Kyungsoo's eyes were itchy. He pressed them together for just a second, and considered taking a break and splash some more water into his face. Later. Just one more sleeve.

A tiny part of his brain tried to add up the hours of sleep he'd had this week, just to find out how many he'd had on average per night. But even that was too much work for his muddy brain, and the fact that he was blasting loud, goofy J-pop through his headphones wasn't helping.
 

Now this sounded like a disastrous 3 AM-kind of state, but the reality was that it was only 3 PM. But what could he say? He'd been aggressively working on his collection for weeks - alright, only two weeks, but two weeks with barely any sleep felt like forever.

There was nothing glamorous about it, either - it was him, looking like in the empty sewing room at university, a half-finished, luke-warm instant espresso on the desk to his right, accompanied by an empty package of cookies he shouldn't have eaten just for the sake of eating; he tended to feel queasy on little sleep and his stomach was currently getting a quite spectacular revenge on him by doing astonishing things that felt like backflips. He missed Luhan, and even Baekhyun would be nice company. Working alone was nice, but two weeks. He needed friends. Friends who had as much miserable work as he had.

His phone had been giving him notifications for the past ten minutes, but there was no time for that when a slightly ruffled sleeve had to be seamlessly fitted into the curved armhole, all notches meeting each other and definitely being on the right side. Right sleeve, right armhole, he checked for the third time. Good.
 

He flinched when his phone started vibrating in his lap, and angrily rejected the call without looking. Luckily, he hadn't caused a wrinkle and could peacefully finalize the seam. His foot moved without thinking - pressure on the heel, pushing the pedal down with a clank to activate the scissors, and then the ominous piece of fabric was free. With a sigh, he threw it on his lap to grab his phone. A few clicks turned the volume of the music down. An innumerable number of messages in the Beagle group chat, and one missed call. Chanyeol.

Huh. Kyungsoo had promised to pay him a visit this evening - if he still called beforehand, that most likely meant one thing: he wanted to cancel their hang out, presumably because of work. Now Kyungsoo was the last one who had a right to complain, with him being the most unattractive workaholic possible at the moment. Still, because he was so tired, this was taking its toll on him, made him pouty and unhappy.

But I really wanted to see you today, he thought.
 

It was a fleeting, selfish thought Kyungsoo shook off before calling him back to find out. It rang a couple times before Chanyeol's voice crackled into his ear.
 

"Soo?"

"Yeah, hi," he replied as enthusiastic and awake as he could possibly make himself to be. "You alright?"

To his surprise, there was no immediate answer. Kyungsoo blinked tiredly, looked at his phone screen, and then lifted it back to his ear. The connection was still there, and a tiny, steady static sound told him that Chanyeol was just not talking. Strange.

"Chanyeol? Are you still there?"

"Can you..." Chanyeol began, sounding quiet and hesitant. "Can you come over, maybe?"

"Huh? I was gonna come later, anyway," Kyungsoo replied without thinking, his sleepy brain unable to keep up with where this was going.

"I mean. I mean now. If you can, that is."

Now this was worrying, and Kyungsoo shook the remnants of sleep off.

"What happened?" he asked, clearly alarmed.

"Nothing much," was the simple reply, and everything about it was wrong. Kyungsoo was already stuffing fabric into his bag, and stray candy wrappers into the empty cookie box.

"Okay, I'll come around soon. Gimme twenty minutes."

"Okay."

Kyungsoo's fingers slipped and he pricked himself with the tiny screwdriver necessary to loosen his own needle and needle foot. What happened? Did someone have an accident? Him? Sohee? But no, then he wouldn't ask him to visit him at home. It was definitely not a prank, because Chanyeol didn't do potentially harmful pranks. He'd never heard him like this…
 

Less than ten minutes later, he closed the door behind him, heavy bag slung over his shoulder.

Kyungsoo was slightly out of breath when he reached Chanyeol's apartment, and if he was a drama hero, he'd be too impatient for the elevator and run up the stairs - but Kyungsoo was Kyungsoo, a guy who was out of breath from merely getting here, who felt his bag cut into his right shoulder and who hadn't slept in a long time. He'd probably collapse from dizziness after two flights of stairs. So he waited for the elevator (impatiently, that much he could contribute), and anxiously rang the bell shortly after.

When Chanyeol opened the door, the first thing he noticed was how ruffled and messy he looked. That wasn't completely new, really, but usually he wore a certain happiness like others wore makeup. Today, though, he could only give him a half-hearted smile.

"Hey."

"Hey," Kyungsoo replied warily, pushing himself inside to get rid of his shoes and jacket. Chanyeol just hovered in the doorway beside him.

"Where's Sohee?" he began, starting with a hopefully safe question.

"Staying over at Kyung's place," Chanyeol murmured. Kyungsoo sighed. At least Sohee was alright.

"Okay, then... what happened?" he asked again, looking at his boyfriend in worry. Chanyeol looked tired and more empty than Kyungsoo himself felt.

"I got a letter," he murmured, and Kyungsoo followed him to the living room, casually placing his bag down next to the table, where an opened letter lay on obvious display. Kyungsoo reached for it, threw Chanyeol a last, questioning look over his shoulder, and then began to read when he received an okay.

Eviction without notice.

His eyes widened as he skimmed the following lines. Eviction. Two weeks to clear the apartment.

Chanyeol was being thrown out of his apartment.
 

He turned around in disbelief, lowering the paper.
 

"What the ?" was his first, admittedly elaborate reaction. "They can't just throw you out, can they? What about the period of notice? Three months or something?"

Chanyeol bit his lip and avoided eye contact.

"They can," he quietly said, though his voice grew in volume and the syllables tumbled out quicker as he went. "As soon as I owe them two rents, they can kick me out. And. I've been owing the old landlord a rent forever, and she didn't mind, but this new housing corporation apparently waited for their chance to get rid of me - they waited exactly a week of me being late before sending me this - Kyungsoo, I'm being kicked out. What am I gonna do?" he ended in a whisper, looking at Kyungsoo with shimmering eyes.

"I'm being kicked out, and what about Sohee? I can't find another apartment in two weeks and I have no money to move, and what about all the that's left in this apartment?"

He wasn't angry or hysteric - just small, and... broken. Devastated. He had never seen Chanyeol look so small, and it broke his heart.

"They're kicking me out, just because I'm a useless part timer they don't want in their shabby apartment complex," Chanyeol rambled, blinking harshly. "I'm just a stupid name on paper to them, but this is my life, and they didn't even give me a chance to fix this. Two weeks, Soo. Where am I gonna go? I don't wanna move in with some friends, and the furniture-"

"Keep calm, Yeol," Kyungsoo tried, taking a step towards him, but Chanyeol shook his head, drawing his shoulders up defensively.

"I never wanted to rely on others, I always tried my very best to do this on my own," he muttered, in a shaky breath. "I worked like crazy, I was always good to Sohee, didn't ask for much, but somehow, that's not enough anymore? What else am I supposed to do, other than try hard? Why can this possibly not be enough? What more am I supposed to give?"
 

Kyungsoo wanted to say something, anything to comfort him, but he was temporarily stunned. Some s had decided to kick this hardworking young man and his little sister out, and it was just not fair. They had dared to make Chanyeol cry. Park Chanyeol, of all people.
 

"No one will want to rent me anything with my financial situation, but I can't really improve or start a career because of my financial situation - what do they expect me to do?" Chanyeol asked, and the first tear rolled down his cheek, only to be frantically smeared across his skin. "I just don't know anymore, Kyungsoo - I realize that I'm kind of a failure at life, but even losers like me deserve a ing roof over their head, right?" he asked, and his voice broke pathetically.

Seeing this was too much, and without much thinking, Kyungsoo let go of the incriminating piece of paper to firmly place both his hands on Chanyeol's upper arms, prompting him to look at him.

"This is not the end of the world, Yeol," he announced firmly, trying to look into Chanyeol's watery eyes without letting it affect him.

"You never want to burden anyone and I get that. But you called for me, and I'm here now, and I will help you. Because I want to. We'll figure this out."

Chanyeol looked doubtful and sniffed in a vain attempt at being subtle.

"But how?"

Kyungsoo reached up to let his hand glide through Chanyeol's messy hair, aiming to calm him.

"I moved plenty of times, it's not as big of a deal as you think it is," he said calmly, rubbing at the tracks his tears had left on his burning cheek. "Life keeps throwing stones in your way, right? This is just another one, and maybe it's the biggest one yet, but you haven't come this far for nothing - you're better than those whimpy people who fall on their face and just keep lying there. I've always admired how much of a fighter you are, and I'm sure you can overcome this as well. We just gotta find a new apartment, and that's already half the work."

"I've- I've never actually hunted for apartments before-"

"That's where I come in. I've done it plenty of times. Let's get my laptop and start looking right away," Kyungsoo announced, and reached for the laptop in his bag. Chanyeol just stood there, still silently sniffing, a few tears still silently rolling down, but at least he wasn't spiralling deeper into despair for now. Kyungsoo would have liked to tell him to just get a good rest, but two weeks was a short period of time, and neither of them had much time on their hands at the moment. Also working on something was the best form of distraction.

He sat down on the couch with Chanyeol clinging to his left side, the laptop propped up on his lap. With ease, he called up three of the go-to sites for apartment searches, filling in some basic search criteria.

"This apartment was pretty big, anyway, right? You can probably settle for a smaller one, don't you?" he asked calmly, and Chanyeol hummed. Kyungsoo entered preferences (or rather a lack thereof) and set the preferred location. A couple questions later, the search engine was running and giving them multiple pages of results. Kyungsoo skimmed them, opening possible apartments in a new tab.

"An important thing to look out for is the deposit they're asking for. If it's more than 150% of a monthly rent, I'm assuming we should forget about it," he said, more to himself than anything, for Chanyeol was still busy staring at the screen, looking puffy and exhausted. Kyungsoo didn't mind. Chanyeol was listening, he knew it. He was also reading along, though what he saw seemed a bit overwhelming.

"You'll probably have to tell your boss that you're gonna need some off time next week, for inspection meetings and the likes, but if you got an apartment, the rest will be a piece of cake."

"What if I won't find one?" Chanyeol asked quietly, and Kyungsoo used his free, left hand to grasp Chanyeol's arm, giving him an encouraging squeeze.

"Even if you won't, you'll just put all your stuff in someone's basement and have one or two sleepovers til you do. Some apartments can only be moved into at the first of a month, that's why I'm saying this. I'm convinced we'll find one, though. Look at how many there are. They can't all ."

A lot of them were out of question, for various reasons, but that was life, and there were enough offers to scroll through.

"And the moving part won't be expensive either, cause you got that van of your company. Driving once or twice should be enough. The furniture you won't need... you can either sell it for a low price, give it away, or, if you're lucky, leave it in here for the next tenant. That way, you can even earn a bit of money."

Chanyeol hummed, scanning the misleading titles of various offers with glazed eyes.

"You'll need boxes, sure, but Chen and I have kept ours - you can use them, no problem," Kyungsoo said. He just kept talking, hoping that it would lift a bit of the pressure on Chanyeol's shoulders.

"We gotta ask Sohee what kind of room she'd like to have - you never know, maybe we can get her into the idea of her very own, adult furniture-free room. It might be good for her, too."

Chanyeol hummed again, snuggling a bit closer and silently tapping over a certain offer at the bottom of the page. Kyungsoo opened it without questioning it.

"I know you didn't want to abandon this apartment, but I don't think it has anything to do with you losing to anyone. Maybe it's just time to move forwards. Also I don't think you're a loser either. Look at you somehow working, caring for your sister and having hobbies - you're worth much more to me than whoever has a well-paid job, no worries and is unable to take responsibilities. Hey, this one looks good, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Chanyeol said, voice still rough, but cheeks all dried up.

"Good location, average additional costs- ah, 300% deposit. Never mind. What even," Kyungsoo said, closing the tab with a nonchalant attitude.

The following two hours they spent browsing offers, writing down numbers and bookmarking pages. After a while, Chanyeol began to ask questions, asked which numbers to look out for, which prices were considered average and which weren't. After an hour, he got up to get them something to drink, which Kyungsoo highly encouraged, for Chanyeol's own sake.
 

After narrowing down the offers, Kyungsoo took the other's phone and started calling them, asking for possible inspection dates whenever someone answered the phone. Chanyeol did two calls himself, and it was admirable and a little frightening how easily he feigned an extroverted, bubbly attitude with his reddened eyes and strained smile.
 

When Kyungsoo put the phone down awhile later, they had five appointments and numbers scribbled on a piece of paper, and it was half past six. He aimlessly flipped through the sea of opened tabs as Chanyeol all but plunged back into his side.

"Can it really be this easy?" he asked aloud, somehow managing to sound both tired and astonished. Kyungsoo smiled.

"As you can see... yeah. Why not. You'll just laugh at this in a few months, I'm sure."

"I'm laughing already, I think. I mean. This just happened," Chanyeol said, actually giggling. He'd only ever seen giggly Chanyeol when the other was really, really tired.

"I was just kicked out and you swooped in and handled it all for me. And you made it look so easy, too."

"It's nothing," Kyungsoo gently protested, placing the laptop on the table in front of them. "I'll always help you out. You just gotta gimme a call and I'll be right there."

For a moment, Chanyeol looked like he was about to cry again, looking incredibly touched and emotional, and it was infecting Kyungsoo.

"Okay," he whispered instead, hugging Kyungsoo's arm like a koala.
Kyungsoo knew by now that being dependant on anyone was Chanyeol’s biggest nightmare - the reason why he always insisted on doing everything alone, not accepting help and not opening up about his trouble. Now that he had opened up, Kyungsoo was determined not to disappoint him.
 

"I'll tag along for the inspection appointments, and maybe we can get Baekhyun, too. He's good at giving people hell and bargaining, and then we'll see who has time the day you move. We'll definitely all help you out carrying the boxes and stuff-"

"Kyungsoo," Chanyeol said, and the other shut up, shooting him a questioning look. Chanyeol, who had been looking up at him, was now straightening himself up to cup Kyungsoo's face, much to his surprise. In a slow, deliberate movement Chanyeol leaned in for a kiss. Slightly open-mouthed but chaste - just soft lips pressing against his before slowly inching away again. So slow that Kyungsoo felt the friction, could pinpoint the exact split second when the touch was broken entirely, could hear the deep whisper tickling his lips.
 

"I love you."
 

A warm, fluttery and overwhelming feeling washed over him, and Kyungsoo felt small, vulnerable, powerful and complete, all in one. He reached up to cup Chanyeol's face, too, to feel the skin that was just as warm as his, dusty pink complementing shining eyes.
Kyungsoo smiled.
 

"I love you, too."
 

He kissed him, just as soft as the previous one had been. And again and again - lasting, warm, sealing kisses, warm fingers buried in his neck, playing with the hair of his nape, thumbs rubbing over cheeks and smiles creeping in between their kisses.
 

Dizzying, upright positions and artificial light were soon exchanged for the comfort of Chanyeol's bed, and unwilling to separate, they fell asleep in each other's arms, both dragged down by exhaustion and coaxed to sleep by warmth, security and contentment.

Wohoo, this story is not dead! I’ve been swamped lately, and I was considering a double update again, but then I thought… let’s not make anyone wait even longer!
(Is anyone even still here? *cue a call into the void*)
(I’m really sorry for the late update)
 

And it’s so serious, too… either way, all the love from me!
Sugar-and-Salt

P.S.: If you wanna yell at me for being late or wanna find a couple like-minded people, feel free to check out this chatroom I’m modding for - it’s for exo fic readers/writers/betas/designers! Don’t be shy, have a look: click me :D

P.P.S.: this whole thing is based on German law, apartment-hunting and my own experiences. People who know me, know that I got personal experience regarding evictions without notice *haha…*