up for food, he thinks. Neither of them shows any interest in getting out of bed any time soon, though.

Yixing is so still that he thinks he’s probably gone back to sleep. But then he moves closer, just the slightest nudge, and Chanyeol feels his eyelashes flutter against his bare chest.

Yixing doesn’t say anything but he can sense the uneasiness radiating off him in droves.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says suddenly. Chanyeol’s breath catches in his throat. Somehow it feels like Yixing means to say more. He waits, but it doesn’t come. The words just hang there, hovering like a dark cloud.

“Yeah,” breathes Chanyeol. He swallows, keeps himself together. “How about we get something to eat then I’ll help you pack later?”

Yixing stiffens in his hold. He catches the hesitation—the disappointment, perhaps. But what else is he supposed to say?

The smaller man exhales and snakes an arm around Chanyeol’s waist, pulling his body closer like he’s cold and Chanyeol is the warmer one between the two of them.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

Neither of them make any move to get up for another half an hour. Nobody mentions the scar again, or the fact that Yixing is leaving.

It’s easy enough to agree on pizza and fried chicken, and so they order in instead of bothering to go out and brave the strong rains. Later, Yixing suggests trying to work on a song together, to jog his inspiration a little, he says, and Chanyeol can’t think of a reason why not.

Foreseeing long hours up in the loft, Chanyeol brings up his bass guitar and converts the sofa into a bed. He spreads out a fresh comforter on top of it so that they can sit or lie down comfortably whenever they want to. This turns out to be a terrible idea because they mostly end up doing other recreational activities that don’t exactly involve music composition. His sister is going to murder him for sure if they soil any part of the upholstery.

It takes several rounds of positively mind-blowing s before they’re finally able to keep their hands off each other for longer than five minutes. Yixing heads downstairs to shower while Chanyeol quickly replaces the quilt on the sofa with a clean one. He does a fast inspection of the mattress while he’s at it and heaves a relieved sigh when he finds it spotless.

Chanyeol finds that seven minutes is too long, though. He discards his clothes, throwing them in a corner of his room, then follows after Yixing in the shower.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do when you get back?” Chanyeol asks as he strums a random note on his guitar. Yixing’s hands still over the keyboard. He turns in the stool that he’s perched on and looks at Chanyeol with a calm smile on his face.

“I have, actually. I’m going to continue what I started,” he says. “I figured there’s so much beauty to see in this world, so much to experience. I’d like to be able to help people have a better chance at beating this disease so that they can enjoy that, too.”

And that, the conviction and passion in his eyes, is the reason why he can’t ask Yixing to stay. He has more important things to dedicate himself to right now. Chanyeol draws a breath. It’s not easy, but he manages a smile. A real one. Because he really is proud of the kind of person Yixing has become.

“That’s the spirit, Dr. Zhang,” he says, tossing Yixing’s own line back at him.

Yixing’s smile falters at the corners just a bit. He looks at Chanyeol like he’s the most precious thing he’s ever laid eyes on. And it’s funny, because that’s precisely what Chanyeol thinks of him, too. Yixing pushes the stool back and quickly strides to where Chanyeol is sitting on the sofa. He takes the musician’s face in his hands, bends at the waist to capture his lips in a sweet kiss.

It’s different, the way Chanyeol reciprocates this time. There’s no rush, no desperation. He slides the guitar off his lap and pulls Yixing in to take its place. It’s amazing how so much can be said in one kiss. He hears everything Yixing doesn’t say in the way he gently rakes his fingers through Chanyeol’s hair, the way he worships his mouth like he never wants forget how it feels.

Chanyeol’s fingers dig into the delicate bend of Yixing’s back, as if he wants to keep him under his skin if only he could. But then he knows that Yixing will be gone by daybreak. He knows that all they have is now, and he’s not going to waste it.

Chanyeol sleeps soundly that night, perhaps because he’s so worn out. He doesn’t see Yixing slip out of bed, doesn’t feel him leave a soft kiss on his hair.

It’s bright and sunny out when he does finally wake up. The first thing he registers is the absence of warmth beside him. He’s not even surprised. He takes a moment to reel his emotions in before pushing himself in a sitting position. Looking up, his gaze immediately lands on the keyboard where a yellow sticky note on top of several sheets of paper catches his eye. He blinks, heart thudding in his chest for some reason.

He crawls out of bed and takes the music sheets off the keys. He easily recognizes Yixing’s handwriting on the sticky note.

C,

To get you started. And maybe something to remember me by until we see each other again.

Thank you.

我爱你. ³

加油!! ⁴

-Y

Chanyeol doesn’t know a lot of Chinese characters, but this—this he understands. He scans the sheets under the note and finds words to half of a song, accompanied by guitar chords. He doesn’t know when Yixing even had the time to do this. And he has no idea how his heart can feel so full and so empty at the same time.

He in a painful breath, tilts his head back and pushes the heels of his hands down on closed eyes. All of a sudden it overwhelms him beyond words how much he misses Yixing already.

Until we see each other again, his note says. Chanyeol sniffs, shakes his head to try and get himself together.

“Okay,” he breathes out.

He knows that Yixing is never one to break his promises. Chanyeol stares down at the pieces of paper in his hands, and he smiles. God, his handwriting is still awful, he thinks with a quiet laugh.

“Okay, ge.”

“Pray tell,” Kyungsoo sets his cup of Americano down on the table. “Why exactly did you want to meet me here?”

In the background, Chanyeol can just make out Junmyeon’s jolly greeting as he serves another grumpy customer their morning coffee. His patience with non-morning people is astonishing.

“No special reason,” Chanyeol responds with a shrug. “I’m going back to Seoul in the afternoon. I just thought I’d invite you for coffee so that we can meet in daylight for once.”

Kyungsoo eyes him suspiciously. “Does your friend know about this?”

Chanyeol is fully aware that Kyungsoo has one rule and one rule only: he will not be the reason a committed relationship, or something well on its way there, crumbles to the ground. Chanyeol supposes that’s why he never called once after the three of them ran into each other at the shabu shabu restaurant. Chanyeol didn’t show up at his doorstep that night; Kyungsoo probably took that as cue that he’s found something more important than fooling around.

“Yixing-hyung went back to China the other day. He was just here for the festival.”

“Just here for the festival,” Kyungsoo scoffs. “Somehow I doubt that.”

Chanyeol leans back in his chair as he takes a sip of jasmine tea. He doesn’t even try to deny it.

“He has things he needs to accomplish back home. It’s probably going to take a couple of years.”

The other man frowns deeply, shoots him a dark look. “In the meantime, you go treating random guys to coffee in the morning,” Kyungsoo drawls through gritted teeth, voice ripe with indignant sarcasm.

Chanyeol bristles at the accusation.

“Wow, who hurt you?” he blurts, eyes wide with mock-outrage.

Kyungsoo’s sharp glare wavers for all of half a second before his stare drops to the black coffee on the table.

“I have a big problem with cheaters is all,” he admits in a low voice.

Chanyeol blinks as he lets that sink in for a second. That’s probably the first time Kyungsoo has ever let anything remotely personal slip.

“Well, so do I,” Chanyeol tells him matter-of-factly. “And I’m no cheater, okay. You hurt my feelings.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes roll at Chanyeol’s dramatic pout, but at least they’re not firing daggers at him now.

“I honestly don’t intend to fool around anymore, believe it or not,” he declares without humor in his tone. He’s dead serious about this and Kyungsoo can probably tell because all he does is snort. No evil looks or cutting remarks. This is progress, Chanyeol thinks.

“So can we be friends now?”

He’s not even surprised when Kyungsoo merely an eyebrow at him in response. Undaunted, Chanyeol grins a big, toothy grin, and finally, Kyungsoo heaves a long-suffering sigh.

“I don’t know what Yixing-sshi sees in you, to be very honest,” he deadpans with a shake of the head before lifting his coffee off the table.

Well, that’s not a ‘no’, Chanyeol reckons, and he beams even more.

“I think we’re gonna be great friends,” He goes on to assert, deliberately ignoring the withering look that Kyungsoo sends his way. “Hey, I know someone who might be perfect for you. He lives in Seoul, though. But he’s a great guy. Just as prickly and uptight as you are and he—”

“, no.”

I must be lucky or this must be my day
It’s the warmth of holding you till I’m infused by your scent
I think it’s something I can feel for myself
Could it get any better than this, I’m holding my breath
For a kiss

Unyielding motion that’s wrapped in a smile
But you seem so steady as I am burning inside
I feel the warmth as I have fallen too deep
Now I know that you know me though I’ve been told to believe
It’s just a kiss
For a kiss

Close your eyes and we can float away
All alone through this crowded place
Maybe you and I can find some time
Till forever or more
So baby move your lips
Come close I need this kiss
No time to fake I just can’t explain

The sweetest touch that I just can’t get enough
Could it get any better than this I’m holding my breath
For a kiss ²

“So?”

Baekhyun hums noncommittally from where he’s sitting on a revolving high stool by Chanyeol’s mini bar. He’s always complaining about how these things are ‘discriminatory to vertically challenged people,’ but everyone knows he secretly likes it because he can swing his legs back and forth while he’s perched on them.

Chanyeol’s eyes dart from Baekhyun to Jongdae who is comfortably reclined on the La-Z-Boy. The expression on his face is equally unreadable.

Chanyeol huffs impatiently. “Look, if you’re going to barge unannounced into a guy’s apartment at -o’clock and demand to hear his demo, which he specifically said was not ready yet, the least you ers can do is give a constructive opinion.”

“Alright, alright, calm down.” Baekhyun holds up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Truthfully,” He props his elbows on the countertop and rests his chin on folded hands. “It’s not awful.”

“Mhmm.” Jongdae nods, stretching his arms over his head.

“It’s... pretty amazing, actually.”

“Yup.” Jongdae snaps the La-Z-Boy back to its original state and leans forward, arms on his knees.

“But what we would like to know is—”

The two exchange a look before Jongdae wags his eyebrows and goes right for the kill.

“When do we meet him?”

Chanyeol’s expression morphs into a deep scowl when it dawns on him that he isn’t really being robbed of precious sleep because of ‘work emergency’, as Baekhyun had so theatrically put it.

“I should have known,” he grumbles under his breath as he folds down the MacBook Pro on the coffee table. He’s not very forgiving at 7 AM, especially after he’s just pulled an all-nighter to finish the song.

Baekhyun sniggers, spinning around on the stool once.

“You should have brought Yixing-sshi back with you! We need to thank him for yanking you out of your funk.”

Chanyeol sinks back into the couch with a heavy sigh.

“I would have loved that,” he says. “But, really, some things are worth waiting for.”

Chanyeol names the song ‘Kiss’ and makes sure to credit Yixing when the song is released as part of a popular duo’s second full-length record. The single takes the charts by storm and within weeks, it’s being played absolutely everywhere. His competing composition back in high school might not have gotten first place then, but this, right here, is more than good enough to make up for it.

He’s out with Baekhyun and Jongdae, celebrating an all-kill on the digital charts over dinner at a new restaurant in the Gangdong district, when he gets a phone call from a hospital in Gangnam. They tell him that Yura has been admitted for preterm labor symptoms. Panicked, he quickly gets up to leave, but his friends refuse to let him drive in that state.

Chanyeol fidgets in the passenger seat of Jongdae’s car while Baekhyun takes to spouting random things to try and pacify him from the back seat.

The second he’s dropped off at the entrance of the hospital, Chanyeol immediately runs to the reception. He might have slammed his hands on the desk a bit harder than intended, startling the nurses, but a lapse of proper manners is the least of his concerns right now.

“Hi,” he blows out, struggling to catch his breath. “I got a call. They said my sister has been admitted. I’m—”

“Chanyeol.”

He whips around at the call of his name and freezes on the spot when he sees Yixing standing there in the hallway. Yejun is curled up against his chest, sound asleep. He’d been so worried when he got the call that it didn’t occur to him to wonder why his sister is in Gangnam in the first place. And now this—

“Why are you—why is Yejun—what—” He draws in a breath to try to steady his nerves. He hates that he can’t seem to form a single coherent thought. He’d hate the -eating grin on Yixing’s face too if only he didn’t miss that face so much.

Yixing approaches him slowly, his expression bearing none of the shock that’s all over Chanyeol’s face.

“Your sister is fine. She’s sleeping now, though. She needs to rest. Come on.” He tilts his head to the right. Chanyeol follows him down to the exit door which apparently leads to the back garden. It’s practically deserted this time of the night. Yixing stops in front of one of the stone benches and gestures for Chanyeol to sit down.

“Here, let me.” He opens his arms to unburden Yixing of Yejun’s weight, but Yixing shakes his head.

“It’s okay. I don’t want to wake him. He’d been crying the whole way here.”

Instead of taking a seat, Chanyeol steps back until he’s leaning against a lamp post. The coldness of the steel bleeds through his shirt and spreads along the length of his spine.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, his tone a mix of awe and confusion and some hints of shock, still.

Yixing has the grace to look sheepish. “We were supposed to surprise you.”

Chanyeol chortles at that. “Well, you sure did!”

He might have raised his voice a little too much because Yejun begins to stir. The two adults gape at each other in quiet panic. Chanyeol holds his breath as Yixing lightly rocks the toddler while gently patting down his back in a soothing motion. Right away, Yejun calms.

Chanyeol blinks, amazed.

“You’re good at this,” he comments softly.

“I used to take a lot of babysitting jobs. I spent a bit of time at the pediatric ward, too, at one point,” Yixing says. His eyes are bright, a soft smile denting his cheeks, and Chanyeol’s heart stutters.

“I flew in the other day then I went straight to Jinhae,” Yixing tells him. “I knew you weren’t going to be there but I wanted to visit Yura noona and Yejun. Also, I didn’t have your address. Or your number.” Yixing sounds so exasperated with himself that Chanyeol couldn’t help but smile.

“Instead of just giving me your details, she decided to tag along. I tried to talk her against it, but she’s very stubborn.”

Chanyeol snorts. “Understatement of the century.”

Yixing laughs quietly as he continues to gently sway the sleeping toddler from side to side. Chanyeol takes a mental photograph of this moment, stores it deep in his memory for days when he needs something to make him smile.

“How is she doing?”

“She’s okay, but she might have to be restricted to bed rest for the next three weeks,” says the doctor. “I think your brother-in-law was supposed to come back from Japan in two days, but he’s taking the last flight tonight instead. Anything earlier is fully booked. Your mom’s flying in from New York, too.”

Chanyeol nods, and an overwhelming sense of gratitude and relief suddenly washes over him.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. He touches Yejun’s curled arm with a light hand, careful not to rouse him. “Thank you for taking care of them.”

“Well, I am a doctor,” Yixing says, smiling. “It’s my job. But more than that, they’re your family, so—”

He worries his lower lip bashfully; a dusting of color blooms on his cheeks. It’s terribly adorable. Chanyeol wants to kiss him so badly, but he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.

“Congratulations on the song, by the way. I heard it was a hit.”

“Yeah. Thanks for getting it started,” Chanyeol grins. “And congratulations on your contribution to the music scene. Ten years late, but hey, better late than never.”

Yixing struggles not to be so loud when he laughs. “I know. That took long enough.”

He bites down on his lower lip and Chanyeol really wishes he’d stop doing that.

“I have one problem, though.” Yixing looks nervous for some reason. Somehow a bit of it rubs off on Chanyeol.

“What?”

Chanyeol sees the doctor’s adam’s apple bob as he swallows. And then he takes a deep breath—

“I’m starting my fellowship here next week, and this is all so sudden because I didn’t think I’d get in, and I didn’t get the chance to look for a place to stay before coming, so I was wondering if you happen to know a place that I can rent?” Yixing rambles in a single breath.

Chanyeol’s head is swimming. He’s not sure he’s getting any of this right.

“Did you just say,” he starts taking slow steps forward and he doesn’t even realize it. “You’re taking your fellowship... here?”

Yixing’s lips twitch at the corners. “Yes.”

“Here—as in, in Seoul?”

“That’s right.” Yixing is biting his bottom lip again, perhaps to keep his grin from splitting his face in half.

Chanyeol stares at the doctor, unblinking. He must look really ridiculous, though, because Yixing is laughing now—still subdued, because he doesn’t want to startle Yejun. But nothing stops him from stepping closer and tugging Chanyeol down by a fistful of his shirt. It’s a chaste kiss, a quick brush of lips, but it’s enough to make Chanyeol wonder how it’s possible to fall in love with the same person over and over again.

Yixing is giggling like a kid when he pulls away. Chanyeol is, too. High school all over again, but much better, he thinks as he tries to keep his heart from bursting out of his chest.

“My bed can fit a second person, but I don’t know if you can afford the rent,” Chanyeol teases as his arms snake around the doctor’s waist. He takes care not to squish Yejun as his hands slowly skim the curve of Yixing’s back.

“I can cook,” Yixing offers eagerly, to which Chanyeol responds with a noncommittal hum.

“Try again.”

Yixing squints, his lips suggestively. “ in exchange for bed space. How about it?”

“Zhang Yixing,” Chanyeol fake-gasps. “There is a child in your arms.”

Yixing an eyebrow at him. “So you don’t want it?”

“I didn’t say that,” he mumbles, deflating like a chastised puppy as the pads of his fingers trace the faint outline of Yixing’s spine through his shirt. Still so warm, he thinks. He’s missed this so much.

“Are you really staying?” Chanyeol asks softly. “I was fully prepared to wait much longer, you know. I still am.”

Yixing reaches up to lightly tug at the outer shell of his ear. Chanyeol smiles because he’s really missed that, too.

“No more waiting,” he tells him, solemnly. He lets his hand slide down Chanyeol’s shoulder until it rests just above his rapidly beating heart. “But I’m really not kidding about needing a place to stay,” he says in a voice that’s bordering on whiny and Chanyeol’s shoulders shake with muted laughter.

“Fine, you can stay with me,” he concedes. He drops a quick kiss on Yixing’s mouth. “Stay forever.”

Yixing hooks an arm around his neck, chasing his lips again before he can straighten to full height.

And then he whispers against Chanyeol’s smile.

“Okay.”

fin.

__________

¹ The Sun Ain’t Shining No More – TC & The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
² Kiss – TC & Sam Kang
³ “I love you”
⁴ “Jiāyoú” / “Keep going!”