For whatever reason, fate did not want Baekhyun and Chanyeol to be together. Chanyeol was no more able to come home as Baekhyun was able to fly to the United States with a broken leg. Chanyeol tried to let Baekhyun down gently, promising, “As soon as the North American tour is over, I will be on the next flight home.”

That would be proven to be an empty promise though when their manager added stops in Atlanta and Toronto for the boys to perform, extending their tour another two weeks. Luhan was throwing a fit about having to be away from Sehun for another two weeks, especially since he had been released from the hospital in their absence. As tempted as Baekhyun was to take a red eye to Dallas, he promised Luhan that he would look after Sehun. Baekhyun wasn’t going to break his promise, even if it meant not getting to see Chanyeol.

All of the members still kept in touch regularly. Chanyeol and Baekhyun texted all day long – Even when Chanyeol was at a fan meet, he still tried to casually text Baekhyun from under the table. He jumped back, blushing, when his phone accidently beeped, amplified by his microphone. He apologized and quickly read the message before looking up at the EXO-Ls, “That was Baekhyun,” he announced excitingly, “he said he’s getting his cast removed tomorrow!” All of the fans in the audience cheered and flooded Baekhyun’s Instagram with congratulatory messages.

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Since Baekhyun and Luhan were confined to the dorm, they immersed themselves in the world of “fangirling” by following EXO’s activities on popular social networking sites. Fans were such enablers! To thank the fans for being so involved and making all of this information so readily available to them, Baekhyun started shamelessly flirting with Chanyeol on Instagram, making the fans go wild. So many messages flooded the internet about “ChanBaek” being back after a four year slump. Chanyeol did not like being labeled as “ChanBaek” anymore because “ChanBaek” was a bromance and Baekhyun and himself were well past that stage now – they were the real deal.

Chanyeol couldn’t help himself when he teasingly posted onto his Instagram:

A few minutes later, Chanyeol got a notification from Instagram and grinned as he read:

Chanyeol commented back:

Baekhyun replied:

Within the hour, #BaekYeol was trending at number 1 in South Korea on Twitter. But Baekhyun and Chanyeol were just getting started…

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Location: EXO Dorm
Time: 5 days later

Baekhyun hobbled into the common area with his laptop under his arm. Sehun was sprawled out on the couch running through the television channels. He looked up as Baekhyun entered and frowned, “you need to sit down with that leg sir.” Baekhyun rolled his eyes, plopping down on the couch next to Sehun, “happy?” he said mockingly, “Chanyeol’s not here, you don’t have to baby me mom.” “Hmm..speaking of Chanyeol, the two of you seem to be pretty close again…anything you want to share?” Sehun asked with a wide smirk on his face. Baekhyun’s eyes narrowed, blushing, “No.” Sehun chuckled, grabbing Baekhyun’s laptop and setting it between them.

“Has the performance been uploaded yet?” Sehun asked. “Yea, SM posted it on their YouTube page,” Baekhyun replied. He couldn’t wait to see his friends – he couldn’t wait to see Chanyeol. His heart was beating so fast in anticipation; he couldn’t wait to see Chanyeol’s face again in HD. Sehun pressed play as they both settled back onto the couch to watch.

“Get ready EXO-Ls because here with us is none other than EXO!” the announcer said as the audience went wild. The music started to play and Baekhyun looked at each of the members’ outfits. Suho was dressed as a taxi driver, Luhan was dressed as a mechanic, Kai was dressed as a F1 racer, and oh god…Chanyeol…there he was in his chef outfit…he looked… Baekhyun felt something tighten low in his stomach as he threw his hand onto his lap, trying to keep himself in check.

“You’re drooling,” Sehun said, snickering. Baekhyun blushed and looked away, “Am not!” he protested, trying to sound offended. Sehun paused the video and touched Baekhyun’s arm, “its okay,” he said softly, “I know you like him. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You don’t have to pretend with me.” “Of course I like Chanyeol as a friend Sehun, we’re group members,” Baekhyun shot back, his heart racing.

Sehun rolled his eyes, “Baek, stop.” “What?” “I know you’ve liked Chanyeol for like the past five years.” Baekhyun looked at him with wide eyes, “No…?” he stuttered. “Don’t even try to deny it. I can even tell you exactly when you realized it,” Sehun said confidently, “it was the night you two got into that big fuss over him mothering you.” Baekhyun sat in silence, unable to gather his thoughts, “How…?” “Have you seen the way the two of you look at each other?” Sehun said with a raise eyebrow.

“I…” he started. “I’m not going to force you to talk about it but I’m here if you want to. I can kind of relate to the topic you know…” Sehun said with a smile. Baekhyun held his blushing cheeks in his hands and nodded, “oh, right.” Sehun bit his lip in hesitation, “can I ask you something? You can tell me to shut up if you don’t want to tal-” “Just ask Sehun,” Baekhyun interrupted with a sigh.

“You and Chanyeol…you didn’t talk for like four years…what happened?” “What do you think happened?” Baekhyun said mockingly. “I think you told Chanyeol you had feelings for him and he rejected you for reasons I will never understand.” “Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened.” “So..why did he turn you down? I thought he liked you back?” Sehun asked, confused.

Baekhyun shrugged, “He didn’t think that I was serious about him.” “What?” Sehun scrunched his face. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” Baekhyun nodded, “but to be fair, we weren’t really ready to move into our serious relationship at the time.” Sehun didn’t miss the tense and slowly widened his eyes, “our,” he checked, “as in you’re together now?” he questioned, trying to contain his excitement.

“Well…we haven’t even kissed yet so I’m not sure,” Baekhyun said disappointingly. “Not even once?” Sehun asked in surprise. “No,” Baekhyun said lowering his head, “it was all Xiumin’s fault.” “How was Xiumin responsible for you and Chanyeol never kissing each other?” “He would always interrupt us!” Sehun started to giggle, “Oh my god, wait, so were you the one who tried to sell his boxers?” Baekhyun looked back up at Sehun with the widest grin and Sehun burst out laughing, almost peeing himself.

“He deserved it,” Baekhyun said, pouting his lips. “So when did you two get together? Was it recent? Is that what all that shameless flirting on Instagram was about?!” Baekhyun held his hands up, “whoa! What’s with the fifty questions? Do you really want to talk about this Sehun?”

“Hell yes! I’ve been waiting for this day for five years! Give me the dirty details!” Sehun said with a wide smile, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. Baekhyun sighed, “Okay, so the morning after the accident, Chanyeol was there when I woke up and he tried to kiss me but I stopped him.” Sehun frowned, “Why on earth would you do that?” Baekhyun shrugged, “I was in so much pain, connected to monitors and IVs, and I didn’t want our first kiss to be like that. I want it to be special.”

“And you haven’t seen him since?” Sehun asked. “No,” Baekhyun shook his head, “it’s like the world wants us to be apart.” “But you’ve at least talked to him right?” “Sort of,” Baekhyun replied, “I called him super early in the morning and we kind of talked then. He admitted that he had feelings for me but that he was scared. We want to be together – desperately – but we just can’t right now.” Baekhyun sighed heavily, “I just…I want to see him so bad Sehun. I miss him more than anything and I… I just want to see him.”

Sehun slowly grinned as if he had a scheme up his sleeve, “You will, I promise.”

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Location: New York, New York, United States
Time: Saturday at 8:12 am

Chanyeol awoke to a loud banging on his hotel room door. Groaning, he rolled out of bed and staggered towards it. “Chanyeol!” Kai yelled through the door. “Just a minute,” he grumbled. He fumbled with the locks and opened the door, “What do you want Kai?”

“It’s Suho – he’s missing.”

“What?” Chanyeol said in disbelief. “Suho – is – missing” Kai said slowly. “What do you mean missing? He’s probably passed out on a floor somewhere from drinking too much.” “Chanyeol,” Kai said sternly, “you know good and well that’s not true.”

Suho never missed curfew – he set the parameters himself. If a member went somewhere it was used as a safety net to ensure they weren’t in trouble. Usually Kai was the one who missed curfew – always passed out somewhere and Suho chewed him out regularly for it.

“Have you tried calling him?” Chanyeol asked. “Yes,” Kai nodded, “multiple times – it went straight to voicemail.” Chanyeol frowned, “that’s not like him – he has a habit of not answering but he never shuts his phone off.”

“Something is wrong,” Kai said with a concerned tone. “Please tell me this is a joke. I really can’t handle any more things going wrong right now.” “I’m not kidding Chanyeol. I last saw him last night at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company talking to that girl. I asked if he wanted me to wait for him and he told me to come back to the hotel without him.”

“What girl,” Chanyeol asked sharply. “Suho was talking to some girl…I don’t know her name but she looked familiar.” “What were they talking about?” “I’m not sure,” Kai frowned, trying to think about the conversation between Suho and the mystery girl, “he definitely wasn’t flirting with her. He almost seemed…angry with her.” Chanyeol crossed his arms over his chest, “Maybe he was telling a fan to go away.” “No, I don’t think that was it. He kept touching her arm and stuff. He definitely knew her personally.” “Okay,” Chanyeol sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Have you looked at the popular social networking sites? Maybe someone has seen him and posted about it.” “Yeah, I checked right before I came over here – nothing.”

“Damn,” Chanyeol swore, “alright let’s not panic, okay? Suho is an adult; he can take care of himself.” “Should we tell hyung Seunghwan?” “No, let’s try to find him on our own first. Maybe he got lost or something and is out roaming the streets. Let’s go look for him.” Chanyeol quickly threw on some jeans and a t-shirt before they headed outside. “Keep trying to call him too. Ugh, I hope he hasn’t done something stupid.”

“Stupid? Like what?” Kai asked, “Like have drunk ,” Chanyeol replied quickly. “But Suho is dating Jiyeon,” Kai said innocently.

“I know,” Chanyeol said, “and she doesn’t deserve to be cheated on.”