Two weeks after Chanyeol left Jindo, Kyungsoo came home one November evening to Jongin passing him a sealed package, which had come all the way from an address in Seoul with Chanyeol’s name as the sender.

It was a smartphone Chanyeol had promised to buy for Kyungsoo. Inside the box, Chanyeol had even written easy and simple instructions on a few cards on how to generally use a phone and how to contact him in particular.

Kyungsoo wasn’t actually completely clueless. He knew how to dial a number and make a call or maybe navigate to the messaging app and type a text but that was that.

New features available in a phone were certainly still something Kyungsoo had yet to explore. He knew how to find the camera app and take a picture but he still didn’t know where to look for the pictures he had taken nor do simple editing with the software provided on the phone.

Jongin was there to help Kyungsoo with it though and if he wasn’t around for that, Kyungsoo had already learned how to text Chanyeol regarding his problems with technology. Chanyeol was often busy and didn’t have the time to immediately read and reply to the text, so both he and Jongin eventually taught Kyungsoo on how to look up solutions to his own problems online.

Soon enough, Kyungsoo was typing Chanyeol’s songwriting penname, Loey, into the search bar on the browser app of his phone just so he could read the latest updates and see the latest pictures of Chanyeol online. Kyungsoo even began listening to the songs Chanyeol written as Loey and although he wasn't a fan of the genres, he still occasionally did so for Chanyeol when he heard that music producers could also make money based on how many times someone listened to their song on official platforms.

Kyungsoo didn’t bring his phone with him when he went out to sea and left it in the glove compartment of his truck or at home. But whenever he came back to shore and was done with the day, he would grab his phone immediately just to see if Chanyeol had texted him back.

Now, Kyungsoo really understood why people were so obsessed with their phones nowadays. It was interesting for sure and it greatly helped people like him keep in contact with loved ones who were far away.

On Kyungsoo’s day off, once he was done running errands and getting supplies he needed for the rest of the week, he would be at home in the living room with his phone. In the morning, he would usually be alone but later in the afternoon, when Jongin was home from school, he would have a little company.

Recently, Jongin had taught Kyungsoo on what Instagram was and how it was used. Jongin helped made an account for Kyungsoo and set up the basics like a profile picture, bio and followed people whom Kyungsoo knew such as Jongin himself, old friends from the military and even Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo hadn’t posted anything yet himself but he was slowly getting the hang of it.

“Chanyeol sure does have a lot of followers. He has over one million people following him,” Kyungsoo commented, scrolling through on his phone just after Jongin was done teaching him how to find other people on Instagram and then follow them.

“Yeah, well, he’s a popular music producer. Everyone who likes K-pop should know him since he made a lot of songs for popular groups too,” Jongin replied, looking over Kyungsoo’s shoulder to see what Kyungsoo was up to.

Kyungsoo was just scrolling down Chanyeol’s Instagram feed, pressing the “heart” button on each of Chanyeol’s post and commenting under the pictures with short one-line words such as “nice” or “amazing”.

“-hyung, you should like and comment on all my posts too. I only have a few hundred followers so I need it more than Chanyeol does,” Jongin suggested.

“Oh, sure, I can do that,” Kyungsoo smiled, “Let me finish with this one first. Do you think Chanyeol will see that I liked and commented on his pictures? He hasn’t even followed me back though. Do you think that he knows that this profile belongs to me? I mean, you did put a picture of me and my name in the biography too. Is that enough for people to know it's me?”

“I think he’ll see it but when someone has a lot of followers like that, he gets comments and likes often so I don’t think he’d have the time to read each and every one of them. I follow Chanyeol too but he doesn’t follow me back either because this is his public account. It’s what he uses for his social media presence and public image. Famous people like him usually have a personal side account for family and friends but I’m not sure if he does have one since I never asked.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have known about stuff like that it if you didn’t tell me,” Kyungsoo’s face lit up as he quickly hit the home button to navigate to the messaging app, "Let me go ask him then if he has a personal account. I forgot to tell him that I made an Instagram. I thought he’d know if I started following him but that explains a lot. I’ll go tell Chanyeol to follow you and like your pictures too.”

“-speaking of which,” Jongin continued, still looking Kyungsoo’s shoulder to see what his older brother was up to on the phone, “Chanyeol didn’t post anything at all online throughout the entire time he was staying here. When he went back to Seoul, he posted a picture of a recording studio but that was it. That was odd because I used to follow him even before he came here and he was posting like almost every day.”

“Well, who knows? He might have his own reasons,” Kyungsoo shrugged, typing a text out to Chanyeol.

“I guess so,” Jongin then looked at Kyungsoo instead, guessing that his older brother was also probably the reason behind Chanyeol’s social media silence over the past few months.

Later that evening, when Chanyeol finally responded to Kyungsoo’s texts after being stuck in the recording studio almost the entire day, Chanyeol was pleased to discover that Kyungsoo now owned an Instagram account.

Chanyeol followed Kyungsoo and also Jongin on his private personal account, with Kyungsoo following him back almost immediately after receiving the notification.

Then, Kyungsoo laid down in bed on his side, tearing up a little when he was going through Chanyeol’s private account to find out that Chanyeol had been posting a lot of pictures of places around the island and even the both of them together. Under the pictures were also some nice quotes that seemed to fit and Kyungsoo thought it was touching indeed

On a shelf somewhere in Kyungsoo’s room, the picture of the fish and the transparent photo card with both Kyungsoo and Chanyeol in it was still proudly displayed as a treasured gift from Chanyeol, despite how relatively simple in nature it was.

Chanyeol, on the other hand, had received a rather “indifferent” welcome when he returned to Seoul. No one seemed to be talking about it anymore but nobody seemed to treat him in high regard unlike before the scandal happened.

His executives and the top directors at SM Entertainment had agreed to have a meeting with him and decided that he could stay on in the company after his unofficial “excommunication”, although he would no longer be producing for CBX due to the scandal.

In the first few days after Chanyeol’s return to Seoul, he had submitted his works to the company and within a week or two, he was told to come back to the studio to discuss with a director on how to rework the lyrics to suit the intended group’s comeback concept.

While Chanyeol was often the producer for SM Entertainment’s boy groups and male solo artists, as of now, he would be working with the girl groups and female solo artists instead.

Chanyeol saw this as a blessing actually, because even though girl groups weren’t known for having strong physical album sales unlike boy groups, they did better on digital charts and the overall general public. This could just be that chart-topping hit he needed to boost his career and reputation again as a music producer.

One track in particular, which he had written while on Jindo had been selected and deemed “perfect” by an executive director for one of SM Entertainment’s girl group, Red Velvet. That song was “Fisherman from the South” but of course, the title and the lyrics would be further modified to fit the group.

It was now mid-November and the track would be released sometime for an early-to-mid January comeback just right after the holiday and award seasons. Some of the other songs Chanyeol had written were assigned as B-sides for the upcoming album and for other artists within the company too.

Chanyeol wasn’t done yet though even if this new song would go on to become a popular hit. There were still things he had to do first and one important thing was to formally apologize to the young songwriter whom Chanyeol had plagiarized from, despite how much they initially looked up to him.

Chanyeol felt even worse when he remembered that it was the young songwriter had contacted him at first, sending his song in and simply wanting to hear an opinion from the person they admired, which was Chanyeol. And Chanyeol had to go ruin all that.

His experience on Jindo had taught him that he should be fessing up to his mistakes and apologizing to those he had hurt. If Jongin, a teenager with raging hormones who had yet to learn how to manage his emotions properly could apologize for a small mistake he made, then Chanyeol an adult should know how to better apologize for a bigger and almost career-costing unwise decision he had made.

Through the help of their respective managers, Chanyeol was able to arrange a meeting with the songwriter who had now been signed onto a different record label and had been actively writing songs for a successful boy group.

At the meeting, Chanyeol dressed formally in his best suit despite it being a private meeting and bowed 90 degrees at his waist when he apologized. Chanyeol wasn’t sure if his apology was accepted or if it would even be perceived as genuine but he knew that it was something he had to do, regardless. Because it was the right thing to do, Chanyeol thought.

The meeting went on rather awkwardly on Chanyeol’s behalf at least. He was the nervous one there, despite how much the other party treated him neutrally.

After that, Chanyeol went home and curled up in bed while still fully dressed, spending the rest of the day on the phone with Kyungsoo who had not gone out to sea that day, talking about how Kyungsoo should visit around Christmas time.

But Chanyeol wasn’t done there yet. He still yearned to fix everything he had done and the next step was to also meet up with the members of CBX and formally apologize to them for giving them a plagiarized song without their knowledge.

However, when Chanyeol finally had the balls to meet up with Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin; the three members of CBX, he was informed by their manager that they were currently in Japan promoting their concert tour there.

Like the impulsive man Chanyeol had been when it only took him less than a week to decide to run away to Jindo, Chanyeol too quickly booked a flight to go on a day trip to Japan just to meet up with Chen, Baekhyun and Xiumin.

Because Chanyeol was an official staff of SM Entertainment, he was allowed to meet with CBX backstage at a concert auditorium on the rehearsal the day before their concert.

With a staff pass ID hanging on his neck; Chanyeol was timid as he was shown into CBX’s backstage waiting room where the three members of one of South Korea’s most successful and active boy group were at.

CBX’s managers and some of the other concert crew and staff were also there doing their own thing so it wasn’t really a private meeting that Chanyeol had expected it would be. Everyone was busy doing their own thing for the concert preparation so they weren't paying any attention to Chanyeol at all.

Like the meeting with his plagiarizing victim, Chanyeol bowed at almost 90 degrees as much as his soon to be 35-year-old back would be able to support. 

“You don’t really have to do that. What’s done is done and it’s over now too,” Xiumin, the oldest member and leader of CBX tried to stop Chanyeol.

“Yeah, you must be mistaken and thought differently,” Chen, the youngest member joined in on the conversation, “We know that we’ve not been contacting you over the past few months but it was under instructions of our manager."

Baekhyun, the other member of CBX, also spoke, “We were told not to risk a PR disaster after the scandal since all the blame was to be directed on you since it was really your fault.”

“That is right!” Chanyeol quickly straightened his back again, maybe too fast even because he certainly heard something cracking back there although he chose to ignore it for now, “-I am fully responsible for all this which is why I will shoulder all the blame and hold myself accountable for my actions.”

“We know, but there’s nothing really for you to apologize about,” Baekhyun mentioned, folding his arms over his chest, “We’re just doing fine and it’s not like you forced us into retirement or something like that. In fact, the media and public were on our side when all this happened so we're doing just fine.”

“If anything, we’re worried about you,” Chen interjected, “We heard that after the scandal, you disappeared for months and didn’t tell anyone where you had gone. We thought the worst until our manager told us that you had been in contact with the company.”

“That’s the thing,” Chanyeol raised a finger, “I was on uh…a sabbatical leave to reflect on my mistakes and think things through while I searched for new inspiration to write new songs and make my comeback in this industry. Now that I’ve achieved all that, I am back here to prove that I can still do it.”

“That’s good to hear,” Xiumin responded, “We’re glad for you but you really don’t need to prove anything to us. You just do your own thing and we’ll do ours. We heard you’re producing for Red Velvet now. That’s good. We hope you’ll be able to make good songs and hits as always.”

“Yeah, it’s good to know you’re doing well,” Baekhyun muttered, nodding his head as he patted Chanyeol on the shoulder and excused himself to go outside and practice more for the concert rehearsal tomorrow.

Chen and Xiumin too politely then made their way too, joining Baekhyun and leaving Chanyeol behind in the backstage waiting room.

While Chanyeol was glad that they held