It was just after dinner and Chanyeol had decided to retire to his room. He was skimming Kyungsoo’s handwriting in Japanese on the notebook, wondering what he had written about. Just then, a soft knock on his door yanked him back to the present.

He opened the door in a daze. “Omma.”

“Isn’t it too early to be in bed already? You hadn’t even waited for me for dinner,” Mrs. Park joked, entering his bedroom with a smile. “Ahjumma told me to bring you your milk.” She set the tall, warm glass on a table. “Were you reading?”

“Kind of.” Chanyeol shrugged, his heart still heavy from what Jae-wook hyung had shared with him about Kyungsoo.

“Try not to strain your eyes too much,” she reminded, turning on more lights in his room so her son could see better if he was going to continue reading. Only she noticed how downcast Chanyeol was. “Is something wrong, adul?”

He turned his gaze back to Kyungsoo’s penmanship, his eyes lost in the tiny, pretty unintelligible scribbles. He wanted to ask his mother if she had known about Kyungsoo’s resignation, but opted not to. He didn’t want yet another validation that Kyungsoo had let everyone know, except for him.

Nothing hurt him more than being singled out like this.

He sighed. “Omma, I might go for a drive tomorrow. I’ll take Changmin ahjussi with me, of course.”

Mrs. Park looked at her son in concern. “Where do you want to go? Do you want me to accompany you?”

Chanyeol shook his head, trying a small smile. “The stockholder’s meeting is tomorrow. I should actually be attending this time. I need to get out of the house, anyway.”

“Aniya, not yet. Some of the board members don’t really know the extent of your condition.” Mrs. Park reached over to Chanyeol’s hair soothingly. Her heart still twisted at the thought that her son had to wear his sunglasses at night, due to his light sensitivity. She didn’t want Chanyeol to face other people’s judgment and scrutiny when he was still in quite a vulnerable state. “I’ll attend the meeting. You go and get some fresh air.  Maybe you can take me out to dinner tomorrow?”

“Araseo, Omma.” Chanyeol gave his mother a full grin now, reaching for his glass of milk, as Mrs. Park ruffled his hair affectionately and dropped a kiss on his forehead, softly bidding him goodnight.

As he got ready for bed, doubtful thoughts still continue to run through his mind. He knew he really missed Kyungsoo, and it drove him crazy thinking back to the time when he called and the sous chef pretended not to even remember him.

Chanyeol knew it had been Kyungsoo on the phone then. He could never forget how his velvety, warm voice sounded like. It was his ray of hope on the days that he couldn’t see. Even now, he heard Kyungsoo’s voice—talking and singing—in his sleep.

Should he simply ignore Kyungsoo as well, let him enlist quietly? And pretend that Chanyeol didn’t care or even heard about it from Jae-wook hyung?

Would Kyungsoo prefer that?

Or had Kyungsoo told Jae-wook hyung on purpose, to let Chanyeol know?

His heart was already telling him the right thing to do. Chanyeol closed his eyes in dread, trying to drown out feelings of missing Kyungsoo, as the sous chef haunted his dreams once more, inevitably lulling him to slumber.

***

“Isn’t that your friend, Chanyeol-ssi? The one with you in the picture on your phone?”

He blinked at the sound of the chauffer’s voice, as they waited outside the training camp where hundreds, perhaps even thousands of able-bodied, of-age men were milling around at the entrance, with their families and friends sending them off. He didn’t know how Changmin could be so sure, when he only showed the photo to the chauffer once when he’d asked him to set it as his lock screen.

“He’s actually just a couple of meters away, 12 o’clock direction. We… did drive all the way out here—at the crack of dawn, too—for you to see him, right?” Changmin told him in a teasing manner, glancing at him through the rearview mirror.

I can’t do this, I can’t do this… What the am I doing here? Chanyeol whined internally as he shifted at the backseat uncomfortably, trying to sink down the leather cushion as deeply as possible, as if to hide himself, in case the tinted windows were not dim enough. He couldn’t actually see Kyungsoo, through his sunglasses and the thick, dark windowpane, from the inside, so he would have to trust what Changmin was telling him.

Changmin started to thrum his fingers on the steering wheel, perhaps out of boredom. They have been parked in front of the camp, thankfully hidden among many other vehicles, for nearly an hour now. He wasn’t sure whether staking out like this counted as stalking, but he was being paid to keep the young CEO company, to keep him safe, drive him around and do whatever Chanyeol wanted.

And if today, Chanyeol wanted to drive a couple of hours out of Seoul, stay in the car this whole time and wait until all the young enlisting men entered the camp, then he shouldn’t complain.

“Ooh! Are those his parents? He’s saying goodbye to them,” Changmin relayed, watching Chanyeol’s friend from the windshield, hugging his mother and father.

Chanyeol’s Yoda ears perked up, wanting to hear more.

“And now he’s waving goodbye to a few other people… maybe friends?”

Chanyeol began to chew on