your song is on repeat ( and im dancing on to your heartbeat )

he found home in the confines of chanyeol's strong arms, wrapped around him with a promise of never letting go and sehun fell asleep every night to the soft rise and fall of chanyeol's chest, to his soft scent that sehun had grown to love. home, he thinks, for every time his eyes close and he snuggles closer against the older's chest. this is home. and he knows it from how easy it had been to fall into his arms, to fall in love with his eyes; eyes that hold more stars that the skies could carry and a smile that could light up his entire universe.

until, of course, sehun realized that chanyeol is his universe.

and nothing else sounded truer than that fact and sehun is pleased; for the first time in his life, he had a purpose, a reason. for the first time in his life, sehun finally knows something from deep within his heart and there is no other option but chanyeol. there is no fear, no confusion, no hesitation. with chanyeol, sehun learned home and love are not places and choosing familiarity. with chanyeol, he learned that home and love is a person and chanyeol is that person. and sehun is finally home.

he smiles now, up at the skies where the stars have yet to appear and the sun still slowly setting. his heart aches and his smile is almost sad. chanyeol used to refer to him as sunsets, apologizing for not being romantic in doing so but sehun had thought it was the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for him. chanyeol had, unknowingly so, been the best thing that had happened to sehun and he smiles again at the thought, twirling the pen in his hand between his nimble fingers before he leans down to add another sentence to his writing. he's five paragraphs in but he doesn’t know what it’s for, just writes and writes and writes the way he has been writing his whole life. he writes in hopes that someday he would get to read them over again and relive the memories he had once lived through.

the idea of reading through these paragraphs with a smile sounds so impossible, for in his heart he could only feel pain and loss. an emptiness that even his words could not properly explain. but for now sehun will write and he will not think too much.

despite the curl of his lips as he writes these words of pain, sehun could feel a tear roll down his cheeks, and then another. and suddenly he could no longer see what he’s writing and his fingers are shaking and sehun raises his hands to cover his face as he sobs into them. god, it hurts. he has never known pain like this. a kind of pain so raw, so fresh it stabs at his chest like a knife, over and over again. there is pain of losing and then there is pain of loss and sehun isn’t sure of the difference but he had known pain of heartbreak and the pain of losing people by his own mistakes. there were no regrets this time, no ‘should have's and ‘what if's and he had done everything. yet it all gets taken away from him anyway.

he continues to cry for a few more minutes, finally calming down and wiping at his cheeks with the sleeves of his shirt. he doesn’t know how long he would have to go on like this; stopping by the beach after work because home reminds him so much of what he could no longer have. he doesn’t know how long he had been coming here anyway. it could be weeks, it could be months. sehun isn’t sure he wants to know at all.

but in the end, he finds himself packing up his things and shoving them into his bag before he heads home. and this time he’s going to do it; this time he will talk.

sehun started recording videos of himself when he was fourteen. his dad had bought him a new camera for his fourteenth birthday and sehun hadn’t given much thought to it when he started posting weekly updates on his youtube channel. sometimes he records himself playing games, sometimes he records his time out with family. sometimes he talks and he doesn’t post the ones where he breaks down into embarrassing tears.

his channel gradually grew in views and subscribers and sehun has made friends on the internet; fans and other youtubers as well. he liked making friends with people who could connect with him, people who would understand, and when he had posted a video of his coming out as panual, his fans and friends had been the most supportive. he was and always will be grateful for them. he's certain that it was the best decision he has made, posting that very first video on this platform, for if he had not, then perhaps he would not have met chanyeol.

there were comets crashing and earthquakes the day he met chanyeol, figuratively speaking. throughout sehun's years he had made a lot of mistakes and one of many had been repeatedly breaking his lovers' hearts. perhaps it was karma when he ended up with baekhyun and what was once beautiful became toxic and unhealthy and they got stuck in a loop of make up and break up. baekhyun was beautiful and sehun had always liked pretty things.

he just didn’t realize that pretty things are fragile and his calloused hands are too rough to handle it with care. but if he was asked if he had truly loved baekhyun then sehun would say yes. baekhyun had loved him too and he knew that, but he also knew that their love was only temporary.

when chanyeol, a fellow youtuber, had commented on one of his videos that night, sehun had just gotten out of his bathroom. he had spent nearly an hour in it crying, wishing he had been better, wishing he could have done better yet hoping he would not be cursed to see another day. everything around him seemed to be breaking, crashing, but chanyeol had been the only thing that stood still.

chanyeol made him feel okay.

and then chanyeol made him feel safe.

they exchanged contacts and met up for lunches and coffees and chanyeol was nice and sweet and he made sehun laugh. he had the gentlest voice sehun had ever heard and his touch was soft and gentle and he made sehun feel beautiful. he felt beautiful.

but chanyeol was risks and new things and baekhyun was familiar. so when baekhyun had given him another chance, sehun had been happy and swore that he would not make the same mistakes. he would love him like he had promised and he would not leave. he promised and promised and promised and baekhyun let him hold him again.

( chanyeol didn’t return his calls sometimes but sehun didn’t think too much into it. )

of course, sehun should have known, that he was in another loop. one major quarrel got sehun home to a message and then it was over. it was over again. and he knew that it was over for good. baekhyun left like sehun did all those times ago and he had no one to blame but himself. it was his fault; everything that happened to them was  his fault. so he doesn’t hold on to baekhyun and he let him slip away from his fingers. it didn’t hurt like the last time, surprisingly so.

he couldn’t exactly remember how chanyeol came to become someone so important. all sehun could recall was crying again that one particular night and chanyeol had called and listening to him talk had calmed him down. he fell asleep that night while on the phone with the taller and called him in the morning to apologize. their lunches and coffees continue and sehun found himself spending more and more time with chanyeol. chanyeol made things seem easy; like getting up in the morning and not crying himself to sleep.

and suddenly everything started making sense; why he was tired when he had been cooped up in his room the whole day. why he was sad all of a sudden with no reason at all. chanyeol called to tell him that he had a long day on days where sehun felt the most exhausted and chanyeol called to tell him that he was sad on nights sehun felt his heart clench for no particular reason. and it was since then that sehun and chanyeol realize the connection that they share. it was beautiful but scary at the same time.

the first time chanyeol held him was through a stormy night and it was cold and dark and sehun had stayed over at chanyeol’s apartment. sehun remembered it clearly, the way chanyeol’s chest rise and fall to his breathing and the soft lips that press into his hair. chanyeol smelled nice and his embrace was warm and safe and sehun fell asleep peacefully. for the first time in a long time, the nightmares didn’t come.

sehun feared one thing during the times he had spent with chanyeol and it was the fear of this being temporary, fear of hurting the boy like he had hurt so many others, fear of mistaking his need for company for love and the last thing sehun wanted was to break another heart. and chanyeol knew all this; a result of sehun breaking down yet again and telling him that he is constantly afraid, that he feared all of the fears he felt and chanyeol had merely wrapped his strong arms around sehun, told him that he’s staying and he’s never leaving. and sehun had cried and slept in chanyeol’s arms.

and then sehun didn’t cry anymore.

perhaps it was too quick and no one would understand the way the shattered pieces of his heart form back into one whole but sehun knows that when it healed, it had immediately belonged to chanyeol. chanyeol told him he loved him first and did not push sehun to say it back. later when they were officially together, he told sehun that he was ready to see sehun go back into baekhyun’s arms and he would have stayed still, if it meant he could still see sehun smile and be happy. sehun had cried when chanyeol slept that night but not out of sadness or fear or anger, but of the overflowing love he had for the taller male for he had not known anyone who had loved him as much as chanyeol did.

he had not loved anyone as much as he had loved chanyeol.

his first ‘i love you’ to chanyeol was said only when he was certain and no more questions were asked. by then the rest of him had belonged to chanyeol and sehun regretted not a single bit of it. he continued to post videos on youtube and even featured his boyfriend in some collaboration, just because he shared almost everything with his viewers and chanyeol had so quickly become so important that sehun hadn’t felt the need to hide him away. he wanted to show him off to the world, and so he did.

there was not a day that went by without a good morning and every night sehun sleeps in chanyeol’s arms that felt like home, breathe in his scent that smelled like home and he could not and would not ask for anything more. he learned the littlest things about chanyeol, like his love for hoodies and sweaters, the box of stuffed animals that he had kept in his room ( twelve of them were his favorites ) and how chanyeol buries his face into sehun’s neck when he’s clingy and needy for attention. he was the clingiest when he was unwell but sehun loved that the most. something about the way chanyeol had clung to him made him feel the most loved and wanted and with chanyeol, he had always felt loved and wanted.

there were comets and earthquakes the night he met chanyeol but he was the calm through the storm, when everything else had broken apart. he was the pillar that had held sehun up, his strong arms kept sehun away from the waves that could have drowned him and sehun fell in love with every single part of him; who he was, who he had been and who he might have become. and it was beautiful and joyful and sehun loved like he loved for the first time. there was not a single ounce of fear left in him for chanyeol freed him of his scariest demons but perhaps sehun should have been scared.

like all other things, life ends.

and sehun had not seen it coming like he had not seen chanyeol.

 he reaches home at nearly nine at night, the apartment too empty and quiet save for the soft  pitter-patters of his dog’s paws chasing after him to greet his return. he reaches down to pat vivi on his head, flashing him a brief smile before he goes to treat the dog with snacks. he spends the next half an hour just petting vivi, bag tossed onto the couch and hoodie laid next to it. he doesn’t really know what to do next. he could turn on the tv and watch reruns or he could take a shower and head to bed. either way, he would still have to wake in the morning and the cycle restarts. work, get home, sleep.

he doesn’t know what’s next; he isn’t even sure if he wants to know at all.

he turns the tv on anyway, letting vivi sit on the couch and watch whatever it was that was showing before he grabs his bag and hoodie and heads into his room. his eyes caught his camera set on the table when he enters the room and sehun is quickly reminded of what he had planned to do when he left the beach just a couple of hours ago. he parts his lips in hesitation before making up his mind again, not allowing himself time to rethink. he places the bag down and sets up the camera, pressing the start button and sitting himself down on the bed too big for one. he inhales and exhales and he doesn’t know what to say; it had been months since he last posted a video and sehun is at loss for words.

he first takes off his glasses, placing down next to him and grabbing his hoodie to cuddle it against his chest. it was chanyeol’s and his scent had long been washed off but it was still chanyeol’s. he smiles at the camera then and exhales again.

“hey, everyone,” he begins, a little wave of his fingers, a break in his voice and a soft, faint smile on his lips. “i’m sorry i haven’t posted anything in awhile. things have been pretty… rough for me in the last couple of months and i have just been spending my time coping. as you all already know, four months ago, i lost my boyfriend, chanyeol, to a fatal accident.”

and just like that his throat constricts and his heart breaks and it’s so hard to breathe. sehun’s vision blurs but he doesn’t care if his viewers see him in  this state. there is nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. his heart had been crushed the moment he had received the news of chanyeol’s accident and he had never been the same ever since. he uses one of the hoodie sleeves to wipe at the single tear that rolls down his cheek and he takes a moment to compose himself so he could speak properly.

“i don’t – i don’t really know? i don’t really know why i’m recording myself but i feel the need to reach to you guys and tell you how i’ve been… coping. and as you can see, i’m not doing so well.” he sniffs, wiping at his other cheek now. “i feel alone and just so, so lonely. some days, i can’t feel anything. i go to work and get home and there’s nothing here for me. some other days, i feel everything. i feel sad and afraid and angry. but i think i feel his absence the most. he used to be right here next to me when i record an update, either asleep or just watching me and i know you’ve all seen those videos. it’s so hard knowing he isn’t here anymore and he isn’t coming back. i could go to sleep tonight and dream of him but i’ll wake up in the morning without him and it will hurt all over again.”

he’s crying by now, continuously wiping at his tear-stained cheeks with chanyeol’s hoodie sleeve and at the same time trying to smile at the camera. he stays silent for a full minute, calming his breathing, avoiding looking straight into the camera as he toys with the sleeves. when he speaks again, there’s another smile on his lips. “he was my best friend, you know? he wasn’t just my boyfriend, wasn’t just someone i’m in love with. he was my best friend. and he left me with so many memories, so many good things, so much love. there was just so little time. i wish he could be here with me right now and we’d probably talk about getting another dog. he probably would have gotten a better job, too.”

his voice breaks again at the last sentence and sehun is crying into his hands again, nose red and eyes puffy when he finally pulls himself together. “i know that i would have to move on eventually. life goes on, right? so i have to. chanyeol would have wanted that for me. and i will. i think i will. i’m sorry for how long this video turned out to be. i won’t be cutting anything off. i love you guys and thank you for all the support you’ve shown me throughout the past couple of months. i really needed it. but for now, i think this is it. i’ll see you in my next video.”

he reaches over to turn it off, grabbing his laptop after and does a quick edit to the audio before posting it on his channel. the view rise quickly and in only five minutes, sehun is getting comments, most of them were strong, encouraging words by the viewers. he would think he had gotten too exhausted to shed anymore tears but when his eyes landed on the thumbnail of one of his older videos with chanyeol, his vision blurs again but he goes to click on it anyway.

it was a video of them when they had gone for a holiday and at the end of the video, chanyeol is seated on the hotel bed with a glass of iced tea and sehun knows just how sweet that drink had been. chanyeol liked sweet things and tea was one of his greatest collections. three cubes of sugar in that and it had made a happy chanyeol. and a happy chanyeol made a happy sehun. the trip to molokai, hawaii had been one of the bests that they had and he’s glad it was all recorded. he watches it twice, repeating the part where chanyeol had laughed and clung to him. he misses that. he misses chanyeol.

he doesn’t respond to the comments, too tired to be reading anything and so he decides to shut down his laptop, pushing it aside only so he could pull chanyeol’s hoodie over his head and reach over to turn off the light. his heart hurts and he can’t wait to fall asleep. his dreams are better than his wake anyway and maybe tonight he would meet chanyeol again.

tomorrow would be another cycle of pain, but tonight sehun will dream.

a/n: i didn't proof-read this so forgive me for spelling errors and if it was too rushed!