‘3! 2! 1! Happy new year!’ The crowd bellowed as fireworks shot up into the cloudy sky. Within milliseconds, the blue expanse bloomed into shades of crimson, burgundy, neon yellow. The lettering ‘2-0-2-5’ flashed blindingly on the billboard next to the London Eye. It had been 3 years since Chanyeol had left, 3 years since he had been a coward.

Chanyeol had moved to London 3 years ago and life had not been all rainbows and butterflies to say the least. True, he did have the occasional acquaintance from his music-making days, the odd DJ he had collaborated with before, and even an eccentric aunt who was kind enough to lend him her dingy flat for as long as he wished. But other than that, Chanyeol had been left to his own devices. Retrospectively, Chanyeol thought as he stood with his head perched on one hand looking across the River Thames, perhaps he had deliberately chosen this reclusive life. Perhaps he had chosen to flee to the other side of the globe because there was no one he knew, or even better, no one who knew him.

The crowds had begun to dissipate, crawling like ants into dimly lit tube stations. Even the bucket-hatted policemen who were busy with crowd-control had left their stations. All that was left was a ton of garbage strewn on the concrete, a testament to a night well-celebrated.

‘New year, huh?’ A raspy voice sounded from behind Chanyeol. He spun around. A homeless man was sitting behind him, tattered duvet and plastic bowl of coins intact. ‘New year, huh?’ The man repeated. Chanyeol had never been the type to speak to strangers. His chattiness had left him 3 years ago, the spark drained from his being once he had made up his mind to board the plane for London. Ignoring the man, Chanyeol took another sip from his can of beer to find it empty and hurled it at a bin to his right. A crisp rattle indicated that it was a clean shot. The man from behind him clapped.

‘Someone’s starting the year right,’ the man chuckled, ‘Perfect shot, perfect year.’

‘I should hope so,’ Chanyeol murmured absentmindedly, still staring into the abyss which had now identified itself as a small cargo ship cruising along the Thames. The figures 2-0-2-5 were still glimmering in the distance. Seoul was 8 hours ahead which meant that the new year had revealed itself over there way before it was celebrated in London.

Chanyeol was being stupid and even he knew himself, but he couldn’t suppress the old habit of scrolling through his inbox. There was the random ‘Happy New Year’ text attached to various promotion messages, a ‘Come home soon’ text from his family but aside from that, nothing. Just as it had been every single year. Chanyeol stuffed his phone into his back pocket and turned around to face the old man who was now counting his stash of coins. ‘Happy new year,’ Chanyeol smiled weakly and bent down to stuff a £20 note into the man’s hands, ‘Go grab yourself a thicker jacket tomorrow. It’s going to be a harsh winter.’ And with that, Chanyeol scurried into the flickering tube station entrance.

Chanyeol was greeted by a mind-splitting headache the next morning. I must truly be ageing, he thought. Back in Seoul just several years ago, Chanyeol used to be the life of the party, spending countless nights in an underground club known amongst his fellow idol colleagues as ‘Lux’, short for 'luxury', that was designed just for artists like himself. He still had vivid memories of the bar that was lined with only the best vodka, wine, whisky, you name it. The bar stools were almost never occupied as all the k-pop idols let loose on the dance floor. It was their only chance of indulgence, their only stress-outlet. It was a secret that remained unknown under their façade of innocence and purity.

Chanyeol could still remember a fan war he read once in the comments section of one of their new MVs. Apparently, someone had spotted a ‘Chanyeol-lookalike’ in Hongdae, drunk and high, but it wasn’t long before his army of fans swarmed into the comments section and flooded the witness with ‘dislikes’ and harsh words in his defence. Chanyeol already knew, at that time, that the claimed drunkard was indeed him. He had crawled out of Lux in the depths of Hongdae woozy and intoxicated, forgetting to inform his manager of his departure as they were told to. He wasn’t high alright as all but alcohol was strictly prohibited, but he had been drunk to the core. It was all part of the idol life, leading a separate persona behind closed doors and it used to terrify him just thinking about the possibility of his ugly self being exposed one day. Would his fans still have his back? Would he be shoved into the imaginary ‘SM basement’, never to make a comeback? Chanyeol used to break into cold sweat in his nightmares just at the thought of it. But nevertheless, the risk was one that was calculated, one that everyone in the industry was willing to take.

Chanyeol stretched his arms and yawned as his plodded into the kitchen. There had been leftovers from three nights ago, one-third of a roast chicken and two scoops of mash. The clock showed 9:30 am but Chanyeol couldn’t afford to be picky for breakfast. The five (or was it six?) cans of beer had left him very much starving.

In the depths of his home, Chanyeol bore an uncanny resemblance of the homeless man from the night before, but if one were to meet Chanyeol outside, he would have seemed like the most pleasant young man, educated and by foreigners’ standards, exotic, his accented English slurring slightly at certain words. Chanyeol was, afterall, a world-reknown musician. At least he used to be.

At a gathering years back when he was still in Seoul, his high school friends had already about how he was secured for life, able to live the life of royals even if he had stopped working then and there. True to their word, Chanyeol was more than comfortable, his closet b with designer goods, a Benz perched in the parking lot and a Tesla permanently lent to an old friend out of town. But there was nothing in his demeanour that showed any of that wealth. London was a city that was more convenient on foot and his branded items rarely made an appearance save for the occasional birthday party he was invited to.

Having led the life of luxury back in Seoul, Chanyeol was ready to lay down low. No more cameras, no more crowds of squealing fans. Just himself. Chanyeol owed that much to Baekhyun. The name sent a nauseating wave through his mind, so intense it physically hurt. Baekhyun. How one word could contain so much guilt and fear, Chanyeol would never know. Chanyeol didn’t deserve to be happy, not even in this far-off land, half a globe away from Seoul. How could he, when he was the one that destroyed it all?

A daintily-carved wooden bird sprung from the cuckoo-clock by the window, wrenching Chanyeol back to reality. 10 am. As if on cue, his phone buzzed. Fishing it out from his jeans pocket (yes, he had forgotten to change, grossly passing out on top of his duvet the night before), he stared in shock at the pulsing phone: ‘1 new message’ it said. ‘Sender: Byun Baek’.

Open it, a voice echoed in Chanyeol’s head, what are you waiting for ? Open the damn message.

As if one surprise message wasn’t enough, Chanyeol’s phone buzzed a second time. This time the sender was well-apparent. ‘1 new message. Sender: Kyungsoo’. Chanyeol tapped on the newest message.

‘If you’re still staring at Baekhyun’s message like the ing idiot you used to be then GROW A PAIR AND OPEN THE DAMN THING’. Ouch. Kyungsoo had always been able to read Chanyeol like an open book.

All these years when Chanyeol had been away, s had by and large kept in touch, some more so than others. Kyungsoo was one of the frequent guests that appeared in his inbox, Skype, DMs, you name it. Sehun was another, but much less welcomed than Kyungsoo. Their youngest never seemed to grow up, not even… not even after the group disbanded three years ago. Chanyeol still remained one of Sehun’s most trusted older brothers and the dear boy was still as whiny as ever. The other members still kept Chanyeol updated and no one blamed him for what he had done to the group three years ago which was all the more reason why Chanyeol was still cooped up in this flurry of guilt. He had once wished s would yell at him, unleash all of hell’s fury at his selfishness but it never once happened. Years later he had accepted it but the part of him that remained indebted to those eight brothers of his never left. Chanyeol was on the whole reasonably satisfied and relieved with where his ex-members ended up. Some remained in the music industry, some rose to administration in SM and others ventured into other areas to pursue their long-abandoned dreams. All but one. All but Baekhyun. It was like a sore patch that the other seven members never dared mention, always carelessly trailing off once anything had to do with Baekhyun... At least it had been so, up until Kyungsoo’s heartless text message, the first time in three years.

Kyungsoo’s message was still glaring at him.

‘Happy new year to you too bro.’ Chanyeol punched ‘send’.

‘Don’t play dumb with me, Park. OPEN THAT DAMN MESSAGE or I’ll personally ask Baek to "unsend" it.'  . Kyungsoo was back at it with his threats again.

Chanyeol scrolled a message down to the one marked: ‘Sender: Byun Baek’. Let’s just read it and get it over with, he thought.

‘happy new year,’ it began, ‘sorry for the late greeting, but i hope londons treating you well.’

‘Late’? Chanyeol sneered. ‘Late’ would be a 5-minute delay, maximum 2 hours or a day. ‘Late’ wasn’t three years. But again, who was he to blame Baekhyun. It was no one’s fault but his own. Focusing on the message once more, it struck Chanyeol that it had been eons since he had received a message from Baekhyun, but he would never forget the way the older boy texted – all in lowercase, even the ‘I’s, and devoid of punctuation. ‘How was I supposed to understand this???’ Chanyeol remembered charging into Baekhyun’s recording studio in frustration, waving an unparagraphed, unpunctuated, 30-lined message in the shorter boy’s face. Baekhyun had laughed in amusement and merely patted Chanyeol on the back, saying, ‘If you can get used to the sounds I make when I eat with my mouth open, you can get used to the way I text.’ What Chanyeol would give to receive a 30-lined message from Baekhyun again.

At the end of the woefully concise message was a single emoji. The emoji depicted two autumn leaves wafting downwards, one after the next. They used to have a secret system of emojis, just in case their phone screens were caught on camera or in case they were ever picked on at SM’s notorious spot checks. It was a coded system they had devised one bored December night back in the first year of EXO’s establishment.

It all happened when Kris and Tao, two of their ex-members, were almost exposed by a media outlet, insinuating that the pair seemed to be ‘more than friends’. SM was notified and action was taken to muffle the news. After all, the company would never risk their burgeoning rookie group, not even for a scandal that seemed so unbelievable to the public eye. Kris and Tao were punished: no lunches and dinners for a whole week and five extra hours of practice per day. It was that exact week that Chanyeol and Baekhyun, still roommates and innocent rookies, joked about creating their own secret emoji system.

‘You don’t want the company to find out how much I loooooooooveeeeee you, do you?’ Chanyeol cooed teasingly as he lunged at Baekhyun who was sprawled on the bed opposite.

‘Geerrofff meee!’ Baekhyun hollered, smothered in sheets and limbs.

Chanyeol got up and perched next to Baekhyun. ‘Hey,’ he said, poking the elder.

‘I have a name you know, Chanyeol,’ Baekhyun rolled his eyes, ‘Alternatively, you can call me “hyung”,’ he smirked.

‘Yeah, you can dream all you want, it’s never happening,’ Chanyeol retorted. They were both 92-liners and as much as Baekhyun had practically begged Chanyeol to address him as his elder, the younger wouldn’t budge. ‘You can choose from Baekhyun, Baek, Baekhyunnie or Byun Baek,’ Chanyeol had announced. They had settled with ‘anything but Byun Baek’ and Chanyeol then made a mental note to call him exactly that whenever the older pissed him off.

‘Hey,’ Chanyeol poked Baekhyun once more, ‘How ‘bout we make our own secret code so the company won’t find out when we diss it.’ The two youngsters had thought that it was the most ingenious idea and before long, they had in place a thread of ‘codes’ in place: duck emojis stood for ‘’ (because Baekhyun thought it was the closest replacement alphabetically). Chocolate bar emojis stood for ‘let’s sneak out for snacks tonight’ (because Baekhyun was a complete er for sweets). Strawberry emojis stood for ‘wait for me to walk back after practice (because Baekhyun said strawberries smelt like home).

‘We need one for “I love you”’, Chanyeol had joked, pretending to plant a kiss on Baekhyun's cheek just to be shoved away before he managed to get up close.

‘Oh shut up, you idiot,’ Baekhyun had retorted.

‘Come onnnnnnn,’ Chanyeol whined, ‘Who knows, we might just need it some day!’

‘Not on my death bed. I’ll never need it.’

‘It’s settled, the puppy emoji’s going to be our “I love you”,’ Chanyeol declared.

‘Why puppy?’

‘Because you look like one. If you’re never going to use it, then I’ll just suit myself. Might as well use an emoji of something I love.’

‘No wonder you fare so well with the girls at Lux,’ Baekhyun had remarked.

‘Tell me you’re just the slightest bit touched,’ Chanyeol nudged the elder.

‘”Touched” my ,’ Baekhyun barked.

‘Gladly,’ Chanyeol guffawed.

‘PARK CHANYEOL GET THE OUTTTTTTTTTT!!’

None of the other members had even bothered to check on them, even with all the commotion, for they were all used to their roommate antics. No one could get on Baekhyun’s nerves as much as Chanyeol could, but just as well, no one could ever be as close with Baekhyun as Chanyeol could either. Not in a million years.

Hope you've enjoyed this light intro! A large part of this chap was dedicated to laying down the groundwork because it's a bit of a reverse timeline slash recollection fic, up until our timelines merge in later chapters, so do bear with. But I still hope you found the background details cute because I love writing fluffy anecdotes amidst all the angst. Oh and as you can probably guess, I'm quite a fan of angst so you've been warned, this one will grow angstier by the chapter :'D
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