The humidity hung heavy in the air as they walked. Side by side, everything felt somehow right, like the last eight years had never happened. Chanyeol left his car at the nursery and they wandered along the main road of town chatting about nothing really. They made casual musings over the changes in the town, closure of stores, opening of others. They avoided anything serious.

Past the bakery that had fuelled so many childhood adventures

Past the icecream parlour where they took their first dates

Past the video rental store which no longer existed

And as they wandered and chatted Chanyeol felt his world shift. It felt so right. It felt like he had finally come home.

As they neared the Park family home Baekhyun looked at his watch. "What time does Sehun usually finish University today?" he asked and Chanyeol was shoved back into the reality that he wasn't the one on Baekhyun's mind. "Probably in about an hour," Chanyeol said as they walked around the side of the house and out through the back gate. Down the dirt road the two men wandered slowly and aimlessly and Baekhyun frowned as Chanyeol dug his cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one up. Baekhyun made a big deal of coughing and choking while Chanyeol laughed and enjoyed his smoke. "You're still so dramatic." He smiled at Baekhyun and when he smiled back Chanyeol felt dizzy.

He wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. How was he going to let his heart break all over again? He had six days left to enjoy pretending that Baekhyun cared for him. Pretending all the smiles and flirty glances, the hugs and soft words, pretending it all meant something. Could he do that? Could he just make the most of what he could have and forget what he couldn't?

He wasn't sure.

They reached the creek and sat on the log. They had sat here a million times before but this time the suffocation of unanswered questions hung heavy between them. Chanyeol went first. "So. How long have you been seeing Sehun?" he asked and Baekhyun immediately shifted uncomfortably. "About six weeks. We've been on a few dates. Nothing really serious."

——-

Baekhyun and Chanyeol waited at the corner. They had their best tshirts and jeans on and Baekhyun had skimmed some flowers from the nursery without his mum catching him. Chanyeol hadn't bothered. He didn't care as much. He had only said yes to this stupid double date because he always spent Saturday afternoons with Baekhyun and he didn't want to be left out and left home alone. And also because, at fifteen years old, he knew if he didn't start dating people were going to start to ask questions.

Baekhyun shifted from one foot to the other in excitement while Chanyeol just felt nervous. "I can't believe she said yes!" All Baekhyun could talk about was Taeyeon. Chanyeol was just mystified by how Baekhyun couldn't think about anything else, couldn't talk about anything else, couldn't even make sense of anything else. For the last week everything had been building up to this day. Their first date.

They could see the girls giggling a little to each other as they walked towards them. Taeyeon looked perfect as usual. Her long dark hair hung shiny and straight and her dress was pretty and pink. She looked like a princess and the look on Baekhyun's face hit Chanyeol right in the chest. His friend was in love and he knew how he felt. He knew how it felt to look at someone and lose your breath. He knew how it felt to be so mesmerised by someone's beauty that they were all you wanted to look at. He knew how it felt to be so addicted to someone's smile, their laughter sounding like falling rain on glass, their eyes sparkling like stars at midnight.

He knew exactly how Baekhyun felt.

He watched Baekhyun walk towards her and their smiles mirrored each other. He watched the other girl walk towards him and they set off for the ice cream parlour. The girl was sweet and nice, funny even, but Chanyeol spent the whole afternoon fighting the burning jealousy in his stomach as Baekhyun joked and Taeyeon giggled and they flirted and laughed and Chanyeol just seethed silently.

As they left Baekhyun announced he was going to walk Taeyeon home and Chanyeol understood the implied word unsaid.

Alone.

He turned to the girl he was left standing with and tried to smile at her through his sadness. It wasn't her fault he was a ty date. "Come on," She said gently. He followed her in the general direction of home and even though the conversation flowed easily he didn't want to hold her hand and she knew. She could tell.

She was just the first of many and he didn't want any of them.

——-

"Hey! Earth to Chanyeol!" Baekhyun waved a hand in front of his face and he was snapped back to reality. "What were you thinking about?" Baekhyun's eyes reflected the grey skies above and his hair was dark and shiny against his head. The smell of rain was gathering in the air and it was making Chanyeol's coloured hair fuzz up into a messy mop of red curls. He ran a hand through it and sighed.

"Remember when you slipped down here and I had to carry you home?" Chanyeol said and Baekhyun laughed. "Yeah. I remember." He turned to Chanyeol with that look in his eye. That combination of gentle warmth and flirtatious amusement that made his heart beat too fast and made his hopes raise too high. But Chanyeol was trying to see through it, to take Baekhyun's actions and words as the truth of what they were, as signs of friendship and nothing else.

"I remember it all Chanyeol. Everything. Probably too well." He sighed and stood up when the first few drops of rain fell from the sky. "You might be able to forget with your new life in your new home but I have to look at these memories every day of my life."

He started to walk away and Chanyeol got up to run after him. They walked the dirt road in silence, drops of rain evaporating as soon as they hit the warm earth, not lingering long enough to make the path muddy. The silence was as heavy as the sky with emotions threatening to spill free at any moment. But the road wasn't long enough and they arrived at the Park home just in time to see Sehun arriving home from University. He got out his car and Baekhyun went to him with a soft smile and Chanyeol abandoned the day for the solace of the house.

"Why were you together?" Sehun asked with a frown as Chanyeol disappeared into the house. "Sehun, we're friends, we were catching up. We've been apart for so long..." Baekhyun's voice faded as he lost his train of thought. They had a lot to catch up on and he was going to try his best to repair his friendship with Chanyeol. 

But he couldn't ignore the darkening of Sehun's mood as it threatened to rival the gathering of the late afternoon storm in the sky.