From: The one who got away

I’m in LA. 

Chanyeol frowns. His eyes squinting in pain at the brightness of his mobile phone as he reads the short text. Quickly, his long fingers do it’s magic, tapping here and there to adjust the brightness. Before he continues to reply the text, he peeks his head over his comforter to check on his roommate, Baekhyun. The said man is still asleep, snoring softly after a long tiring day of non-stop dancing for their upcoming album. Chanyeol is tired too but he’ll stay up because this is the only free time they have. 

To: The one who got away

What are you doing there? Photo shoot?

It doesn’t take long for his phone to vibrate and a message icon pops on his screen. 

From: The one who got away

Yeah. I’ll be here for a couple of days. Got a shoot with Vogue.

The scowl on Chanyeol’s face deepens when an uneasy feeling suddenly bubbles in his chest. He twists and turns uncomfortably in his bed, trying to find a position that could push the negative feelings away (if possible). So, he ends up with half of his head under the pillow, comforter covering his body from head to toe. He kinda likes the little pressure the pillow puts on his buzzing head. 

To: The one who got away

I want souvenirs, please. Solo shoot?

From: The one who got away

Okay. Will a cap do? Or do you want a sweater? Yes, a solo shoot. No need to get jealous, Yeolla.

Chanyeol feels himself getting warmer despite having the air condition on blowing cold air at 16 degree Celsius. He is grateful that Baekhyun is fast asleep and the room is pitch dark except for the light from his mobile phone or his tomato red cheeks will be very prominent. Does he really need to bring that incident up? He’s just insecure because Kendall Jenner is that beautiful, okay? It’s not his fault. 

To: The one who got away

Can I have both, please? Let’s not bring that issue up, okay? The past is in the past. 

From: The one who got away

I pamper you too much. 

To: The one who got away

You love me anyways. 

From: The one who got away

I do. 

Chanyeol’s heart squeals. He kicks off his comforter down the bed because he feels hot. His frayed nerves are now alive and so does his red eyes. The sleepiness that hangs on his lashes are now gone and Park Chanyeol can no longer return to sleep thanks to his short text. Damn it.  

The text is so short but it successfully makes Chanyeol’s day. It’s too short that Chanyeol does not know what he should reply in return because there’s so many things he wants to say but no words he strings together makes sense. While he is racking his brain, trying to give the sender a proper reply, his phone vibrates again and a new message pops on his screen. 

From: The one who got away

Hey, Yeolla. I’ve checked the time just now. It’s 4 A.M. in Korea. You should be sleeping. I’m sure you have a busy schedule for tomorrow. 

The korean rapper smiles softly, touched with the words flash on the screen that brings along a hint of concern. He quickly types down his reply. 

To: The one who got away

I should. Our new album is coming up. Looking forward to it, will you? I’ll be much handsomer in the next album. I’m sure. 

From: The one who got away

Oh, I’m excited for you. I hope you got more parts. Okay, seriously now, go to sleep Chanyeolla. 

To: The one who got away

Alright, alright. Thank you and I miss you. 

From: The one who got away

I miss you too
P/S: Do not reply, I’m warning you. Sleep, princess. 

A giggle escapes from Chanyeol’s mouth at the last sentence of their last text. He quickly stifles his giggle when he hears Baekhyun groans in his sleep. With a wide smile, Chanyeol finally keeps his phone on the drawer by his bed and sighs, feeling the tiredness wash through his system once again. 

Midnight texting is something he will never want to miss no matter how tired or busy he is because this is the only space, time and moment they share with each other. It’s the only thing that still connects them together despite being miles and miles apart. 

—

“Chanyeol, there’s a package from you!” Kyungsoo calls out from downstairs. The said man jumps off his bed and races down stairs once he lands on his feet. He hops at the last two steps and jogs excitedly to the entrance where Kyungsoo is waiting for him with a large box by his feet. 

“Is it from the company?” Chanyeol questions. His eyes sparkle with excitement, always find it pleasant to unbox gifts send by fans.

“I don’t know. The sender’s name is written in Chinese.”

Chanyeol’s whole body stiffens. He quickly kneels in front of the box and let his fingers trace the name written on it. A faint blush creeps on his cheeks that he quickly covers it with his growing bangs. “Ah, maybe it’s sent by fans from China,” the rapper of EXO says. 

Kyungsoo crooks his brow, noticing how unusual Chanyeol’s voice sounds. His voice is always loud and deep but just then it is slow and a little bit shaky, as if he is anxious and uncertain. “Yeah, that could be the case,” Kyungsoo replies, deciding not to pry any further into Chanyeol’s matters. 

The taller male picks up the box, flashes Kyungsoo a quick smile before running back into him room upstairs. Baekhyun peeks up from the manga he is reading when Chanyeol walks into their shared room, carrying a rather large box in his arms. He sits up straight on his bed, now interested to see what Chanyeol brings in. 

“You ordered something?” He inquires.

Chanyeol nervously laughs while scratching the back of his nape; a habit he unconsciously develops when he is nervous. His eyes never leave the box that is now on his bed opposite from Baekhyun’s as he answers, “Fan gifts.”

“Oh, nice. Open it! Lets see what you got this time.”

. Chanyeol mentally curses in his mind. Again, he laughs, wrapping his long arms around the box and rests his chin on top of it. “I don’t feel like opening it right now.”

Baekhyun arches his one brow because what? Chanyeol is always excited when it comes to fan gifts. He’ll be the first to unwrapped them and tries it on, then arrange them in his large closet at a special corner for fan gifts. 

“You okay, Chan?”

“I’m great.” 

“Well, if you say so.” Baekhyun gets up from his bed and makes his way towards the door. “I’ll go and grab something to eat.” And with that, Baekhyun disappears from the room. 

Chanyeol wastes no time locking the door and then jumps back on his bed. With his brute strength, he tears the box open to see a lot of sweaters and caps inside. His mouth gapes open as he picks the sweaters out one by one, observing each sweater deliberately before he moves on to the multi-colour caps. All of the caps and sweaters match his taste so well that he has no rooms to complain at all. 

Quickly, he reaches out for his handphone on top of his desk and rings the sender’s number. On the fifth ring, the line finally clicks and Chanyeol screams a loud, girlish, “Hyung!”

The man chuckles, already able to guess what has happened. “Yeolla, hi.”

“Hyung that’s too many!” The only complain Chanyeol has to voice out. 

The man at other line laughs again before saying, “I don’t know which one to pick. I think everything I sent will suit you well.”

Chanyeol sighs, giving up on arguing with the latter. “Was it your name?”

“Huh?”

“The chinese characters on the sender’s space- is it your name in Chinese, hyung?” Chanyeol trails the name out with his fingers, of course getting the all wrong but he recognizes these characters by heart. He sees it once written on the man’s bracelet; a momento from his dear mother, his lucky charm. 

“How did you know?” Asks the man, now curious. 

“It’s not Wu Yifan, isn’t it? It’s your other name.”

“Yeah.”

Chanyeol smiles, proud of himself to get his assumption right. He doesn’t know why but little things like this makes him feels special to Kris. 

“I figure that if I put Kris or Yifan the whole world would know and I know you don’t want that,”

“Yeah, that’ll cause us trouble. Luckily Kyungsoo didn’t know how to read Chinese or we’ll get busted.”

Kris snorts. “We're good, Yeolla. So, do you like it?”

Chanyeol huffs. HIs lips curling into a wide smile as he rolls his eyes at how Kris must ask him something so obvious. “I love it. Thank you, hyung.”

“Glad to know that. I was about to ship another box.”

“Hyung!” Chanyeol exclaims. 

Kris laughs out loud and between his (beautiful) laughter he mutters a quick ‘I’m joking, Yeolla’. 

Chanyeol exhales out loud before asking, “So, Kris hyung, where are you right now?”

“Vancouver. My mom’s here. Wanna say hi? Wait I’ll-”

“Hyung wait! I’m not ready-”

“Annyeong~” A woman’s voice echoes in his ears and Chanyeol quickly switches into his shy mode, replying with a slow and nervous ‘annyeong’. He hears Kris says something in English to his mother and Chanyeol could here his name is mentioned once, twice followed by a ‘ahhh, Yeolla?’ from his mother. 

“Kris hyung?” he calls out, wondering what they are conversing about. Did Kris tell his mother embarrassing stuffs about him? His cheeks slowly turn warm and red and his teeth clench together. 

Kris’ mother says something in English and then Kris translates them to korean, “My mom thinks you are really really cute.” 

“Oh, my.”

“Yeah keeps on referring you as ‘the cute guy’ ever since our debut.”

It’s Chanyeol turns to laugh. He could feel the tips of his elf-life ears reddening badly. “Thank you, aunty.”

“Yeolla, Kris keeps on worrying about you when he first left EXO. He was like, ‘Chanyeol must be mad at me’ ‘Mom what should I do if Chanyeol doesn’t want to talk to me anymore?’, stuffs like that,” says Kris’ mom in rapid english that Chanyeol could only understand bits and pieces of what she is saying. 

He hears Kris’ whine at the end of the line. They bicker a littler with Kris saying ‘Mom please.’

“Hyung what was that? What did your mom said just now? Something about you leaving exo? Can you translate that?”

“No, I refuse to.” 

Chanyeol whines. 

“It’s not important.”

The younger is about to plead again, knowing that Kris is always so weak against his pleas and begs when Baekhyun yells for Chanyeol to open the door outside from their room. “Hyung, I got to go,” he whispers reluctantly, knowing he has to end the call. 

“Yeolla, wait-”

“Love you,” and Chanyeol ends the call. With a groan, he casts his phone aside and angrily stomps towards the door. He twists the door open with a deep frown laced on his face, annoyed that Baekhyun interrupts his conversation with Kris. 

Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol confusedly, wondering why the sour look on his face but later shrugs it off and minds his own business.

But he does realize the box is already torn open and he can see tones of caps and sweaters, and the blinking phone right on his bed, with a notification popping on the screen, ‘The one who got away sends you a text!’. 

—

Chanyeol has his make up and hair done, now only waiting at the corner of the waiting room, away from the stylist noona and camera hyungs. He quietly scrolls over his phone, browsing through instagram with ease. Round eyes sneakily glance around to check if anyone is paying attention to him. When he finds that no one is watching him, Chanyeol goes to Kris’ instagram account and looks at the new photos the Chinese man just recently updated a few days ago. 

A smile lurk on his face as he admires the elder’s handsome features. He may look cool and stylish but Chanyeol knows Kris is a funny dork, the opposite of his given stage image back when he is still one of EXO. 

It has been two years since Kris’ left and sadly, it has been two years since Chanyeol last saw him. When Kris first left, Chanyeol was badly affected, loneliness consuming his whole being because next to him where Kris have always been was empty. On top of that, Kris had not contacted him at all to ask how he was doing, to explain why the hell he left Chanyeol all alone broken and confuse. Kris just disappeared. 

Not once has Kris left Chanyeol’s mind, waiting and reasoning with himself; is it because of him Kris left EXO? Did he do something wrong?

It was one year later when he gets a text from an unfamiliar international number with a short birthday wish of ‘Happy Birthday, Yeolla’ right when the clock struck’ twelve, announcing the start of his birthday celebration. 

Chanyeol remembers how much it hurts, how his chest felt so tight and how he struggled to keep his sobs and cries silent because Baekhyun was sleeping next to his bed, oblivious. He had to squeeze his mouth with his palm tightly as his breath hitched because there’s only one person who called him ‘Yeolla’.

He remembers texting back with his shaky fingers, ‘Is that you?’ and received a reply almost immediately, confirming it was indeed the man who ran away from him a year ago. Chanyeol stayed up the whole night on that day, attacking Kris with questions after questions, pouring all his anger and sadness on the elder without mercy. Kris accepted it all, admitting that it was all his fault. 

Kris texted him again the next two days, saying ‘Yeolla, are you sleeping?’ and Chanyeol replied in a heartbeat. Their relationship continued since then despite being left unnamed and undeclared. 

What do they have together? Are they an item, lovers, or just friends? Hell Chanyeol does not know and he knows Kris doesn’t too. But both of them leave their hearts wide open, both are aware they have something together.

“Chanyeol, keep your phone. The show is about to start,” Suho advices. 

Chanyeol nods and quickly keeps his phone inside of his bag and joins s immediately after.They are having their comeback today at music bank. Nervous finally sinks in Chanyeol’s system even after thousands of time performing on stage. The Heebies Jeebies never lets him breathe properly. 

—

Once Chanyeol is off stage, he lets out a loud and deep sigh of relief. He returns the microphone to the cordi-noona before heading straight to their changing room to join the other members. His steps come to a halt when he sees a tall figure dressed in all-black with a mask covering his face standing in front of EXO’s changing room with a bouquet of red roses in his arms. 

The man too turns to look at Chanyeol through his sunglasses and as if he finds what he is looking for, he rushes towards Chanyeol. The said man takes a step back, finding the other suspicious. 

“Yeolla,”

Chanyeol freezes. Through the black mask, Chanyeol can see a smile tugs on the man’s lips. 

“You’re hot. You got more parts.”

Chanyeol staggers backwards before his knees give away that he slumps down the floor, eyes red and teary. The suspicious man quickly kneels down in front of him, one hand reaching out to squeeze Chanyeol’s shoulder. “Hey, are you alright?”

And Chanyeol cries his heart out, doesn’t care if his sobs and wails will be heard by the people around him or s. He doesn’t care if people throws a weird look at him because right now, all of that does not matter. All that matters now is Kris, he is here, right in front of Chanyeol. Here. 

“Hyung…” he calls out between his sobs, fingers gripping on Kris’ chest. 

Kris puts the roses down on the floor to pull Chanyeol into his embrace, close to his chest. He could feel Chanyeol’s warm body against his, Chanyeol’s tears wetting his shirt. His long fingers comb through Chanyeol’s dyed curly hair while his other hand snakes around Chanyeol’s waist. 

The door to EXO’s changing room bursts open and Suho walks out, puzzled to see one of s clinging onto a stranger. Chanyeol doesn’t bother to look up, only wrapping his lanky arms around Kris’ torso tighter. 

“What have you done to Chanyeol?” Suho questions, voice sounding stern with a lace of concern towards Chanyeol’s condition.

 He is about to pull Chanyeol up and away from the man when the said man speaks, revealing himself, “Suho it’s me.” Kris uses his one hand to remove his mask and suho gasps, surprised with Kris’ sudden presence. Kris gives him a quick small smile before helping Chanyeol to stand up on his feet. 

Chanyeol still buries his nose to Kris’ name, inhaling the elder’s scent which he misses the most. The scent that always calms his frantic nerves and mind. He likes the way Kris’ strong arm wraps around his waist. 

“Can I borrow Chanyeol for a moment, Suho?” 

Suho looks at the crying mess Chanyeol in Kris’ arms, his body trembling as he sobs. Suho knows how closed Chanyeol and Kris used to be back in the old days and he too knows that Chanyeol was devastated when he first heard the news of Kris leaving EXO. The younger was not quite the same since Kris’ left, his laughter and smile sounded insincere.

“Yes, of course,” he finally decides, giving Kris the permission the Chinese man is hoping for. 

Kris slowly leads Chanyeol to a more secluded place, trying to avoid more attention. He takes the younger (who is still clinging onto him like a koala) to the emergency staircase, locking the door once it’s closed behind him. 

He takes a deep breath before he averts his attention back on Chanyeol. “Yeolla, don’t cry,” he whispers. His large hands cup Chanyeol’s wet cheeks and thumbs away the fresh tears. 

“I miss you,” says the boy. “It’s been two years.”

Kris smiles and plants a kiss on the younger’s forehead. “I miss you too. That’s why I’m here.”

“Why don’t you come earlier? I almost forgot what you look like.”

The blonde curls a strand of Chanyeol’s hair behind his ear as he leans down to give Chanyeol a soft kiss on his right cheek. Chanyeol hums, melting into Kris’ touch. “Things were hectic but now I manage to get a few days off and I want to spend it with you.”

“You’re staying?” Chanyeol asks, eyes full of hope. 

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Kris chuckles at Chanyeol’s child-like question. He chins the boy up to press his lips against the boy’s plump ones, earning a surprised gasp from Chanyeol. “Really,” Kris answers once he breaks the kiss. 

Chanyeol smiles and pecks Kris’ lips again, a gesture so cute that Kris feels the urge to squeeze the younger into a tight hug and never let him go. “I love you so much that I don’t know what to do with you,” the Chinese man confesses while nuzzling his nose against Chanyeol’s nape. 

A giggle escape from the pink lips Kris just kissed as Chanyeol wraps his arms around Kris’ neck. He hums in content, liking the way Kris’ moist lips against his skin, loving the way Kris’ leaves his possessive mark, claiming Chanyeol as his. “I’m all yours, hyung. All yours.”

“Perfect because I wouldn’t let you go in the first place. We have a lot of explanation to do, though. I’m sure Suho and the others are dying to know what’s going on.”

The Korean whines, resting his chin against Kris’ broad shoulder as he hugs the elder tight. “Not now.”

Kris smiles, ruffling Chanyeol’s thick locks playfully. “Yeah,” he sighs before adding, “Not now. Now, is the time for me to worship you from head to toe.” 

As you can tell, I don't usually write this kind of stuff but in order to get out of writer's block, I'll do anything. Hahaha. Thank you for reading.