Winter

Baekhyun wakes to the sound of birds chirping.

It was nearing summertime, the kind of scorching hot weather that made ice cream drip and flowers grow and left Baekhyun reminiscing about the past—about pink myrtles and matching rings and the sound of giant, silver bells.

Quarter to nine finds Baekhyun waiting at the bus stop with a plastic bag of food in one hand and a small woven sack in the other. His work clothes are in there: a tacky uniform for the employees working at one of the local convenience stores. Most of the people working there are teenagers, full of energy that Baekhyun sometimes envies. There are other employees like Baekhyun though, older, with nothing to look forward to each day and nothing else to do besides sweeping the floors from ten to five before going home. The pay isn’t very good, but it’s enough for Baekhyun to get by. And that’s just what he does.

The bus arrives with a low rumble and people file inside. Baekhyun enters, shaking his head when someone offers their seat to him. It’s a girl; she settles back down in the chair and starts drawing on the side of a plastic water bottle with a permanent marker. Baekhyun thinks she’s just wasting time. The bottle’s going to be thrown out after it’s empty anyway, why bother?

A few stops later, Baekhyun steps off the bus. He walks a short distance and comes to a stop in front of an old lady’s house, pushing open the door with ease and stepping inside. He finds the lady sitting at her dining table, as per usual, and he dumps the plastic bag of food on the table before making his way out. She nods her thanks at him like she always does, her head of white hair shining in the sunlight. Baekhyun knows his own gray hair probably looks like that too, thin and light and soft. Baekhyun passes by a blinding shaft of sunlight intruding from her window as he goes to the old woman’s room, collecting the clothes lying about the foot of her bed and washing them by hand. Baekhyun hangs them up outside and walks back in to check the sink for unwashed dishes. Occasionally there are unwashed plates or smashed ceramic shards, but today, the sink is unusually empty of dirty dishes. Still, Baekhyun never forgets to check.

Finished with the chores, Baekhyun leaves, feeling the old lady’s eyes on him up until he closes the door behind him.

Walking back to the same bus stop he just left, Baekhyun finds his next bus already waiting at the stop. He speeds up his already hurried steps, joints protesting and sweating as the sun shines down on him. Baekhyun is sure that the bus driver must’ve seen and is taking pity on him (and the thought seemed almost degrading), as the bus waited much longer than it should’ve for Baekhyun to hobble on. Baekhyun gets off the bus again after a few more stops or so, almost directly in front of the convenience store he works at. Passing through automatic doors, he is met with a breeze from the air conditioning always going full blast in their store, along with the faint scent of the store’s lilac air freshener. It’s all too familiar.

Baekhyun gets changed and goes to restock the frozen foods aisles. The quiet buzz coming from the fridge mingles with the calm, outdated music playing softly from the speaker overhead to provide quiet background noise. Baekhyun puts in boxes of frozen microwavable foods one at a time, fingers reaching to pull forth other boxes that have been in there for too long already, a fine layer of frost growing on the surface. Baekhyun remembers back when he and Chanyeol would press their fingers into the frost, warming it so it melts and doodling random things on the box for the next person to find. Most of the time the doodles were just happy faces, occasionally they were obscene.

It’s almost imperceptible, but the thought of Chanyeol brings down Baekhyun’s mood just a little bit more, the growing hunch in his back deepening. A ringing starts in Baekhyun’s ears, getting louder and louder until he’s resting his head against the cool glass of the foggy fridge door from when he just opened it, fighting off a headache.

“Mr. Byun?” A voice interrupts. It belongs one of the other employees. A girl who takes pity on Baekhyun slightly more than the others do. “Are you okay?”

Baekhyun nods. It’s all the young girl needs as confirmation before going off to do her own thing, leaving Baekhyun to shake himself off and continue replenishing stocks.

The rest of the day passes in a blur, and soon it’s five o’clock and time for Baekhyun to head home again. He checks in on the old lady’s house on his way back, repeating the same routine as he did in the morning. The old lady is waiting for him as she always does, and nods at him as he makes his way out soon after entering. There was always more to do in the morning than the afternoon.

As soon as he gets back home, Baekhyun makes himself a cup of tea and goes out into his garden.

Back when he was younger, felt younger, soon after the incident happened, Baekhyun promised himself he would never let the garden die before him. He would tend to it everyday faithfully, pulling out weeds and the like. Now, he hires someone to do it for him, a young man by the name of Zhang Yixing. Baekhyun met him nearly a year ago, passing by a florist’s shop. Its display of bouquets so resembled his own at his wedding once upon a time that Baekhyun felt the overwhelming urge to go inside. The shop was nearly empty save for the person manning the cash register: Zhang Yixing. It didn’t take long for the two to come to an agreement. Once a week Yixing would come over to help weed the garden with Baekhyun for a couple hours. They enjoy each other’s company; Baekhyun likes the boy for not asking too much.

As a result of Yixing’s help, the garden is flourishing. Baekhyun still cares for it some, possibly now more than ever. He never changed any of the types of flowers planted inside, trying to keep it as close to the original as possible.

Baekhyun supposes his garden is the only thing he really likes anymore. His house is too empty, and so is he. Every day his routine is the same, the same problems and pains that arose. It’s boring, suffocating. Baekhyun would amuse himself sometimes by pretending that he was being asphyxiated by the insignificance of everything he does. He never laughs, he never smiles, and he rarely talks anymore. Living in his own monochromatic world while everyone else’s is blooming in vibrance is a chore.

Chanyeol would have never approved.

~

Spring

There were thighs and knees and butts everywhere; this much he could tell despite his sleepy, half-lidded eyes.

The supermarket was especially crowded today, and Baekhyun’s mother tightened her hold on Baekhyun’s wrist, half leading, half dragging him around the store. He struggled to keep up, tripping over his own feet and other people’s feet too.

He couldn’t see much, he was too short to see the tops of some of the shelves, and if it wasn’t for her hold on him, he probably would’ve lost his mom in the crowd of legs. Why did everyone wear jeans?

His mom and dad chattered as they shopped, and the words mixed into the noise of the bustling store that all sounded from somewhere above Baekhyun’s head. He ignored it all, preferring to study the shelves around him for things that looked interesting enough to throw into the cart. He had fallen asleep on the way to the store and would liked to have continued his nap in the car, but he figured that while he’s here anyway he might as well get some chocolate pudding out of it.

Mostly though, Baekhyun kept his eyes on his feet. He wasn't coordinated enough yet to trust himself to walk for long periods of time without watching the ground - a few painful encounters with rough pavement etched that lesson into his mind, and he wasn't going to forget it anytime soon. Plus, he was in that strange, partially asleep, partially awake state where it was just so much easier to keep his head down and eyes lidded, trained on the floor that had faint, dusty footprints in some places, and the multiple pairs of feet that rushed around him like water around rocks in their path. Had Baekhyun been more awake, he would have been afraid of all the people, afraid of being stepped on too, as silly as that sounded. At the moment though, he was nearly blindly trusting his mother not to let him stumble into a wall because it curiously felt like the less time between each slow blink, the sleepier he got. Not that it mattered. Baekhyun quite enjoyed the warm and fuzzy feeling and didn't mind feeling more of it. When they walked by the dairy products though, Baekhyun couldn't help but grab some flavoured milk to toss into the basket his mom was holding when suddenly, his mom stopped walking. He stumbled with the momentum and tripped forward, only saved from falling by her grip on his wrist. His precarious hold on the packet of flavoured milk slipped and it fell on the ground, only to be picked up by some chubby kid standing in front of him.

According to the snippets Baekhyun could hear from whatever his mom was saying, they had bumped into some new neighbours or something. The boy standing in front of him handed him his milk back with a toothy grin that displayed his two missing front teeth that Baekhyun was pleased to see, since his own two front teeth were growing back a little faster than the other boy's.

"Hi," the kid said, voice almost lost in all the sound around them, "I'm Chanyeol."

Chanyeol seemed harmless enough, and Baekhyun decided he liked him. Then again, Baekhyun has liked most of the people he's met so far, so maybe Chanyeol isn't very different from everyone else in that aspect.

Either way, Baekhyun still stuck out his hand like he sometimes saw adults do in movies and said in a confident voice, "I'm Baekhyun. Let's be friends."

Chanyeol shook Baekhyun's hand a little sloppily, but they didn't realize because they had nothing to compare it to. Baekhyun just grinned at Chanyeol when they retracted their hands, and Chanyeol's smile only grew wider because he hadn't stopped smiling since he picked up Baekhyun's milk for him.

The two didn’t progress much further than that though, as their parents started to pull them apart too soon after. All traces of sleepiness gone, Baekhyun waved at Chanyeol enthusiastically as Chanyeol waved back, and Baekhyun didn’t feel too bad about not getting to spend much time with his friend as he and his mom weaved around more people and shelves because he overheard her promise Chanyeol’s mom that they’d visit, and Baekhyun spends the rest of the shopping trip mulling over which of his action figures he should show Chanyeol when they next meet.

~

The sound of their parents screaming at each other echoed in Baekhyun’s ears as he ran fearfully up the wooden stairs and into the room he shared with his sister. The room was dark already, and Baekhyun closed the door behind him and slipped into the bed opposite his own. He huddled close to Taeyeon in the dark under her thick blankets, and revelled in the warmth radiating off of her. Both of them were rather bony and thin, so it didn’t make for the most comfortable cuddling, but it didn’t matter to Baekhyun as Taeyeon brushed shaky fingers through his tangled hair. They could both hear the raised voices from downstairs; the words weren’t clear, but the volume and intensity of the voices, one male, one female, couldn’t be masked by the closed door.

The weather outside was stormy too. The rain howled and battered at the windows like shadows come to life, but Baekhyun almost didn’t notice with how hard he focused on only trying to decipher their parent’s words.

Baekhyun never talked to Taeyeon about the state of their dysfunctional family. He liked to ignore it, which wasn’t too hard since he was used to it, but he didn’t know how Taeyeon felt about it. He remembered a few years back, when their parents fought in front of them, not for the first time, Taeyeon had tried—stupidly—to make them stop.

That fight was particularly vicious, and it was downright terrifying for both Baekhyun and Taeyeon. Usually there was a dinner table between their parents when they fought, or they would at least keep a slight distance in between while they yelled, but that day their parents stopped caring that their children were watching. They were clawing at each other and yelling so hard and fast that it felt like they had been holding back these words for years, even though Baekhyun heard just how often they shouted these same accusations at each other. He and Taeyeon were both crying; Baekhyun was curled up into himself on the couch and digging his bitten nails into the worn leather and wanting, but not daring to ask, his sister to take him upstairs. She wouldn’t be strong enough to carry him in her arms, but he wanted so badly in that moment to be treated as if he had something rare and precious again, an innocence to be preserved, and he wanted to be treated like that by someone he loved. He hadn’t loved either of his parents in that moment. Baekhyun still wasn’t sure if he loved them.

Baekhyun remembered too, explicitly, that he thought they might die in that moment. It was one of those thoughts that were so completely irrational yet so in tune with the dangerous crackling of the atmosphere that the idea left an imprint on Baekhyun. He imagined one of his parents lunging at the other or he himself silencing them. He even imagined a dark manifestation of their family’s ugliest words and thoughts and feelings rising from between the floorboards like an ominous fog and smothering all of them with its density. It was laughably unrealistic, Baekhyun knew, but a scary thought that still sometimes crept into his dreams nonetheless.

Taeyeon, though, was standing in impassioned agitation, and she was crying too. Where Baekhyun had been stifling his sobs to the best of his ability, she was trying to talk, and the power she put into projecting her voice over her parents' shouting amplified her sobs as well. She had shouted and pleaded but her small voice was easily drowned out by the two adults who barely spared her a glance out of the corner of their eyes, and Baekhyun eventually got up behind her, hands tugging at hers and telling her to go, let’s just leave them to it.

Taeyeon wasn’t like Baekhyun though, that much was evident in the way she stood between the two adults, the top of her head only coming up to their parents’ chests, and tried to physically push the two of them apart. The atmosphere was still bursting with anger, and she was pushed aside roughly. No one was sure who had done it, probably not even the perpetrator, but there was something final in that motion, as if they had broken something in the family in the same motion with which they’d thrown away Taeyeon’s hopes.

She had fallen backwards onto the ground, tears in her eyes, and Baekhyun tugged her up by the elbows, rushing them upstairs. Taeyeon didn’t offer resistance, and she never tried to stand between one of their parents’ arguments again.

She also started treating them different since that day—they both did.

Baekhyun thought back to that day often. He sometimes wondered if their parents did too, but he knew they probably didn’t. That was too much to hope for.

As he lay in bed thinking about it, he curled up imperceptibly smaller, knobby knees bumping into his sister’s. The memory always made him a dangerous mix of sad and fearful and angry, emotion swirling and growing in his chest without anywhere to go. It made him want to do a lot of things: punch a wall, scream, cry, pour glue in his parent’s hair conditioner, but above all, without fail, it made him want to do something drastic. They were terrible ideas, things like killing himself, or even better, somehow convincing Taeyeon to do it with him. One child suiciding meant that he was haunted by something outside of everyone else’s control, but both children suiciding means that they had to have some connection that would cause them to do something so desperate, and that connection would lead back to the parents without fail. All Baekhyun wanted to accomplish was to make his parents realize that their neurotic relationship was ruining his and Taeyeon’s lives. That despite how vehemently they may deny wanting to have anything to do to each other, they both still live in their tiny bubble of self-absorption, and that bubble was floating them right out of Baekhyun and Taeyeon’s grasps.

But that was just the romanticized version. The truth is that the two of them simply hate each other. That hate was the only form of love that they had left for each other, and it was just so astonishingly selfish of them to think that their staying together unhappily somehow enhanced Baekhyun and Taeyeon’s lives. As if Taeyeon and he didn’t stop believing in love because of them, as if they weren’t both so afraid now of this dreadfully corruptible feeling called love.

Baekhyun often wondered how much effort it would take to convince Taeyeon to commit suicide with him. He knew it was asking a lot of her, to give up her life with him to teach their parents a lesson, but he knew it wasn’t impossible. They were both mature enough to understand that there was nothing important about themselves. They had no responsibilities, no one depending on them. Not much would happen to anyone else if the two of them died.

The only thing stopping Baekhyun from doing this was the thought of Chanyeol. But sometimes, it’s also the thought of Chanyeol that would make him want to. Chanyeol would be heartbroken if Baekhyun died, of course, but he would be so much better without Baekhyun around. Somehow, Baekhyun holds him back, he just know it. There are moments in their friendship, small moments that usually start off with Chanyeol asking something of him. Can I go eat with them today, please? And something in Baekhyun just flares up and he’ll instinctively deny it, or agree with this guilt-inducing look, or say something about feeling like he doesn’t matter to Chanyeol, and Chanyeol would trip all over himself to reassure Baekhyun that it wasn’t the case, that everything was okay, that he really only needed Baekhyun. And every single time that’d occur, Baekhyun would want to punish himself, except maybe that would make Chanyeol feel even guiltier for not seeing the signs of Baekhyun being suicidal, or however Chanyeol would find a way to blame himself.

~

Baekhyun’s fingers danced across the keys, sure and purposeful like he had never been before. There was a single, giant, yellow-white light somewhere above him casting shadows on the keys. The piano felt unfamiliar. It took a little more effort to press down on the keys playing this piano than the one he has at home. His old wooden Yamaha had yellowing keys and pedals that his legs could barely reach. It was cheap; it was the best his parents could do for him. It didn’t quite prepare him for the slight strain in his fingers from playing on the recital piano though, with its pristine black and white keys and glossy black surface; it was simply beautiful.

He reached the final part of the song. He couldn’t wait to finish playing. His fingers stutter on the second last note however, and he hopes no one noticed. His hands were clammy with nervous sweat and he subtly rubbed his palms on his pants as he stood up on shaky legs. Baekhyun’s knees were trembling with nerves and leftover energy, like they need to keep playing and transform the energy into music. He looked out across the audience and caught Chanyeol’s eye in the audience. He had located him, Taeyeon, and his mom when he went up on stage earlier, but it seems his mom left partway through his performance, since he couldn’t find her at the moment.

Baekhyun stills for a moment, unsure of what to do. He suddenly can’t remember if the other kids bowed or not. He’s already stayed longer on this stage than the other kids though, so he just runs off with a slight nod. He keeps his head on the ground as he runs straight to where he knows Taeyeon and Chanyeol are, and he lifts his head when her shoes come into view. Some of the other families’ eyes have followed him off the stage. He probably made the most awkward exit out of all the kids. It didn’t matter though, not when Taeyeon was hugging him and whispering a nice job, Baek into his ear.

“You did great, Baekkie!” Chanyeol said just a little too loudly as the next kid was coming up on stage. It was still lower than his normal speaking volume though, so Taeyeon didn’t admonish him for it. Baekhyun smiled at the praise and whispered a quiet thanks as he took his seat between Taeyeon and Chanyeol, watching the kid currently onstage play from a book. He allows himself to feel proud that he at least memorized his song.

It’s late when all the recitals are over. Everyone files out of the dark performance hall, and Baekhyun can get a general sense of what parents are saying to their kids from the bits and pieces of conversation that float by him. It’s almost all praise, and the cheerful, relaxed atmosphere emanating from the other families infects Baekhyun too. His mom returned at some point during one of the last performances and she walked the rest of them, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Taeyeon, back to the car. It was darker and colder than Baekhyun was used to, and he could see Taeyeon shivering in her dress.

When they got to the car, Taeyeon slid into the passenger seat while Baekhyun and Chanyeol dozed off in the back, and Baekhyun admired how the streetlights they drove by disappeared fast, one replacing another in Baekhyun’s line of sight from the car window. They illuminated the inside of the car before dancing shadows immediately replaced them, and this pattern happened over and over again as it lulled Baekhyun into a trance.

He loved car rides, and he especially loved the silent ones. The ones where there was no radio playing loud and distracting music, no talking or yelling, no loud noises coming from the cars they drove past either. Just the sound of the car rumbling quietly if Baekhyun chose to listen to it and his own thoughts to fill up the silence.

“Chanyeol?” asked Baekhyun’s mom.

“Yeah?”

“I talked to your mother. You’re going to stay with us for tonight, okay?”

Chanyeol whooped loudly. “Okay! Do I sleep in Baekhyun’s room?”

“Sure,” said Baekhyun’s mother, “we’ll stop by your house first so you can get your stuff.”

Screw silence, Baekhyun thought, Chanyeol is staying over!

For the rest of the drive back, Baekhyun and Chanyeol talked incessantly about anything and everything, energy skyrocketing with the knowledge that they wouldn’t be separated for the night. Taeyeon would throw in her opinion occasionally or his mom would laugh, but for the most part it was just the two of them somehow finding a way to discuss anything. It made Baekhyun feel safe and happy and filled him with a strange elation that he never got from talking to people at school. At school there were good conversations, but it wasn’t fast-paced and exciting like talking to Chanyeol often was. By the time they pulled into Chanyeol’s driveway, Baekhyun was wide awake and bouncing in his seat, thinking of all the things he could show Chanyeol.

Baekhyun’s mom and Chanyeol went into the house and didn’t reappear for a while. Baekhyun’s excitement simmered down in that time, which was a good thing too because when Chanyeol came out of the house his shoulders were slumped and he dragged his feet while he walked to the car. Baekhyun’s mom came out a beat or two after him, and Baekhyun could catch a glimpse of Chanyeol’s mom in the doorway, looking sadder than Baekhyun had ever seen her. Baekhyun’s mom was talking earnestly at her, and even though Baekhyun couldn’t see or hear any of their conversation, he knew his mom was trying to be encouraging from the way she nodded a little as she spoke.

Baekhyun turned to Chanyeol in worry and caught his eye, and Chanyeol shook his head gently before turning to opposite way to look out the car window.

Chanyeol ended up staying for a few weeks at their house, and once Baekhyun overheard Chanyeol going up to his mom right after she hung up the phone, asking her what was going on. She told him not to worry and that his parents were just dealing with something personal, but Baekhyun noticed the drop in Chanyeol’s mood for the rest of the day after that.

~

The winter breeze was wonderfully brisk, much to Baekhyun’s delight, as he took in lungfuls and lungfuls of the cold. The streets had a thin layer of snow, freshly fallen so it wasn’t sticky enough to make snowballs with yet, though Baekhyun guessed by tomorrow the snow would be ready to have a snowball fight with, and he couldn’t wait.

He and Chanyeol left parallel sets of footprints in it as they strolled down the street with Baekhyun’s parents and Chanyeol’s mom, who were walking behind them and talking to each other.

Baekhyun’s breath came out in visible little cloud puffs. The air outside was chilly, and Baekhyun made it a point to breathe out of his mouth so he could see the fog.

Winter was quite possibly his favourite season. Although he would never admit it, he loved the feeling of being bundled up in four layers and excessive accessories. He loved the feeling of his mother’s hands wrapping his scarf around him and patting it down so it didn’t cover Baekhyun’s mouth, and he loved the sight and taste and touch of snow.

This morning Baekhyun’s mom had come into his room with a small knock and told him to get dressed. He hadn’t known what it was for (which was probably for the best since he, like most sixth graders, had a habit of jumping to conclusions). Baekhyun put up a respectable fight with his mom, trying to convince her to let him stay in bed. He had bundled himself up in blankets so she couldn't see his face and pretended to be asleep, nearly actually falling asleep with how long his mom had stayed silent. That was until the blankets were ripped away from him. He'd groaned and rolled over, hands reaching out blindly for the blankets until he saw who it was. Taeyeon stared him down with her cocky big-sister look and wiggled her eyebrows. Didn't mom tell you? Chanyeol's going to be there, was what she said just before she left the room. Perhaps it was those words that made Baekhyun get dressed at twice his normal speed, shoes and socks on before his mom even left her own room again.

They had walked to their neighbour’s house, a few houses down the street from their own, and carpooled in Chanyeol's 7-seater car. Chanyeol excitedly told Baekhyun about the video game he watched his older sister, Yura, play the other day, and his voice dropped low when he said "I played on her computer when she left for her friend’s house today, but don't tell my mom."

"Taeyeon never tells me her laptop password," Baekhyun had whispered in badly-concealed awe.

"Yura doesn't tell me either. You just have to watch her fingers when she types it." Chanyeol said with a proud twinkle in his eye.

When they got there, Chanyeol's mom, who was behind the wheel, dropped off Baekhyun's parents with Baekhyun and Chanyeol somewhere on the sidewalk and went to park the car underground.

When she met up with them again, they wandered around the streets slowly, enjoying the view. There was more red and white than usual, and that’s what excited Baekhyun the most. He had come here last year in the summer, albeit without Chanyeol, and the place had looked so normal back then. It was still fascinating though, with so many more buildings and people and cars than Baekhyun was used to back in their small and boring community. Even the ground was littered with cigarette butts and muddy bus tickets and chewed up gum, all things Baekhyun still wasn’t used to seeing in real life yet. Yet in December, even though the place was fundamentally the same, it was so different at the same time. The air was different, it felt and smelled cold and invigorating. The people felt different. It was like the same place in some alternate universe where people could gather energy from breathing, or where people were friendly and sometimes smiled at strangers.

“Hey,” Baekhyun said, nudging Chanyeol with his elbow as their group walked up to what looked like an actual Christmas tree that was chopped down at the trunk and brought to the shopping district, decorated nicely with red and gold ornaments and tinsel. There was a rope fence surrounding the tree as a warning not to get too close to it, and it gave Baekhyun a wonderful idea.

“Yeah?” Chanyeol asked, voice nasally with a slight cold.

“I dare you to touch the tree.”

Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “But there’s a fence surrounding it?”

“Exactly.”

Baekhyun’s look of pure mischief seemed to give Chanyeol some confidence, and he turned to the tree with an appraising look. “How should I do it?”

“I’ll distract our parents while you go, and if anyone asks, you were picking up a fallen ornament and putting it back on.”

Chanyeol gave a grave nod and walked towards the tree. He seemed to be forcing his stance to look casual, which somehow made it anything but. It was hilarious.

Playing the theme song from a spy show in his head, Baekhyun did the same as he strolled to his parents, asking them to go into a certain shop with him.

“Sure. What about Chanyeol?” asked Baekhyun’s mom.

“He-”

Baekhyun was interrupted by a loud crash coming from behind him, and he and Ms. Park turned to the tree at the same time.

“Chanyeol!” she cried in what sounded like mostly shock.

The tree was apparently not as stable as it appeared to be, as it was somehow lying in the snow, the rope fence knocked down with its weight. Chanyeol was bolting away from the scene, sprinting right past Baekhyun who immediately followed behind. Baekhyun laughed loudly as he ran, catching up to Chanyeol easily, and Chanyeol panted out a winded “I… hate you,” between steps, though Baekhyun could see that he was smiling.

They were both grounded for weeks after that with their electronics confiscated, though Taeyeon and Yura let Baekhyun and Chanyeol, respectively, talk to each other on their laptops whenever they could.

~

“Why is being a teenager so hard?” Baekhyun asked, dropping his head on his friend’s shoulder and sighing dramatically.

Chanyeol hummed in acknowledgment and reached up with one hand to awkwardly rub at Baekhyun’s head. He was holding a pencil in his other hand and tapping rhythmically at his songwriting notebook in his lap, studying his progress so far with divided attention. He knew not to say anything because Baekhyun was never finished with a complaint that vague, and he was right.

“It’s like none of the adults remember what it was like to be a teenager at all! I’m barely a fifth of the way through my life, why should I have to decide my fate for the rest of my life now? They literally make every decision for us until it comes time to make the most important decision of our lives and then we’re expected to know exactly what to do.”

Chanyeol’s humming was infused with mumbling now too, his tapping changing rhythm. He was maybe only hearing about thirty percent of what Baekhyun was saying but that was fine because Baekhyun had done this speech about four times in the past week already, each slightly more refined than the last. Chanyeol reckons that Baekhyun might just be fired up about this enough to try going on the PA system and announcing these thoughts to the whole school. Doing that might actually get him enough support to win a spot on the student council.

“And it’s so ing frustrating how parents are all ‘yes of course you have a choice, you can be anything you want and we’ll always be proud of you’ when what they really mean is ‘you can do anything as long as it’s a job that pays a six-figure salary and doesn’t involve or gangs, and we’ll only be proud of you if you outperform our neighbours’ kids so I can feel good talking about you when we next cross paths in the grocery store.’”

Chanyeol snorted hearing or gangs, which somehow caused him to lose his rhythm. He huffed hard enough to blow his bangs off his forehead and tried to start where he left off.

Baekhyun, noticing this, stopped for a few seconds to cross something out with Chanyeol’s pencil and scrawled something in as well, and Chanyeol muttered a small holy that’s genius which Baekhyun took as a thank you.

A half hour later found Chanyeol’s notebook chucked across the room from frustration. He had on his lap his math binder instead, and was hastily scrawling down Baekhyun’s answers to the homework questions while Baekhyun lazed around on his bed.

Baekhyun rolled over on Chanyeol’s bed to face him, watching his friend’s side profile. The window was directly behind Chanyeol and its blinds were open, which meant that Baekhyun got a faceful of warm sunlight. He blinked slower, deciding to roll onto his back with his eye closed. “Yeol, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you like yourself?”

Baekhyun turned his head to watch Chanyeol, who stopped writing and looked up at the wall in front of him contemplatively.

“Yeah,” he said cheerily, turning to look at Baekhyun while he explained. “I used to be really unsatisfied with myself since I was that one loud kid that was constantly talking but never listened to, but I guess somewhere along the way I learned how to get more people other than just you to listen to me and realized what I was doing wrong.”

Baekhyun rolled the rest of his body over to face him once again and tucked his arm under his head.

“I think it’s just one of those things that came with practice though,” Chanyeol said, “Why do you ask?”

“I dunno,” Baekhyun said, observing the relaxed stance Chanyeol had, “I just feel like you’ve gotten really confident this year.”

Chanyeol hummed but didn’t reply, scribbling in his notebook again. Baekhyun turned back to look at the ceiling.

~

The smell of the school library was always the first thing Baekhyun noticed. He didn't make a habit of going there very often. Usually, if students spent time in the library it'd be during their lunch hour and probably because they didn't finish an assignment. That's happened to Baekhyun a few times, although recently he just stopped caring if he forgot to finish something.

Looking around, he could probably point out the people who were working on unfinished assignments; there were only a few, but more would probably arrive as the period drags on. It was always people that were typing away at the line of computers behind all the bookshelves, and their especially recognizable tired, harried appearance gave them away.

There was a cushioned chair in front of every shelf of books, and Baekhyun settled himself into one of them with a small sigh. Twisting around, he d around the shelf until his fingers wrapped around the spine of a book, and he pulled it out. The cover was dark with long, curving letters sprawled across the top and the silhouettes of a male and a female under the title. It looked too girly for his tastes; he skimmed over the summary and almost scoffed out loud. He had half a mind to text it to Chanyeol until he remembered that he was supposed to be meeting him here and that he could just show it to him in person.

"That's a really good book."

Baekhyun looked up to find a girl looking down at the book in his hands. She looked to be around his age with a cute face that was almost perfectly free of flaws and straight, jet black hair. She was beautiful. Her posture spoke of confidence and an unapologetic personality that was rare in people their age, but from looking at her bitten nails and the tiny unsure flicker in her eyes Baekhyun knew that she was just pretending. She did a spectacular job in hiding how nervous she was, but Baekhyun recognized his own traits in other people particularly easily.

"Come to confess?" Baekhyun asked smoothly, only half joking.

To his surprise, she snorted. "You wish. I wrote the note."

She was referring to the note that Baekhyun had found on his desk earlier that told him to go to the library at lunch. It was signed by Chanyeol, though it made sense that it was forged since Chanyeol could just ask Baekhyun in person, not that he would since he rarely asked anything of Baekhyun in general.

"I see. Well, what can I do for you?" Baekhyun leaned back in the way that Chanyeol once told him looked cool. There was something about the girl in front of him that made him want to impress her. She looked disapproving and mildly amused all at once, a look Baekhyun only ever saw directed at him from Taeyeon before.

"Can we talk outside?"

"Why didn't you just ask to meet outside, then?" Baekhyun muttered as he heaved himself out of his chair, abandoning the paperback in his hands by the foot of the chair. The girl ignored him, and they walked side by side in silence after that.

There was a rock circle near one of the entrances to their school, and Baekhyun and the girl sat on the rocks, close but not too close to each other.

Once they were seated, the girl spoke up. “I have a crush on Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun snorts. “Don’t we all,” he mutters under his breath. “What do you want me to do about it? Be your wingman?”

“No, I’m not planning to do anything about it. I just want you to treat him better.”

Baekhyun raises an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah,” she said, unfazed, “Chanyeol is a good person. He’s genuine and friendly, and on top of that he’s funny and kind.”

Baekhyun was about to laugh at her, but she continued before she could.

“And he’s always with you,” she said. She didn’t say it in an accusational or jealous way, just like she was stating a fact, “I’m sure you’re a good person outside of what I know of you, and I didn’t come here to start anything or whatever, I’m just saying that I like him so I notice a lot of stuff about him, and most of those things involve you. And usually not in a good way. He doesn’t have any close friends outside of you, but it’s not like he doesn’t know how to make any since he’s probably the most loved guy in all the classes where you two don’t sit next to each other. I have watched you convince him to skip class with you just because you didn’t finish the homework for something. I know this isn’t any of my business and it doesn’t sound particularly bad but you’re being kind of selfish, you know that? Chanyeol never stops you from making friends, you’re just too proud and self-involved to bother making friends yourself so you monopolize all his time.”

Baekhyun wanted to reply with how would you know, but he knew he couldn’t because she already mentioned that she knew she didn’t. Damn, he had to just settle for looking unaffected and hope that she still felt somewhat intimidated by him.

She apparently didn’t. Now that she’d said what she’s wanted to, Baekhyun couldn’t find any hint of nervousness left in her.

He watched her walk away and stayed seated where he was. He contemplated asking Chanyeol to come out to join him but decided not to. That would be a slap in the face to everything the girl just said, and despite all his bravado in front of her, he knew he would probably fall asleep thinking about what she said. What he already knew.

~

Summer

It always seemed to come down to this.

It always came down to shouting and screaming in the dark at the top of his lungs. Where it was dark enough that Baekhyun didn’t care what was in his way as he threw things with edges nearly as sharp as his words and he couldn’t see the gash he left behind. He didn’t want to see. He wanted to hear the gasp echo in his ears as he shouted whatever he thought would leave the sharpest cut, he wanted to feel the bottle shatter as he smashed the top against the table’s edge, and he would lunge towards her with the sharp edges of broken glass wielded in his hand as a manifestation of abused power.

There was no light.

It was nighttime. The curtains were drawn. Maybe there were stars out. Maybe there weren’t. Baekhyun didn’t care.

The alcohol had fogged up his mind, and all he knew was that he could do anything. In this moment, no one was there to restrain him and he didn't care that someone could possibly get hurt, get hurt because of him.

Baekhyun was wearing shoes. They squeaked against the floor as he lunged across the marble table that his family ate on and threw the sharp, broken glass bottle.

His mother ducked. She turned for a split second to see the bottle smash against the wall behind her, just above the stove.

She wasn’t wearing shoes.

Baekhyun darted around the table towards her and she fled the other way, and Baekhyun could hear her in a breath when her bare feet stepped on the broken shards of the beer bottle Baekhyun had smashed. The chairs were toppled over and some had flown across the room from when Baekhyun had dragged them out of their position so he could get to his mother hiding beneath.

His mother had tried to hide from him. She had tried to placate him. She had tried and failed and now she was bleeding from cuts in her forehead and feet and arms and hands from when she tried to wrestle the bottle out of Baekhyun’s grasp.

And Baekhyun liked that. He liked that he made her bleed. He liked that she was scared. And he liked that she probably now thought he was more monster than man.

Some time had passed in the same way. And the door opened. And the door closed. And then there were feet rushing to her aid, and a voice telling Baekhyun to get out!

So he did.

He grabbed another bottle, unopened this time, and his coat before he slammed the door behind him.

There was really only one place he could go, so that was where he went.

He fished his car keys out of his coat pocket and climbed in his car, driving to Chanyeol’s house. The roads were empty and the air was cold. Baekhyun rolled the car windows all the way down and breathed in the frigid night, wondering fleetingly what time it was, although it made little difference whether it was one or two in the morning.

That was when Baekhyun realized that there were stars out, lots. And that they had been watching him the entire time. It made him blush in shame, but at the same time made him spiteful. The sparkling lights that were so inconstant didn’t have to do very much for everyone to believe in them, to wish upon them, but Baekhyun did. There was so much Baekhyun had to do to gain everyone’s trust and he was growing weary of it.

He took a turn.

Then another.

Baekhyun stopped the car when he reached a familiar apartment complex, parking in a random spot and calling Chanyeol to buzz him in.

Chanyeol picked up after a few rings, groaning into the phone in lieu of greeting. Baekhyun slurred something back about Chanyeol getting off his lazy and opening the goddamn door and Chanyeol begrudgingly complied. Baekhyun soon saw the giant moments later, coming down to lead Baekhyun in since he didn’t trust Baekhyun’s motor skills - or temper, for that matter - not to break something on his way to Chanyeol’s room.

Slinging an arm comfortably over the shorter’s shoulder, Chanyeol held open the door for him with his foot and took the extra bottle of alcohol Baekhyun brought with him since it seriously seemed like Baekhyun wasn’t capable of holding it himself without dropping it. Baekhyun let go of the dusky glass bottle without complaint and watched appraisingly as Chanyeol took a swig from it, noting how the giant was clad only in a pair of sweatpants and that his hair was tousled from just getting out of bed.

Baekhyun had never really seen Chanyeol dressed so crudely before but after a second look at the other’s sweats riding low on his waist and his adam’s apple bobbing as he drank, Baekhyun was struck by how much Chanyeol had grown; no longer soft curves and chubby cheeks, but now strong arms and a chiseled jaw.

Baekhyun felt small. He felt young and unprepared and like he was four years old again, where every little decision mattered so much and his future was looming before him.

Baekhyun shook his head again, a lump in his throat.

He was too intoxicated for this.

Making his way towards the elevator with Chanyeol following steadily behind - hand on Baekhyun’s elbow to make sure he didn’t fall in his inebriated state - Baekhyun kind of wanted to shrug him off, say something like I’m not a girl, I can handle this myself, but he let the other be, liking how warm his hand felt through the thin fabric of his shirt.

When they reached the apartment, Chanyeol unlocked the door for Baekhyun as they made their way in, Chanyeol fumbling his way through his dark apartment just slightly less clumsily than Baekhyun.

The entrance of Chanyeol’s apartment led directly into the living room, where Chanyeol flicked on the lights. Baekhyun shied away from the light, cowering back into Chanyeol and covered his eyes with his forearm muttering turnitoffturnitoffturnitoff until the taller complied.

Chanyeol stumbled over to Baekhyun in the dark, deciding to just flick on the TV instead of turning on the lights. The dim light’s intensity changed and flickered with the images being shown on the screen but Baekhyun seemed to be okay with it, so Chanyeol turned the TV on mute and joined his friend on the floor.

Leaning his back against his sofa, Chanyeol unconsciously mirrored Baekhyun in the way they drank from the bottle, in the way that they exhaled softly when they took a particularly large swig. Baekhyun liked it like that. Taeyeon once said that they were one person in two bodies - Baekhyun had been proud of that, he still was. He wanted the whole damn world to know how inseparable they were, how they were always nothing but Baekhyun and Chanyeol against the world, and how they would stay that way forever.

Chanyeol's apartment was dark and quiet and small. The kitchen was connected directly to the living room, where the only furniture was a couch and a television. There were windows on the far ends of the room, but all Baekhyun could see from where he was sitting was the neighbouring building and how dark it was.

Baekhyun looked over at Chanyeol and was surprised to find that the other was looking at him too. Or, more specifically, at his hand. Baekhyun had no idea why Chanyeol was so fixated on his hand, but he thinks that Chanyeol might've felt his gaze or something because he looked up with furrowed brows. It's not a good look on him, mostly due to the implications, but Baekhyun thinks anyways that maybe he'd like Chanyeol to look at him more with his face pinched in worry in such a way that his double eyelids became even more prominent on his face, the light from the muted TV casting a shadow between his eyebrows. Baekhyun just stares back and hopes that Chanyeol would be the one to break the silence, because he isn't sure if his voice will crack and he'd rather not try.

Eventually, Chanyeol says "your hand is bleeding."

Baekhyun flips his hand over from its place on the floor so the palm is visible. Indeed, he can make out the cut around the middle, some smeared blood around the wound.

"Oh," Baekhyun replies intelligently, "sorry about your floor."

Chanyeol’s worried look hadn't changed and Baekhyun wondered if it's hard to hold an expression for that long. He remembered when he had his school pictures taken and how his face would twitch from trying to hold the awkward smile long enough that the photographer could take a couple of pictures. The pictures always turned out awful anyways.

With a sigh, Baekhyun contemplates at the wound, the way he would sometimes on a paper cut, and wondered how well Chanyeol would take to that. Chanyeol had always seemed like the put-a-band-aid-on-it-and-kiss-the-oo type, which, if Baekhyun was being honest, was slightly annoying. It brought up memories of childhood, which were exactly the types of memories that he didn't need to be thinking about right after trying to ing kill his mom.

True to his nature though, Chanyeol got up and pulled a first aid kit out from somewhere on the top of his fridge. Baekhyun finds it funny that Chanyeol keeps the kit in the kitchen, and wonders how many times he's had to use it due to cooking related accidents.

Watching the muscles in Chanyeol’s back shift as he moved around in the near-darkness, Baekhyun unconsciously gave a little sigh. There was a suspicious stirring in his stomach, but he didn’t want to think about it yet. He gave up his crush on Chanyeol years ago, and there was just no more heart left in Baekhyun to contemplate this, too. His feelings were stretched so thin, all strung out that he thought he forgot what some things felt like. It was like living in a cold, gray-blue world and trying to remember what a vivid red looked like from a single glimpse of sunset many years ago. Or maybe it wasn’t like that at all and Baekhyun was just drunk.

Chanyeol returned to the couch with the kit in hand and grabbed Baekhyun by the wrist, but Baekhyun pulled his hand away.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing at the kit.

Chanyeol frowned but handed it over, and Baekhyun grabbed it and flung it across the room in one motion. “‘M not a , Yeol. I don’t need this .”

Chanyeol just shook his head and sighed, reaching for the bottle in Baekhyun’s hand. “Pass. I’m not drunk enough to deal with you yet.”

Baekhyun laughed a little harder than that comment probably deserved and handed over the bottle. Wiping his hand on his pants to get rid of any dirt on it, Baekhyun started to just at his hand, making sure to keep eye contact with Chanyeol to watch his reaction. Chanyeol didn’t seem bothered at all which was a little disappointing. The cut was probably from a glass shard or something and actually looked concerning enough for Baekhyun to regret throwing the bandages and tweezers and across the room, not that he’d ever tell Chanyeol that.

“What happened?” Chanyeol asked after taking his mouth off the bottle with an audible pop.

“I pricked my hand on a spinning wheel.”

Chanyeol hummed. “Too bad you’re not unconscious.”

“You’re a piece of , you know that?” Baekhyun said, though he was smiling

“Well I do know you want me up your ,” Chanyeol replied while laughing.

There were a few beats of silence after that while they stopped laughing and the smiles slowly melted off their faces. The somber atmosphere was back, though some of the tension was gone. Baekhyun wanted to talk, and he knew he had a lot to say, he just didn’t know how he would say it.

Finally, he blurted “Hyunshik came back today.”

Chanyeol turned away from the television and looked at him instead, and Baekhyun wanted to move closer for a hug or something.

“I hate him,” Baekhyun said bitterly, tearing his gaze away from Chanyeol.

“What happened this time?”

“He-” Baekhyun stopped, ashamed. He didn’t really know how to say it without making himself seem like a selfish bastard, though he realized that there wasn’t any way to cover up that truth. “He told her to sell our house and go live with him. He said that I was old enough to be independent and that she’s been spoiling me for too long.”

“You’re not spoiled, Baek.” Chanyeol reassured him, sounded the way a mother would when telling their child that their art was, for lack of a better word, interesting.

Baekhyun shook his head. “Yeah right. What about you? Living alone already with a job and everything.”

Chanyeol looked like he was about to protest, but Baekhyun cut him off. “It’s just that. I know I’m in a bad position to be saying this because I’m relying on her, but she’s just making another mistake. Can’t she see that she’s just repeating the past? Dad came and took her out of her ty life into a life that was ty in a different way, ing swept her off her feet with promises of a new future or some bull. And now Hyunshik comes along and tells her exactly the same thing, that the two of them can live a stress-free, child-free life and that she can just forget the rest of us. And she ing believes him because it’s what she wants to hear, that she deserves better than this, that cutting off contact with Taeyeon while she lies dying in a ing hospital is fine and that Taeyeon, ing Taeyeon, should be the one to understand. Her daughter-” Baekhyun clenches his fist, “Her daughter is dying in a hospital, and Hyunshik tells her it’s okay not to visit because losing a loved one is hard? I’m glad Taeyeon doesn’t have to go through that ‘cause my mom is ing impossible to love.” Baekhyun relaxed his fist and watched the way the blood pooled in the lines of his palms, breathing a little heavier from talking so much. “So yeah, when Hyunshik left I threw at her, trying to get her to ing understand that she needs to grow the up, and he came back again before I could kill her.” Baekhyun tsked. “I can’t believe she gave that man a key.”

Turning his gaze up, Baekhyun was disarmed by how distraught Chanyeol looked. Chanyeol had so much genuine worry in his eyes that Baekhyun’s heart melted for a second, and he shifted his body a little closer so he could rest his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder. They stayed quiet for a moment.

“But you don’t love her,” Chanyeol started, “you aren’t doing anything for her aside from yelling at her, so why should she actually want to keep the house for your sake?”

“I didn’t ask to be born,” Baekhyun huffs in frustration, “she needs to ing learn to take responsibility and realize that having children means she can’t just stop caring for them when it gets too tedious! She’s always expecting so much for herself, like our family should kiss her feet and beg for her love. We don’t ing love her ‘cause she doesn’t love us, and she doesn’t love us because she’s too used to being given love instead of giving it. ”

Now Chanyeol’s really careful, and he starts his sentence about four times before actually saying it. “But aren’t you… like that too?”

Baekhyun’s head snaps up to look at Chanyeol. “Am I?” he whispers.

Chanyeol’s adam's apple was bobbing, and he looked straight ahead instead of meeting Baekhyun’s gaze.

“I’m so sorry,” Baekhyun whispers again, curling into Chanyeol’s side.

“No don’t be sorry, you’re…” Chanyeol trailed off. “I like you. You can’t choose who your parents are but you can choose your friends, so even if you at relationships I still chose you to be my friend? I guess? So don’t feel bad, is what I’m trying to say.”

Baekhyun turned so his nose nuzzled against Chanyeol's neck and exhaled across his collarbones, and Chanyeol rubbed circles into his arm until they both fell asleep.

~

“Come with me,” Chanyeol whispered one sunset, catching Baekhyun by the wrist on his way home from visiting the hospital.

The busy street Baekhyun was walking on was alive with bustling throngs of people, and Chanyeol stepped off the sidewalk and looked back hopefully to see if Baekhyun would follow. Baekhyun was staring at the edge of the curb that he was standing on as if it had done something terribly offensive, or was an immense cliff that would bring him to his demise as soon as he stepped off it.

Baekhyun didn’t move.

Chanyeol was met with some restraint as Baekhyun tugged his arm back, rubbing the area he had held onto with a look of disdain at the taller, but one fleeting look back at Chanyeol’s pleading eyes and Baekhyun softened, obediently sneaking his hand into Chanyeol’s again. Baekhyun let himself be led across the street to where a small Lexus sat at the opposite curb, sandwiched between several other cars.

The two stepped inside Chanyeol's car, a second hand vehicle that was given to Chanyeol for his most recent birthday from his parents. Its interior smelled blessedly of Chanyeol himself, a blunt, earthy odour impossible to further describe. It was cushioned with leather seats that were starting to crack just a little, and Baekhyun was surprisingly pleased to find a couple of small pink fuzzy dice swinging from the rearview mirror.

Chanyeol steered the car closer to the middle of the road, hands at ten and two and looking for all the world like every driver’s education teacher’s wet dream. Baekhyun could’ve smiled at the image alone, but the picture of Taeyeon in her hospital bed was still engraved in his mind.

They drove on this tiny road squished between sidewalks and looming buildings occupied with foolhardy pedestrians who would run across the street in between cars, one of them patting the hood of Chanyeol's and shouting as they stumbled past. It went on like this for a couple of blocks, but suddenly the street opened onto a wide intersection filled with all these other vehicles and suddenly they were just one in a million cars that looked as unassuming as their own, racing down the busy road with occasional pedestrians pacing across it and car horns honking obnoxiously. The sun dipped just out of eyesight below the city skyline, making the fat clouds with pink underbellies darken slightly, and Baekhyun squinted when they were driving directly towards the sunset.

Baekhyun was still somber, but he could already feel Chanyeol’s presence smoothing away the lingering aftertaste of the hospital. The rumble of the road and soft music were remedying, and the sadness slowly ebbed away. The music Chanyeol played was foreign to Baekhyun, a voice singing something that Baekhyun didn’t get in words but sounded so familiar in feeling. The piano highlighted the singer’s voice and both Chanyeol and Baekhyun were quiet so the singer was the only audible one in the enclosed space. Baekhyun was mute with respect and awe, the mix of emotions in the singer’s voice registering so incredibly deep with Baekhyun that a lump came to his throat and he felt more emotion here in this small car with Chanyeol than he did in days. It was one of those things you never notice in life, falling into a pattern and not registering that days have passed by in this stale, dreary manner until something breaks you out of it.

They both stayed quiet for a bit until Chanyeol started humming along to the song under his breath. Baekhyun just sat and listened, partly because he couldn’t sing along without knowing the words anyways, but also because Chanyeol probably only started because he forgot about Baekhyun’s presence, and Baekhyun was waiting to see if Chanyeol would actually start singing a few more miles down the road.

Baekhyun wasn't really sure how long they drove after that, but the road had gradually cleared until they were driving past farms and countryside, Baekhyun seeing the rare sight of horses milling around in the far distance in the last light of the day. As they got away from all the other cars and people and somehow became the only car on the road, Chanyeol's driving position changed too. He had one hand resting at the base of the steering wheel, his arm nearly resting on his own lap. His head was tilted back at an angle like he was caught between looking at the empty expanse of road before him or looking at Baekhyun and his other hand was in between himself and Baekhyun, tapping out the rhythmic beat to whatever song played on the radio.

Baekhyun had relaxed too, half lidded eyes admiring the scenery lazily. He felt like he was in a trance, forgetting what he saw as soon as he saw it like he did when he was dreaming. He supposed it was because of this trance-like state that it took so embarrassingly long for him to realize that it was night time already. The sun had set completely, the first couple of stars winking into view amidst the night sky.

"Chanyeol?" Baekhyun asked, head lolling back against the seats towards Chanyeol.

"Hmm?"

"Why did you take me out here today?"

Chanyeol didn't answer.

Baekhyun looked back out the window, thinking maybe he’ll ask again later. For now though, Baekhyun could settle for watching the moon wink at him as it appeared then disappeared behind trees that were nothing but towering black silhouettes in the dark.

Eventually, they pulled up to one of the only natural parks in their area, and the two of them hike to one of the picnic tables set in the middle of a wide stretch of land. They didn’t talk much on the way, since the mood didn’t feel lighthearted enough for chatter, but when they sat down at the table Chanyeol immediately pulled Baekhyun into his side and broke the silence.

“Baekhyun,” he murmured into Baekhyun’s hair, “Can you remember everything about tonight?”

Baekhyun closed his eyes for a second and tried - tried to focus on Chanyeol’s warm body pressed against his side, his breath tickling his scalp, the wind blowing past them and touching everything but where their bodies were sealed together, tried to imprint this into his mind so it would be the only thing seared to the back of his eyelids, the only thing he’d see when he blinked. He opened his eyes.

The night sky stretched above and around them, the moon and stars provided a gentle reflection off even the nails of their hands clasped between them and the surface they were sitting on. The warm feeling spreading in his chest and the glint in Chanyeol’s eyes as he leaned down so, so close. Baekhyun was trying his best to notice everything around them but the only thing he could think about was Chanyeol’s breath fanning across Baekhyun’s lips with the whisper will you remember this? and Baekhyun wasn’t even sure if he actually said it out loud before Chanyeol’s mouth touched his. Baekhyun turned and brought his arms up to pull Chanyeol down more, and he thought somewhere hidden in between all their other kisses he whispered God, yes and meant it with all his heart and wondered blearily when it started feeling like his heart didn’t belong entirely to himself anymore.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol left the park when it started to rain, and even though it was barely there, it was enough to dampen the light and create tiny raindrops on the window that glittered when they passed by a streetlamp. He wasn’t upset about having had to leave early, rather he was so happy, so so filled with warmth and an elation he rarely ever felt that he almost believed he was light enough to float into the night sky. Baekhyun never believed in destiny, in love and life being predetermined by the stars, he thought it was just one of those selfish things humans typically believed in: that everything worked out in the end, and it seemed to Baekhyun like it was too much to believe that the stars were looking down on them, that the stars had nothing better to do than plan out the little love stories of mortals. But now, as their car sped home along with only a few others, Baekhyun wanted so badly for it all to be true. He wanted to remember everything that happened tonight and he wanted it all to be a sign of things improving, as if the stars only just now started looking down on him favourably and decided that they would take over his life now, decided that they would improve his life.

~

For one small, unguarded moment, Baekhyun let himself be comforted by Chanyeol’s arms around him. He curled his fists into Chanyeol’s shirt, slowly at first, but his grip got tighter and tighter, unrelenting like iron. Chanyeol didn’t seem to mind, and he did the thing he always did when they were kids and Baekhyun didn’t want Chanyeol to see him cry, where he turned their bodies so they faced each other and bent down so Baekhyun could bury his face into the curve where Chanyeol’s neck met his shoulder.

That was all it took, Chanyeol’s silent message for Baekhyun to let it all out. You deserve it. That Baekhyun lost all control, hands coming up to grip at Chanyeol’s shoulders painfully as he pressed his face into Chanyeol’s neck, hard, and started to cry.

It was terrible but amazing at the same time, like he had been tossed around by a strong current under dark, navy waters, and suddenly he could control the currents like they were a previously undiscovered part of his mind. Still drowning, but only in his emotions, only because he wanted to.

Baekhyun’s body wracked violently with horrid sobs. They came out cracked and choked and broken, kind of like Baekhyun himself, and he didn’t register that beneath the incessant ringing in his ears, there were his own muffled cries, and below that still, Chanyeol’s quiet murmurings whispering lullabies in his ear the way Taeyeon used to do, the way Taeyeon would never do again.

~

Baekhyun sat cross legged on his small, twin sized bed. It was around eleven at night, and the curtains of his room were wide open, letting in a surprisingly satisfying amount of light.

Of course, as was becoming a habit recently, Baekhyun was also loosely holding a half empty bottle of lukewarm beer by the neck, an array of empty and full bottles scattered around him and nudging his knees every time he shifted on his bed as he stared out the window.

He listened quietly to the sound of his mother’s muffled sobs seeping in through the walls, and he knew she was making an extra effort to stay quiet since she assumed Baekhyun was sleeping. She always assumed the best of him.

Of course, Baekhyun wasn’t sleeping. He rarely did, these days.

Some nights he would sneak out of the house and go to a bar where he’d sit and drink and maybe talk to the bartender. Or maybe he’d sit in some small restaurant with sticky tables and cracking leather booths opened 24 hours and observe whoever was there in the restaurant with him. Most nights though, Baekhyun would just sit on his bed in his room like he was at the moment, and he’d just listen and watch.

He’d listen for his mother’s telltale sobbing or the sound of the lone cars passing by. Sometimes he’d just listen to the clock tick, or to the voices in his head telling him things he didn’t want to hear.

Baekhyun would watch the stars if they came out at night, and the moon if he could find it, and if he couldn’t find any celestial beings to watch he’d just settle for the streetlamp standing just outside his room.

Tonight would probably be one of those nights.

Baekhyun gave a weary sigh, and he turned towards the window, sipping slowly from the bottle in his hand.

It had rained that afternoon, drizzling splatters that seemed like they would never stop, and though it had eventually relented and let the sun make its appearance, it seemed the streets were still wet and the last remains of water trickled like little streams towards the sewers.

Baekhyun liked it a lot more that way, the light from streetlamps and car headlights reflecting off the still-wet ground like everything was being mirrored, and the sky was left clear of it all, the stars and moon lighting up whatever was left so it seemed like everything was glowing.

Baekhyun had the sudden urge to go outside just then, away from his mom’s cries that were increasing in volume and the feeling of too many blankets on him. Away from the suffocating loneliness and the clock ticking like a bomb, and the stars looked so welcoming and enticing that Baekhyun just grabbed his drink and a wool sweater and jeans and climbed out one of the windows in his room that opened directly onto a rooftop.

Wavering a little, he thought of Tae, who he had actually been trying not to think about the past week, and sighed, telling himself to do it for her because she couldn’t right now. They used to do this when they were little, telling each other their problems and such out on the roof because being inside the house was too confining.

Somewhere in the back of Baekhyun’s mind something was telling him that clearly he’d had too much to drink, considering he was sitting on the roof of his house about to talk to the night sky, but Baekhyun shushed it, taking another swig of cold beer,

“Tae?” Baekhyun asked the chilling silence.

Baekhyun paused, as if waiting for her to answer.

In reality he was just pondering what to say next. That, and wondering if he was really going to do this. Confessing his feelings to a twinkling blanket of stars wasn’t exactly his thing, and though the view was nice and all he wasn’t really sure he wanted to make it a habit. Just then though, a light gust of wind breezed through, ruffling Baekhyun’s hair, and he took it as a sign to continue.

“Tae… I missed you. A lot.”

Baekhyun kept his gaze on his own hands clasped in front of him, the condensation on his beer bottle slowly dripping down. He could almost hear his sister’s voice whispering I missed you too back to him, and Baekhyun swallowed the lump in his throat.

“I... you-” Baekhyun swallowed again.

He started over. “You told me to be more compassionate,” he whispered, not knowing where he was going with this. “so I think… I think I’m gonna give it a try.”

Baekhyun really didn’t want to give it a try, and he had no idea why he was telling his sister he would when clearly the only difference between him and a goddamn rock was that the rock wasn’t an alcoholic.

“I mean,” Baekhyun looked up again, studying the crescent moon. “I mean I want you to be proud of me. And I want to be proud of me. And I want you to be here. I’m lonely, Tae, I’m so lonely. Chanyeol and I-” Baekhyun tried to push back the tears that threatened to spring at Chanyeol’s name. “we don’t really talk anymore. He’s changed. Mom’s changed too. She’s lonely too. I… I think we’re all lonely now. Without you.” Baekhyun cursed his alcohol muddled brain for not being able to come up with sentences longer than six words. Baekhyun was a little ashamed to be drinking in front of Tae- even though he wasn’t technically in front of her, he just knew she wouldn’t approve and he set the bottle aside, balanced carefully on the slanted rooftop.

Baekhyun then pressed his cold hands together, folding them into each other and exhaling warm air on them. It was chilly that night and he’d forgotten to take gloves out with him. Stuffing them in the pockets of his thick wool sweater didn’t last long as he felt awkward when he wasn’t able to fiddle with his fingers, so he just kept rubbing his palms together nervously.

“I. I just miss you so much. I really have no other way to say it. Everytime I pass by your room I just get this ache in my chest because I miss you so, so much and I wish you were here every single day. And Chanyeol misses you too. He doesn’t have to, but he does, for my sake. Like I said, we don’t talk anymore, but I miss him too. And I think mom misses the person I was when I had him around. And I miss the person mom was when you were around, and I miss the person I was when you were around. And- just- god Tae, I miss you so much.”

Baekhyun crossed his legs now, rubbing at his ears which were turning numb from cold. He’d have to go inside soon if he didn’t want to catch a cold. Baekhyun could almost hear his sister fretting over his health and scolding him for staying out when he knew he had a weak immune system to begin with, and Baekhyun smiled sadly down at his hands.

Looking back up at the night sky again, Baekhyun took a deep breath, telling himself to man up and say what he had really come to say, and without crying while saying it. “We all miss you a lot Tae, and I think none of us have really come to terms with your… departure yet, but I’ll be the first to start.”

Baekhyun took another, shaky breath, closing his eyes and picturing Taeyeon’s smiling face.

“Goodbye. I love you. I love you because I had to, because you were my sister, but even if I didn’t have to, even if you weren’t my sister, I think I’d still love you. And I think right about now is when you’d roll your eyes and say something about how the whole world would obviously love you, and then I’d laugh or cry or shove your shoulder or something, but it’s true. So I’m sorry for all the times we’ve fought, and all the times I hurt you, and all the times I chased away your crushes in a fit of overprotectiveness, and sorry for all the other times I’ve done anything worth apologizing for, and, even if it kills me to admit it, you were a great sister and I love you and miss you so much but it’s time I moved on, and it’s time I let you move on. So, um, I guess this is goodbye. I hope you’re happy wherever you are, finding a new crush and taking the chance that I’m not there to finally experience what a relationship feels like, and I hope you can hear this and I hope… I hope you miss me too.”

Baekhyun took one last look at the stars, and at the moon, and at the few lone cars passing by on the street below, and he sighed, long and hard, and got up to climb back into his room, nearly knocking over his beer bottle.

“Goodbye Taeyeon, I hope I see you in the next life.”

~

Baekhyun hurled himself forward into the dark alleyway, struggling against the arms around him, binding him, holding him. He tried to breathe through his mouth only since his nose couldn’t take the disgusting scent of his vomit-stained collar anymore, but there was no escaping the taste of bile in his mouth either.

His breath came in short gasps as he cried, screaming profanities and insults at the person behind him. He couldn’t move his arms- they were pinned against the sides of his body, and he couldn’t think in his panic, couldn’t tell Chanyeol to let him ing drink himself to death in peace however much he wanted to.

Baekhyun wrenched his body forward with all his might, successfully pulling an arm free as he pushed and pulled and punched until he was free enough to run. He rushed forward in a burst of energy, trying to put as much distance between himself and Chanyeol as possible. His sneakers hit the ground with muted thuds and it was the only sound he could hear, echoing off the walls looming over him.

Too late, he realized that he made a mistake.

A faded black iron wrought fence prevented any chance of escape. At this point, Baekhyun was sure the whole world was against him. Screaming for help, he shook the fence, trying to create noise. It wasn’t enough.

The fence shuddered but only barely, and suddenly Baekhyun realized how alone they were. Chanyeol, standing a little ways behind him, watching him with sullen eyes.

Baekhyun couldn’t see much of Chanyeol’s face in the low light, but as Chanyeol shifted his head towards the shorter Baekhyun saw a glimmer of watery light reflecting off the corner of his giant’s eye.

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said his name like a sigh.

Chanyeol’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears and drew in a shaky breath. “Why are you doing this?”

Baekhyun was suddenly hit with a wave of guilt so thick he almost choked, wrapping its thorny vines around his throat and heart. He felt shame clogging his throat and he remembered their youth with muted sorrow, remembered Chanyeol’s tears staining the sleeves of his washed out hoodie. Remembered with striking clarity how much he loathed whichever monster made his giant cry.

“You don’t understand,” Baekhyun spat out harshly, stomach lurching at his own disgusting behaviour.

“Yes I do-”

“No you don’t! Taeyeon-”

“Like hell I don’t!” Chanyeol shouted, shoving Baekhyun back as he advanced, tall figure making him loom threateningly. “You’re not the only one in the world who can feel pain! You’re being selfish and immature and this goes way beyond grieving. You lost a loved one, but everyone does eventually. You knew she was going to die! You had time to prepare for it, you had time to say goodbye-”

“I didn’t though, I never said goodbye,” Baekhyun said in a whisper, curling up and withering under Chanyeol’s gaze.

Chanyeol wasn’t sympathetic. “Well then get over it. You had plenty of time, you can’t blame anyone but yourself. She’s gone now, so you can stop all this,” Chanyeol grabbed Baekhyun’s disgusting collar harshly, “let’s face it Baekhyun. You stopped caring forever ago. You just need an excuse to brood and sulk and get back at your mom, don’t you? So you can keep living without responsibilities? Taeyeon was your sister, but right now she’s just an excuse to you, isn’t she?”

Chanyeol took a step back from Baekhyun, allowing the other space to slide down and lean against the dirty brick wall weakly. “Maybe you never got to say goodbye to Tae, but I did. She knew you would do this Baekhyun. She told me to stop you, to help you. Well, this is me making good on my promise.” Chanyeol stuffs his hands in his pockets and turns to leave, walking slowly and calmly like he wasn’t breaking his best friend’s heart. “Don’t come find me until you think you deserve to, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun scoffed loud enough that Chanyeol was sure to hear just how stupid Baekhyun thought that statement was, but deep down, Baekhyun knew that those words would eat away at his mind for weeks to come. It would be okay eventually, he reassured himself, Chanyeol always came back to him.

Though he wasn’t so sure this time around.

~

Sometimes Baekhyun would briefly entertain the thought of killing himself. On certain days he would stand in the bathroom stripped down to his boxers and just stare at himself. It’s not narcissistic at all. It’s just that he somehow lost the ability to think. He couldn’t decide what anything was anymore. He’d stare at himself. And he’d try to believe that he looked good. Attractive. Healthy. Like the happy, extroverted, controlled parts of himself. He’d school his face into a weak smile and pretend he couldn’t see the shivering corners of his lips-

And when that didn’t work, when his mind would reject the idea, he’d tell himself that he looked absolutely terrible. Ugly. Disgusting. Weak.

But that idea never took hold either. Baekhyun discovered that somehow, without his knowledge, he lost the ability to think objectively. He lost the ability to feel. He would just take in information without processing it, and memories and thoughts would slip away as he’s asleep, and it’d frustrate him to no end. He couldn’t do anything a machine couldn’t do anymore. He couldn’t even cry the way he used to. Back when he had some semblance of control over himself and his emotions, he knew what he cared about enough to make him sad, but now there was nothing. The same thoughts and memories that used to make him cry until he couldn’t breathe didn’t really matter to him anymore. He thought about this, of himself, a pathetic hollow shell of a being, and found that he didn’t care at all. It wasn’t quite numbness; he wasn’t numb because when he felt numb everything felt too big, too full. He knew what it felt like to be numb, and that wasn’t what he is. He was hollow. Somehow he became incapable of containing anything.

He ing hated it.

So yeah, sometimes he thought of killing himself. If he couldn’t feel anymore he could just use logic. He couldn’t do anything a machine couldn’t anymore, right? He was just a machine. And machines would choose the most logical solution, right?

Baekhyun would lean into the mirror and watch himself without processing what he was seeing. He could kill himself. He just could. There was nothing stopping him; from a certain perspective, there wasn’t even anything morally wrong about it. There was no one relying on him so there was no one to suffer if he was gone. Chanyeol might cry, but this would ultimately be good for him. Without Baekhyun, Chanyeol could grow. Chanyeol might outwardly seem like the one constantly hanging onto Baekhyun, but he didn’t need Baekhyun, he was just used to Baekhyun’s presence. Baekhyun, on the other hand, needed Chanyeol. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t bother trying to figure it out. He just knew it was true.

The reason he hadn’t killed himself yet was that he didn’t need to. He didn’t need to be alive, but he didn’t need to be dead either. If Chanyeol were there he would probably tell Baekhyun to just wait because there may be a time in the future where he might need to be alive, but how would Baekhyun be needed in the future if he wasn’t needed now? Everything that would cause someone to need him had to be his own doing, his own effort put into making someone depend on him. That would probably be a lot of work and he doubted he would ever try to be a person worth needing.

Baekhyun looked impassively at the mirror. There was nothing to see. If there was something to be found in his reflection, in the reflection of him searching his reflection, he was definitely lacking whatever key was needed to find it. He studied his body instead. He remembered a time when he actually cared enough to think things about it. He went through phases of self-hatred and self-acceptance, and sometimes the self-hatred was strong enough for him to grip his own skin with furiously shaking hands and try to tear it off, and sometimes it wasn’t intense enough to be considered anything other than dislike. Just a distant acknowledgment of how flawed and pathetic he was. And sometimes he liked himself, although he only really liked himself when Chanyeol did.

But now he just didn’t know. He felt utterly lost in his own mind, and where before he had Chanyeol or Taeyeon to help guide him, now he had no one. No one but himself.

~

Baekhyun’s eyes were swollen, red, and puffy, and his eyebags were nothing to be joked about, he knew. But one look at Chanyeol, and Baekhyun suddenly regretted not washing his face or shaving or even showering.

Chanyeol stood leaning casually against the door frame, clean and put together. He was tall and relaxed as he looked at Baekhyun with an appraising expression. Baekhyun had assumed that Chanyeol was just as affected by their separation as he was, and that showing up looking vulnerably messy would get Chanyeol to forgive him faster since he could visibly see just how lost Baekhyun was without him.

But this wasn’t what Baekhyun was expecting. He was never intimidated by Chanyeol, rarely did he associate Chanyeol with anything without that warm familiarity underlying every one of his movements, and never did he feel as inferior as he did at that moment.

Baekhyun looked up desperately through his greasy, unwashed bangs and waited for Chanyeol to say something. Chanyeol raised an eyebrow, and Baekhyun realized his mistake. This wasn’t the same Chanyeol as the one he was imagining. The immediate reunion where Chanyeol lets him into his arms with no words spoken that Baekhyun had wanted wasn’t going to happen.

For once, Baekhyun would have to put in the effort needed to make their friendship run.

“Chany-” Baekhyun’s voice rasped horribly and he cleared his throat, “Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol looked almost distantly amused. “Baekhyun.”

“Can I come in?” Baekhyun asked, belatedly realizing that it was the first time he had ever asked Chanyeol that. Usually he was just offered a quick hey, come in or just barged in on his own.

Chanyeol wordlessly turned and went inside, leaving Baekhyun to hurry in after him while nervously picking at the skin around his nails.

Chanyeol headed right for the couch and lounged back on it with one ankle propped on the leg of his other leg. He was sitting right up against the arm of the couch as far as possible from Baekhyun, and while Baekhyun wanted to sit next to him the way he usually would, he held himself back. For once, he wasn’t sure if he was welcome anymore.

Standing there awkwardly, Baekhyun looked at his hands as he started to talk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t really plan to say anything. I know it’s stupid but I just thought that I would show up and you would welcome me back,” Baekhyun didn’t mean to say that. He picks harder at his hands, during the past week he developed the habit of peeling the skin off his fingers, and he can almost feel Chanyeol’s eyes watching his movements. He wants to look up to check, but he doesn’t want to be disappointed if he sees the unfamiliar, mocking version of his friend, so he just keeps his head down as he talks.

“Literally on the way here I thought you wouldn’t leave me; I just couldn’t picture it, I wasn’t concerned at all. But now I think it’s just hit me that you’re your own person and that you don’t need me the way I need you. I’m going ing crazy, Yeol, please. I don’t know what to say. I think there’s something wrong with me; every time someone leaves me I go bat- crazy and I somehow drive them away even though losing you is the last thing I want.” Baekhyun stopped, unsure of where to go from there. Should he declare his love? Defend himself? He opened his mouth to-

Chanyeol cut him off. “Baekhyun you know I would never leave you right?”

Baekhyun just stared helplessly at him.

“I don’t regret what I said, but I never intended to fully leave. I’ve missed you these past few days, Baek.”

Chanyeol opened his arms with a gentle smile and Baekhyun finds himself pulled in once again, exactly where he wants to be.

~

"I won't eat anything ever again." Baekhyun groaned. Chanyeol agreed with a lazy hum and closed the door with a soft click. This was it. Baekhyun stood in the dark, rather ghostly entrance area that was lit up only by windows, just looking at everything and nothing, while Chanyeol stepped out of his shoes. For some reason, some houses had this distinct scent to them. Baekhyun had picked up on it during their countless viewings and this house made no exception. Dust particles floated without anything to really stir them, the natural scent of wallpaper and wood drenched the air, clashing with the one of cardboard. A forgotten attic. Something empty and dead.

It was a foreign scent, something he shouldn't associate with 'home' just yet. Then again, maybe that was the best part.

"Well don’t get too excited just yet," Chanyeol joked, watching Baekhyun’s still body standing just in front of the doorway.

Chanyeol's voice was b with fatigue, but somehow he still managed to throw in a dash of playfulness.

"I totally appreciate it,” he said, “but maybe we should sit down somewhere? My feet are dying."

Baekhyun chuckled soundlessly, but complied. The only room with a functioning lamp was the one with the yellowish wallpaper, the future music room, as Chanyeol had enthusiastically dubbed it. Baekhyun had let him be. He didn't really care how the rooms were filled as long as one of them had a bed. Currently, none of them did, but moving another muscle was no option, so they both sat down on the mattress. It had been one of the last objects Chanyeol's friend had helped them carry inside before they treated him to as much greasy pizza as he could devour.

"This was so ing exhausting, let's not repeat that within the next five years, at least." Chanyeol grumbled, and after a bit of wriggling, he decided to grab the blanket out of a nearby basket, cushioning his back. Baekhyun wordlessly handed him a bottle of water.

What was one supposed to feel in a situation like this? Quite frankly, Baekhyun should feel great. Leaving behind the familiar, stuffy air, all the little specks and indents Baekhyun had created, all the... empty walls. Right, now that he truly thought of it, he wasn't really leaving anything behind. Anything and yet everything.

Just to move in with Chanyeol. Yes, Baekhyun should feel great.

He wasn't sure whether he felt great though. He felt like crying.

Whether it was the pressure to be adequate, to be the person Chanyeol deserved, or actual pity for the latter, for being stuck with him now, Baekhyun didn't know.

"Do you like the lamp?"

A mop of probably gross curls came to rest in the crook of his neck. Baekhyun leaned into them. He looked up at the old, milky white lamp.

"It's alright."

Chanyeol snorted. "It's atrocious."

A tiny grin spread across Baekhyun's face. "Yes, it is."

He didn't have to look in order to know that Chanyeol was grinning. He just knew. Smiling didn't make a sound, but Chanyeol's smiles did. Maybe his ear didn't pick it up, but something surely did, because how else would Baekhyun be able to tell?

Chanyeol drew away and Baekhyun felt him looking at him. It was a very Chanyeol-thing to do. Looking unabashedly, patiently waiting for Baekhyun to turn towards him, mapping out all the little curves and moles on Baekhyun’s face and neck with his eyes in the meantime, checking if they all matched the patterns he'd memorized by heart. Baekhyun did turn towards him.

Chanyeol had been smiling already, but the moment their eyes met, his expression intensified. Warm fondness, simmering from an unknown source of heat. Alright, maybe not unknown. Maybe Baekhyun knew exactly what it was, as he was feeling something similar himself.

"We're living together now." Chanyeol whispered in a conspiratorial tone. A mischievous kid, up to no good, and yet innocent to the bone.

Baekhyun grinned.

"You're only realizing it now? You can't back out anymore." he with a quirk of his brow. Chanyeol retaliated with a firm hug, pulling Baekhyun to him and rubbing his face on Baekhyun’s shoulder while Baekhyun giggled madly. Chanyeol’s arms were framing him in the best way possible, their cheeks then mashed together in a childish, carefree way.

"Neither can you." Chanyeol murmured, and his words wrapped around Baekhyun just as much as his arms did. Baekhyun didn't know how to reply to that, so he tugged at him and sent both of them tumbling onto the mattress. It was still lacking proper sheets, and it should be gross, and they were gross, really. And maybe Baekhyun was gross, too, but now that he was enveloped by Chanyeol all around, he was hit by the revelation that this scent, Chanyeol’s scent, was home. So technically, he really hadn't left anything behind.

~

“Baekhyun, have you ever considered wearing jewelry?” Chanyeol asked one fateful day when the two of them were working in the garden. Chanyeol had on his beat up Nikes, gloved hands wrist deep in mud. The sun was warmly shining down in the nicest way possible and Chanyeol could feel his pits dampen with sweat, his glasses sliding down his nose with the moisture as he tried to nudge them up with his elbow. Baekhyun wasn’t too far off, a couple of marigolds away, carefully removing yet another marigold from its pot and trying to let it settle comfortably into the hole he just made. The top of the flower swayed with the movement and Baekhyun hurried to cup it gently until he was sure it could stand without his help.

Chanyeol waited patiently, working on his own row of seeds. Two years living with the other taught Chanyeol that if Baekhyun hadn’t responded to a question he thought seemed important for a while, it was merely because he was gathering his thoughts, and not because he was annoyed like Chanyeol so often thought he was in those earlier months when they were together.

Baekhyun hummed lightly. “Not unless it’s a ring from you,” he replied cheekily, wiping his hands on his already muddy jeans as he sat back on his heels to look at Chanyeol with a grin.

“Byun Baekhyun will-” Chanyeol hesitated.

“Will I marry you?” Baekhyun asked first, reaching his arms out and making grabbing motions so the other could scoot closer and pulled him into a chaste kiss. The dirt on their jeans smudged but neither one noticed.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Chanyeol murmured, leaning his forehead against Baekhyun’s, the two of them wearing matching grins.

Baekhyun smiled – he couldn’t help it – and pulled Chanyeol’s gloves off, wrapping his own dirty, uncovered hands around Chanyeol’s big ones. “Of course. Of course I will.”

“Well in that case,” Chanyeol said, pulling away to pick up a certain pot with a pink myrtle planted in it. He offered the pot to Baekhyun. “Will you help me plant this?”

The two settled themselves next to each other, Chanyeol with the base of the flower pot and Baekhyun slowly removing the plant from the soil. Almost as soon as Baekhyun reached his hands in the soil though, he let out a happy shout of delight, gathering the flower in his hands gently as he admired a silver ring set with tiny geometric diamonds that was resting around the stalk. Baekhyun was honestly confused at how Chanyeol could manage to get the ring onto the stem of the flower without damaging the roots or blossoms, but it didn’t matter because suddenly they were kissing. They were kissing and laughing and holding each other under the sun surrounded by flowers and birds and warmth, and Baekhyun thought that maybe this is what heaven feels like, like Chanyeol’s rumbling laughter and his chest about to burst and the soft soil under him smelling pleasantly of the outdoors, and at the moment Baekhyun couldn’t think of anywhere he would rather be.

~

Fall

As the sun steadily scaled the canvas sky, a flickering red sign spluttered pathetically over a dingy little café in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those somber days where rain was the ultimate muse and nursing a cup of coffee meant breathing in its steam until it was cold. Baekhyun would stare out the café window and his chest would expand so full with melancholy that each inhale took herculean effort and each exhale was much needed relief.

"It's the atmosphere," he would say. "There's no sun here. Everything’s so gloomy. I'm no florist, but this can't be good for the flowers."

And Chanyeol would smile and shrug, and flick at the greens sitting in the centre of the wooden table. Baekhyun would continue breathing in the hot vapour coming from his mug and pick at the plate of cake sitting in front of him. Chanyeol would play with the string of his teabag. The silence between them would paint over the background chatter like a matte ceramic glaze.

Baekhyun wasn’t a fan of studying flowers, but he suspected the cafe owner might be. Everywhere there were flowers, and everywhere there were flower names. Words like hydrangeas and orchids and roses were printed on rectangular pieces of colourful cardstock sticking out the sides of pots sitting on windowsills. Even the menu board hanging above the counter was dotted with-

“Dandelions.”

Baekhyun snorted. “That’s too easy, Yeol. That’s like, borderline cheating.”

Chanyeol didn’t protest, he just smiled at Baekhyun sweetly and stole some of the chocolate decorations off his cake.

It's an in between thing. Their relationship was a balance between lazy cat naps in the sun and driving through the pouring rain. There was no excitement for them, no arguments or flared tempers. God knows they’ve had enough of that to last them a lifetime.

"Sunset, then."

"Sunsets are, like, pink. Not yellow."

"Well they should be." Chanyeol said, wrinkling his nose a little, and while Baekhyun was intimately familiar with Chanyeol’s every habit by now, he still found the action as cute as he did the first time he saw it. Maybe because it was Chanyeol, maybe because some things never change.

"No they shouldn't," Baekhyun exhaled, turning to gaze out of their window. "they really shouldn't."

Chanyeol’s lips quirked up at this. They always did when Baekhyun was getting all somber and deep about things. Baekhyun used to be scared of that smile; it was so similar to the ones he’d get from Taeyeon - but the novelty of her death had worn off after the years. The wound she left behind had scabbed over, allowing Baekhyun to think about other things - other people - like Chanyeol, who was worming his way so deeply Baekhyun’s heart that should he ever leave, well, Baekhyun thinks it might be fatal.

~

“Hey, you’re here again?” Chanyeol asked as Baekhyun shuffled into his room. Baekhyun had visited literally every day of the week so far, and Chanyeol knew the nurses, especially the younger ones, were enchanted by this. Some of them would offhandedly mention to Chanyeol how sweet it was how close he and Baekhyun were, despite the fact that most of the nurses didn’t know the true nature of their relationship.

Baekhyun settled down next to Chanyeol’s bed and took his hand with a tenderness that was offset by the slight sarcasm in his voice. “Sick of me already?”

“Never,” Chanyeol reassured him, “If I was ever going to get sick of you, don’t you think it would have happened already? After all, it took a year to train you out of the habit of opening the door to my room to talk to me and not closing it when you leave.”

Baekhyun gave a small laugh and Chanyeol’s wrinkled skin with his thumb. “Hey Yeol?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you,” Baekhyun said with a smile. He watched as Chanyeol’s eyes as they softened. “Oh good,” he said, “I wasn’t sure when you accepted my marriage proposal.”

Baekhyun lifted Chanyeol’s hand and brushed his lips over it with an indulgent smile. He was so, so fond of Chanyeol, who was genuine and kind and selfless and probably the best person Baekhyun ever met, and nowadays he made sure Chanyeol knew it. Baekhyun tried to declare his love in every word and action and paid more attention to Chanyeol, now especially more than ever, because he needed Chanyeol to know how precious he was to Baekhyun.

Chanyeol closed his eyes and leaned his head to the side of the bed Baekhyun was on, perhaps unconsciously, and Baekhyun looked down so he couldn’t see the pallor of Chanyeol’s face that became so much more prominent when Chanyeol was still.

~

Baekhyun fiddled with the photograph in his hands. It was of him and Chanyeol, taken the day of their wedding, and Baekhyun observed with blurred vision as big fat tears slid down and soaked through the page.

Sometimes Baekhyun wondered if he was drowning in sadness. As if it’s this toxic, foreign substance filling his lungs and mind and muffled his screams and all he wishes for is death, but it just doesn’t come fast enough.

So, he supposed what he really meant is that he wasn’t so much drowning in sadness as living in it. It was this haze that surrounded his mind, like a dream, like trying to run away but the harder and faster he tried to move his limbs the slower they’d go, stuck in time, like he wasn’t the one in charge of them at all.

Some days he wished that at least Chanyeol’s ghost should exist, because there was so much unfinished business. It was completely unfair; Chanyeol should never have died, should never have left him. Every single time Baekhyun recalled it, the promise of growing old together and the feeling of both his hands occupied by the love of his life, his heart would break because those promises were never meant to be broken and that feeling was meant to last. Baekhyun thought he deserved better. Despite all his shortcomings, he’s worked hard to try to deserve Chanyeol’s love over the years, and right when he had gotten comfortable with himself, Chanyeol left in what was possibly the most painful way ever. The same way Taeyeon did.

Baekhyun let out a shuddering breath.

As cliche as it was of him to think, Baekhyun believed with his heart and soul and mind that Chanyeol himself deserved better too. And maybe it was because Baekhyun looked at Chanyeol like a blind man would look upon the rising sun for the first time, but the warm rays of pale gold and melting nightmares were something he had once experienced and never wanted to stop. Chanyeol was, in Baekhyun’s eyes, otherworldly, but today, yesterday, and every day to come, Baekhyun would roll over in the morning, only to find Chanyeol’s side of the bed empty, and something inside him would tear to shreds. He had experienced true bliss and it was ripped away from him in the most cruel way possible.

When something as beautiful as youth or love was spoiled, it was a tragedy. It was the kind of tragedy heard of before countless times from countless views and never grows old. Like a long buried memory springing into your mind ages after the event has passed, sometimes the empty feeling of loss would just hit Baekhyun like a bullet, leaving him crippled and wounded and helpless.

~

Winter

Now, Baekhyun supposed it was obvious that sharpening a blurred picture was a lot harder than blurring a once vivid image. Sharpening would maybe darken and thin messy, blurred outlines, exaggerate small details and add in embellishments to fill in the blanks time rubbed away from the memory, but it was obvious how easy it was to blur something. Forgetting was just too simple, and as much as Baekhyun wished otherwise, he too had forgotten; how looking at the stars felt when he wasn’t doing it alone, had forgotten the antsy feeling of watching someone sing onstage and wanting to jump up there and join them. It explained why he was so surprised when Chanyeol came to him in brilliant detail and reminded Baekhyun of things he had long buried unwittingly in the folds of all his time alone. That was how Baekhyun knew it wasn’t a memory. The smiling picture of Chanyeol’s face wasn’t just a smudged copy of old pictures that Baekhyun had kept but was actually in front of Baekhyun in full, sensory detail.

Chanyeol dipped into a low bow, one hand hidden behind his back and the other extended towards Baekhyun as an unspoken invitation.

Too impatient to bother with formalities, Baekhyun grabbed Chanyeol by the neck and lunged into an impatient kiss. Chanyeol straightened and wrapped his arms around Baekhyun, lifting him for a second so his feet won’t touch the ground, and for the first time in years, Baekhyun experienced pure bliss through every fibre of his being.

It was like they were back to being newlyweds again, where everything about Chanyeol was exciting and everywhere Chanyeol’s warmth infused with Baekhyun’s own made him feel like one whole being again. Chanyeol feels so new and yet familiar at the same moment. Everything about him, Baekhyun already knew, but at the same time they were all things Baekhyun thought he would never remember again. Everything Chanyeol that Baekhyun took for granted screamed out at him, and Baekhyun took this chance to really worship him. Both hands occupied again, holding onto the one thing that he never let go of in life, Baekhyun breathes out harsh against Chanyeol’s lips as he looks him in the eye, and Chanyeol is watching him with a fond smile. Not a smile reserved for a person whom you haven’t seen in years, but one of pleasant surprise, like getting an unexpected gift. Baekhyun wondered what this felt like to Chanyeol, if he truly didn’t remember how much time they spent apart. He decided it was better this way anyway; Chanyeol didn’t need to know how much time Baekhyun spent suffering alone.

Baekhyun could finally feel again, as if Chanyeol was the missing piece that his heart needed to work again. He was invigorated again by Chanyeol, and he had so much he needed to say and do that he doesn’t know where to start.

“Dance with me, Baekhyun.” Chanyeol whispered. He leaned in close, his breath ghosting past Baekhyun’s ear, and Baekhyun smiled into the crook of Chanyeol’s neck and moves his hand up to Chanyeol’s nape. He the skin there lovingly, feeling the soft skin there and the place where hair starts growing, the way he never thought he’d be able to do again. His other hand stays where it is, fingers curled around Chanyeol’s palm and clutching tight in fear of losing him again.

Sometime between one and the moment the sky lit up the world again, Baekhyun dances with the love of his life. The world is still dark, and though Baekhyun resents giving anything other than Chanyeol all of his attention, he notes with muted interest that they were outside. They were in a large, empty clearing, surrounded by grass tickling their feet and a huge, yawning expanse of the night sky above them. There were trees further in the distance, and a picnic table nearby. It feels familiar, though Baekhyun thinks it might just be the fact that he was probably dreaming and every dream was just an untouched part of himself, so it had to be familiar, right? Either way, Baekhyun and Chanyeol move around on the grassy plain. There was no music as there was nothing to play music with, but just listening to the wind blow past them was enough.

Baekhyun seriously could not get enough of the sight of Chanyeol. His eyes greedily drank up the image of Chanyeol’s hair blowing in the wind, the tiny flaws in his skin, his loving expression. He was so calm and beautiful and real, and Baekhyun wonders if he’ll ever get used to having Chanyeol back.

The thought sends a chill up his back and the realization weighs him down like a stone. Chanyeol might leave again. Without his permission, Baekhyun’s hands tighten around Chanyeol, as if telling him he can’t leave, and Baekhyun searched Chanyeol’s face for any sense of finality. Of course, he found nothing. It’s the weakness of Chanyeol’s strength; his calm demeanour was so different from Baekhyun’s neuroticism, from his parent’s unpredictable rage, his presence in itself providing a safe haven for Baekhyun, but it was always impossible to sense a threat from him. Baekhyun can’t think of a time when Chanyeol was the one informing him of the problems instead of the solutions, and with every problem he remembered Chanyeol being involved in was always panicked about by Baekhyun.

“Are you going to leave again?” Baekhyun whispered, scared. He would’ve stopped moving if it wasn’t for Chanyeol continuing to sway contentedly, dissolving Baekhyun’s sudden stiffness.

“Not if you don’t want me to,” Chanyeol replies easily. He follows it up with a gentle kiss pressed to Baekhyun’s forehead, and Baekhyun’s heart flutters. Chanyeol made it sound so simple, like everything would only happen with Baekhyun’s permission.

Baekhyun laughed, quick and light and airy, and pulled Chanyeol for another slow kiss. If what Chanyeol said was true then they had all the time in the world, and Baekhyun would never let him go if it was possible. Baekhyun breathed in deeply, his face still impossibly close to Chanyeol’s, and filled his lungs with Chanyeol’s scent, barely breathing out and just breathing in however much he could. Chanyeol seemed amused, but he didn’t say anything, peppering kisses along the column of Baekhyun’s throat.

Pulling back and stilling, Chanyeol looked the closest to worried as he’d looked all night, and Baekhyun’s heart lurched. He knew it was too good to be true. “Baekhyun, we need to go.”

Baekhyun’s heart gave a traitorous leap of hope. “We?”

“I need to go, but I want you to come with me,” Chanyeol said earnestly, holding Baekhyun’s hands and crouching a little to stare him in the eye. He’s biting his lip. “Will you?

“Yeah,” Baekhyun breathed without thinking. “Of course.”

Chanyeol grinned, bright as the stars around them. “Do you trust me?”

“What kind of question is that?” Baekhyun asked, smile mirroring Chanyeol’s, “I’d follow you anywhere.”

This appeared to make Chanyeol inexplicably happy, and suddenly he looked up as if someone had called his name, still grinning broadly.

Baekhyun followed his gaze, and he realized with a start that the sky was somehow much closer. The stars were within reach now, though they were still standing on the grass. The edges of his vision turned white with starlight and right in the middle of all that purity was Chanyeol, with an unearthly glow among stars that were dancing everywhere like fireflies.

As the light around Baekhyun’s vision closed in on him, Baekhyun reached for his hand, and stepped closer. He closed his eyes as the light covered everything he could see, and the last thing he felt was Chanyeol’s arms around him.

~

It is spring.

Birds are tittering, coaxing the sun to come out and play. Less vivid tongues might just call them noisy, but today, one less begrudging voice is heard.

And the birds chirp, merrily hopping over lush grass, passing in between the heads of little daisies, whose petals are still closed, shyly hiding from the playful drops of dew. The noisy little robins weren't afraid of the human among them - they're used to him, and Yixing has fed them more than once before. Today, as well, he waters the plants. Trims a few flowers to support their growth.

Of course, the little birds don't know that. Neither do they know the reason for his sigh. For a moment, Yixing hesitates, looking at the silent house. Then he turns to leave, in order to open up the shop.

Maybe what he’s doing is futile. Surely, the former inhabitant would have scoffed, saying something like that.

And yet Yixing keeps his tools stored in the little wooden box in the corner of the garden. He'll need them next week, to tend to the rose-colored Myrtles. Those are very important.

Somewhere, in another, equally unimpressive district of the city, Park Yura is slowly meandering around the house. Her hip is aching, but it was nothing she hadn't gotten used to over the years. Slowly, she washes her very few dirtied clothes in a tub full of hot water placed on the counter, scrubbing at the small specks and yellowed collars.

She should tell her relatives that it is alright to visit her in the afternoon from now on. That there was no way they might stumble across an exceptionally grumpy old man anymore. Who would have surely turned even more grumpy upon seeing that she isn't only capable of caring for herself, but that she also has plenty of people showering her with love.

He would have felt useless.

And he wouldn't have returned.

After the clothes are hung up outside she went for the dishes, though she'd hardly used any; she hasn’t been feeling very hungry as of late. Still, she reached for the wicker basket one of her grandsons had clumsily woven years ago, and went to the grocery store.

The reason why she does this is linked to the reason for her not telling her relatives about the recent emptiness of her house. She enters the store and slowly passes down the isles. For days, weeks, and months, her mornings have consisted of roughly the same items. The same brand of canned soups though the type had varied, the same type of bread, the same chocolate pudding. Unlike her younger brother Chanyeol, she didn’t enjoyed chocolate pudding. So today, she bought a vanilla one.

No one pays much attention to the old lady because there are a lot of them and the employees are busy, always so very busy. The cashier is especially eager to prove himself in front of his older co-worker, an enthusiastic, but fleeting smile gracing his lips as he diligently works towards the day they'd take away the 'help wanted' sign and decide to keep him.

The hours tick by and the sun crawls over the sky lazily. It’s a slow, pointless journey. Even if someone were to look up at it, talk to it, pity it - it wouldn't change a thing; the sun would keep going.

Some things just aren't made to change; they just can't. Just like the way her brother had been shining around the scrawny little boy with his dark, wary eyes hadn't ever changed.