Yifan keeps a illusive box of memories in his head, tucked away into the furthest corners of his mind and out of harm’s way; and such memories he would only take out when the whispers in his head transform into deafening screams and the world begins to spin too quickly for his weary soul to catch up with. Each memory holds a specific significance to him (hence their longevity). Each one bearing equal value but different meanings.

The first memory he keeps stashed in this box is that of his mother’s, or rather, the feeling of her arms wrapped around him in a tight embrace, both figures standing in the bitterly cold airport, just minutes before he boards the plane heading for South Korea. The second and third are, too, of his mother in various times of his life when he had truly realize just how much she meant to him, how much she loved him, and how that love had become the light that offered him warmth and guidance when Yifan foolishly strayed into the deep darkness.

The fourth memory was not of his mother, but rather that of a certain narrow-shouldered male with owl-like eyes and a pair of heart-shaped lips that resemble petals of the roses that Yifan’s mother often grew in their garden back at home. 

When Yifan first met Kyungsoo, he was unsure of how to approach the latter. In fact, he had secretly hoped that Kyungsoo would be the one to approach him first so he would no longer be burdened with the task of putting whatever little social skills he had to work and at the very least, attempt to have a conversation with the man. The thing is, though, Kyungsoo never showed even the smallest hint of interest to talk to Yifan, having been permanently glued to a certain Kim Jongin.

Naturally, Yifan felt.. insecure. Insecure, because what if he wasn’t making a good impression on Kyungsoo? What if the fans suspect that Yifan might not be such a good after all, because he doesn’t socialize with all the members of their group? And worse, what if Kyungsoo thinks Yifan hates him?

These what-ifs and possible scenarios makes Yifan’s chest feel a little tight than they should be, makes his head throb with an unmistakable dizziness. He ignores them, of course, but the worry, the insecurity, the indubitable feelings of apprehension are still there, and if he doesn’t do something about it soon, they’re bound to stay.

Surrpisingly, Yifan and Kyungsoo’s first real conversation occurred not too long after he realized that his silly anxiety was rapidly consuming him.

Although he would never have expected it to take place here. 

Thinking that the bathroom was vacant and lacking an occupier, Yifan enters the room with a towel swung across his shoulder and his torso stripped of the sweat-stained shirt he wore during dance practice earlier.

Yifan feels his soles press against the cold tile floor of their shared bathroom, but what he had not expected was that of his skin pressing against someone else’s.

Someone with pale skin, still soaking wet from a shower.

“Hyung!” a familiar voice yelps.

And at that very moment, Yifan swears he could hear a panic alarm set off somewhere inside his brain.

“K-Kyungsoo,” he stammers, eyes locking on the sight of Do Kyungsoo with his raven black hair drenched wet and beads of water trailing down his skin. “I’m sorry, I thought there wasn’t anyone here, and I’m—“

“It’s fine, hyung,” Kyungsoo speaks in the calmest of tones, as if he’s not aware of the fact that their half- bodies are standing in uncomfortably close proximities right now. “It’s my fault I forgot to lock the door.”

Yifan manages to pull a small, shy smile, although it appears a little more strained than sincere. An awkward smile cuts their conversation short, but that’s only because Yifan is far too busy observing the shorter male, taking in the very sight of Do Kyungsoo.

Really, how could he have never noticed how ridiculously cute Kyungsoo was? He’s small, much smaller than Yifan (but really, who isn’t smaller than him nowadays?), with a pair of narrow shoulders and milky white skin that set as a canvas for the dark moles scattered all around the surface.

And then Kyungsoo just.. disappears. Very abruptly.

After noticing that Yifan’s eyes had been wondering around, Kyungsoo’s cheeks flushed a violent shade of red, causing him to speed out of the bathroom out of great embarrassment and disappear in a flash. Yifan makes a mental note in his head to control where his eyes are looking.

Lesson of the day: don’t stare at someone who just stepped out of the shower, especially if that person is the guy you’ve been trying to befriend with for the past few weeks.

The second time wasn’t as bad. Okay, it was slightly better, but the unbearable awkwardness from their previous encounter still hung in the air, jamming the words Yifan had wanted to say in the back of his throat where he would later struggle to get them out. Kyungsoo was cooking dinner in the kitchen, hands travelling from the cutting board on the kitchen counter, to the metallic pots and pans on the stove, and to the refrigerator left wide open. When Yifan enters the kitchen, Kyungsoo doesn’t even acknowledge his presence.

Yifan concludes that Kyungsoo really loves cooking. Maybe too much.

And then out of the blue, the refrigerator makes these really shrill beeping noises that makes Kyungsoo drop the knife in his hand.

“,” Yifan hears Kyungsoo mutter in his breath as he holds up his finger to blow on the small gash.

“Be careful next time, Soo,” Yifan picks up the dropped knife on the ground, placing it carefully next to his cutting board.

Feeling the taller male’s eyes on him, Kyungsoo turns his head to look at the leader whilst trying to stop the drops of blood from staining the floor. “Oh, thank you,” says Kyungsoo. Yifan is thoroughly pleased to be greeted with the sight of his reddening cheeks once again.

“Don’t worry about it. What are you making?”

Kyungsoo is wordless for a few seconds, before lifting his gaze to look at the latter to say with the most deadpan expression possible, “It’s a surprise.”

Yifan barely remembers the remainder of that night and as he’s silently munching down on his dinner, his thoughts remain affixed on Kyungsoo. He imagines just how strange he must have looked; chomping down on his food with not a single word leaving his mouth because he’s too engrossed in coming up with strategies and tactics on how to let Kyungsoo open himself up to him.

He figures that the main reason why he and Kyungsoo aren’t able to get along well is because of the vast disparities between the two. Wu Yifan and Do Kyungsoo simply lived in two different worlds, despite being the same group. Kyungsoo loves cooking, but Yifan likes eating. Kyungsoo loves singing, but Yifan prefers to rap. Kyungsoo likes jazz music, whereas Yifan favoured rock music more.

And this is what he tells Yixing later that night, when it’s just the two of them in the room and Yifan is desperately seeking for a third party’s opinion.

“Your worlds are a lot closer than you think,” Yixing says, after having listened to intently to Yifan’s three-minute monologue of the troubles that has invaded his mind’s peace the past few days.

But Yixing’s words only inflict more confusion and Yifan is looking at him with knotted eyebrows and a noticeable frown settling on his lips.

“I don’t understand.”

Yixing releases a soft chuckle out of his mouth. “You will, soon. You just have to.. look a little closer.”

Damn it, Zhang Yixing. You and your ambiguous pieces of advice. 

Yifan awoke to a fit of never-ending sneezes the morning after. The rest of the members were still immersed in their slumber, giving him the perfect opportunity to enjoy a dorm bereft of Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s incessant howling over whatever video game they were playing and Zitao and Sehun’s ceaseless bickering, whilst trying to drown out the sound of his sneezes at the same time.

Lifting his body from the bed, Yifan heads for the bathroom, where he would wake himself up by splashing water across his face before walking towards their living room to catch up on early morning cartoons.

What he initially hoped for was a vacant living room, but his hopes would soon be destroyed as soon as he’s met with the sight of Kyungsoo sitting nicely on the couch with a book in one hand.

“Kyungsoo?” He calls out, hoping that the latter wouldn’t be too absorbed in reading as much as he was in cooking.

When their eyes locked with one another, Yifan could hear the sound of his heart beginning to pound in great rapidity. Why was he nervous? What was there to be nervous for?

“Oh, morning,” Kyungsoo flashes one of his heart-shaped smiles, not seeming the least tired. “You don’t usually wake up this early in the morning.”

He returns the smile, but Kyungsoo doesn’t know that Yifan is silently panicking inside. “Can I sit next to you?”

As soon as Yifan sees Kyungsoo nod in response, he seats on himself on the comfortable sofa, keeping a safe distance from the latter. Yifan’s hands rummage through the couch to look for the remote, before successfully finding it under the couch.

Baekhyun’s doing, no doubt. Yifan sighs.

“You don’t mind if I turn on the TV, do you?” He averts his gaze to Kyungsoo once again, and the doe-eyed male shortly lifts his eyes from the book in his hand to look at him to nod in agreement. After gaining Kyungsoo’s consent, he switches the TV on and basks himself in the cartoon playing on the children’s channel, the inner six-year-old inside of him utterly satisfied.

But he soon grows bored, of course, and so Yifan turns to look at Kyungsoo in an attempt to sneak a peek at the cover of the book that has completely riveted the other male. “What’re you reading?”

No response.

 “What are you reading?” repeats Yifan.

“Sorry, hyung, I didn’t hear you,” Kyungsoo is blushing again and Yifan finds it remarkably adorable. “It’s a Korean translation of a famous Japanese manga. I read it a long time ago, when I was in high school, but I decided I wanted to reread it again today.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about these two girls who have the same name, but they’re two very different people. They meet on a train heading for Tokyo, and then run into each other again when they were checking out the same apartment. They form a strong bond throughout the story, and despite the polarities that places them into two different worlds, they’re rather similar.. in a way.”

Just as Kyungsoo finishes speaking, Yixing’s words from the previous night begin to ring in his head.

Your worlds are a lot closer than you think.

“Sounds like a lovely story.” Yifan barely chucks the words out of his mouth, because there are a thousand thoughts running through his head right now.

Because maybe, just maybe, Yixing was right.

Yifan thinks of how he and Kyungsoo are both quiet; choosing not to speak when it isn’t required. And don’t they both may come off as a little intimidating, a little aloof, because of their quiet nature? And Yifan is mature, at least he considers himself to be, and so is Kyungsoo. And from personal observations, Yifan notices that Kyungsoo doesn’t open himself up very easily, and Yifan can easily say that he is the same way. How could he have been so stupid to have missed this all along?

“What are you thinking so hard about?”

And befriending someone doesn’t mean you have to have shared interests with them. It doesn’t mean you have to like the same kind of music or watch the same genre of movies or like the same types of food. How could he have not realized all along that Kyungsoo was the sole person who could have understood him the most because of just how similar the two are?

“Hyung?”

Yifan snaps back into reality and looks into the pair of wide, dark orbs glistening in the rays of the sun. “Sorry, I was just thinking about something.”

“Well, you looked like you were thinking pretty hard,” He laughs, and it’s possibly the most beautiful sound Yifan has heard.

Yifan laughs too, but his expression turns solemn and he puts on a much more serious tone as he’s speaking which immediately intimidates Kyungsoo, he can tell. “I know this might seem a little silly, but I’ve been trying to figure you out.”

Eyes widening and raised eyebrows, Kyungsoo does not mask his surprise. “Figure me out?”

“Yeah, you,” he says, and from this point on their eyes do not leave one another’s. “For the longest time now, I was obsessed with the possibility that you might not like me. A silly possibility, I know, but it was still a theoretical one. We never really.. talked to each other. Never had a real conversation.”

“Aren’t we having a real conversation right now?” asks Kyungsoo, deadpan.

Quite suddenly, a rather loud chuckle emits itself from Yifan’s mouth. “Yeah, it’s ironic, isn’t it? The first real conversation I have with you started from me talking about how I was worrying over the fact I’ve never had a real conversation with you.”

Yifan might be chuckling and smiling, but Kyungsoo is all grave and solemn.

“Whatever made you come up with the conclusion that I might not like you?” There’s a small, yet barely discernible, hint of sadness in his question.

“I don’t know, it’s just—“ He pauses, because really, how did he come up with such a conclusion?  “I think maybe you thought it was a bit of an arduous task for you to get to know, seeing how different we were, and—“

“Are we really that different, Yifan?”

An unforeseen silence paralyzes Yifan completely, confining the words he had wanted to stay, words he had planned to say, in the back of his throat as before, waiting to be released. And then Yifan felt a surge of different emotions crashing over him all at once in a blistering pace; instantaneous and meteoric.

There’s really nothing left to say, because well, Kyungsoo had known all along. He had known all this time, without the help of Yixing’s ambiguous advices or nights spent in pensive moods, and it made Yifan feel admittedly stupid, frankly.

“Oh,” he sighs. “So you knew all this time.”

“I always knew you would come to me eventually,” Kyungsoo wears a smile on his face that’s unlike any other Yifan has seen before. “And I knew it would take you some time to do it. It’s good that I have all the patience in the world.”

Yifan feels something brush against his hand and it takes him a few moments to realize that it is Kyungsoo’s hand on his. Kyungsoo’s skin against his.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about this anymore,” laughs Yifan.

“Yeah, you don’t.” And Kyungsoo does too. 

The warm sensation in his chest, the heat rising up in his cheeks, the playful smile curling on the edges of his lips – Kyungsoo is all to blame for. After their little encounter in the living room, Kyungsoo had wormed his way in Yifan’s heart. They may not seem like the closest people, always maintaining distance from one another during public appearances and rarely displaying the heartfelt affection they keep very well concealed from the world to see.

But behind closed doors, behind the prying eyes of the public, Yifan and Kyungsoo are the perfect example of a symbiotic relationship.

When Baekhyun and Chanyeol and Jongdae are being far too loud for their liking, Kyungsoo and Yifan would retreat to either one of their rooms to hold their own move night - just the two of them and no one else. When Kyungsoo feels the nerves coming on to him during an interview, Yifan would always throw him a gaze, reassuring and calm, reminding him that it’s okay, it’s okay, love – the exact words Yifan whispers in his ear when he curls up next to the shorter male because Kyungsoo worries that he’s not doing in well enough in his dancing or he isn’t singing with enough power.

And it’s not just that. As a leader, Yifan’s days are most definitely not low on stress. Despite Junmyeon being there to lend him a hand, Yifan feels like his help is simply not enough. In addition to his skyrocketing stress levels caused by the lengthy list of responsibilities he holds as a leader, there are also other things, other factors that come into play.

Yifan misses home. Misses his mother. Misses his life before all this.

Ever so often, when this coalescence of emotions, of stress, sadness, anxiety, agitation, and pain would come to him in a swift attack, Kyungsoo is whom he seeks. And when he does, oh god, is Yifan reminded again of how Kyungsoo’s arms wrapped around him are his safe haven, his refuge. Yifan is reminded again of he takes sanctuary in Kyungsoo’s fingers that fit so nicely in his and Kyungsoo’s smile that reminds him of how much he’s grateful for this, how much he’s thankful to have someone who’s willing to offer him unconditional kindness, benevolence, love. 

Love.

There hadn’t been a shadow of a doubt that Yifan loves Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo does too. Regardless of how that love was never really spoken or vocalized, it was shown, and that was what Yifan needed.

A love that was not uttered, but manifested.

One night, when Kyungsoo has his head resting Yifan’s chest and Yifan is nuzzling his head into the tousled tufts of Kyungsoo’s hair, Kyungsoo says something that Yifan will remember to his grave.

“I’ve just thought of something,” mumbles Kyungsoo.

“What is it?”

“You and I are like the sea and sky.”

Yifan furrows his eyebrows, indicating confusion. “Why?”

“The sea and the sky are two very different worlds, one of air and one of water, but they live side by side, don’t they? And when you think about it, they’re not so different after all. Both of them are big, broad, and blue,” there’s a momentary pause where Kyungsoo visibly ponders for a while. “Maybe that’s us. Maybe you’re the sea, and I’m the sky.”

Yifan merely hums in response, burying his face into Kyungsoo’s hair even more whilst carding his fingers through the dark locks before realizing that the other male had fallen asleep. Yifan plunges into a pensive mood, Kyungsoo’s words still resonating in his head. But one can only be absorbed in his thoughts for so long, and Yifan follows Kyungsoo into dreamland.

The next week, Kyungsoo finds a necklace with a metallic pendant shaped like a cloud under the blankets on his bed.

It isn’t until later in the evening, when Kyungsoo is nestling his head in Yifan’s neck, that he sees the other necklace.

A smile blooms on Kyungsoo’s lips when he sees the pendant of ocean waves against Yifan's chest.