i know i havent written in a long time and have still some pending works (eg. where my heart is, get over you), but here i am anyway. recently, i joined cscs writing contest, so im rekindling with my writing and yea... this is a prompt i got from my friend from a song. it spurred to me thinking of chanyeol as a painter and well, read on the deets to understand better. it features jung eunji and dara, hahahah. although, the piece does sound a little vague, to say the least. also, this may or may not be part of a longer one-shot/fic but im not yet sure. lastly, i havent  heard the song when i made this, so it isnt exactly an interpration of the song, but a prompt fill from the first two lines:

 

"God, that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend" [x]
--

 

It's weird because he's remembering things he shouldn't. These memories should have been long forgotten, tucked away in a pocket of a coat he no longer wears.

 

He's taken aback by the familiar lopsided grin momentarily imprinting itself in his mind, once an everyday appearance right at his doorstep by sunrise. A mop of curly chestnut locks flashes in his mind; shades and hues and tints presenting itself on an easel through an art work.

 

"He paints."

 

He recalls his friend saying as he buttons up his polo.

 

And what are the oddities of that?

 

He'd wanted to ask if he also has a penchant for instruments and if he enjoys cups and cups of coffee in the mornings, fueling his passion for painting colors on canvases, but then...that would be too much of asking and getting ahead of the situation. It's not like he's in favor of this meeting, anyway. If at all, he's only ever going to this friendly date—as his friend coined—because he owes Dara one. It had something to do with returning favors and it just so happened his friend knew of his ual orientation that he’s practically forced to go on a friendly date with this guy Dara knows about through Eunji’s help.

 

He picks up on a fragment of their conversation again—something about him admitting to his friend that he has fallen in love and been in a relationship once.

 

Once.

 

And probably never again.

 

He could vaguely make out the details on why they broke up at all anymore—just that he was badly gashed and scathed that he briefly remembers sentimental nights just staring at the wall across his bed—he’s never been accustomed to crying, anyway. He supposes the breakup had something to do with the other’s lack of time to commemorate their relationship or something as shallow as bottles of paint falling prey to the floor in shards followed with a splash of color splaying across the once-wooden floor. And of course, he had to get mad at some point, right?

 

But that’s beside the point.

 

He doesn’t want to remember any more than he has.

 

 

 

 

 

But remember he does even more when he walks through the front door of a fancy restaurant. It’s one they had their first date in.

 

Why now—when he's meeting someone new who could potentially fill the void and distort his memories of him?

 

He walks to the front desk, asks of a reservation under his friend’s name, in which he is promptly assisted to and then he’s greeted by a familiar chirpy voice.

 

“Baekhyun, I knew you’d come!”

 

“And you just had to go, because…?”

 

“Of course Dara needed to make sure you’d come.”

 

Baekhyun sits with a huff across his friend, the chirpiness in her voice never-ending as she disrupts all opportunities of contemplation.  

 

He’s actually got a choice. He could still do it now. The escaping, he means. He’s just got to suffer his friend’s annoying bouts for a week, and that would be it, because he knows his friend could never hate him just because of a date he doesn’t want to go to. And it’s not that he didn’t show up, either. It would turn out that the mysterious painter is taking too long instead.

 

“He just excused himself for a bit,” she quips.

 

“Do I look okay, Eunji?” he nervously asks, straightening out his polo as creases appear over his shoulder.

 

“Are you excited?” Eunji sounds excited, actually even more enthusiastic as Baekhyun is that Baekhyun thinks for a moment to ask her to take his place instead.

 

“Do I look like I want to be in here?” he snaps, but it doesn’t come out so harsh.

 

“Cheer up! It can’t be that bad.”

 

“But you’re only saying that.”

 

“I have to—oh, look! That’s him,” she almost yells, pointing to what he assumes a figure walking nearer from his back.

 

And when he looks back, it finally makes sense when he sees a tall and casually dressed man right in front of him. But this time, he isn’t grinning like he used to and gone are the curly locks replaced by straight ebony ones.

“He has paintings of landscapes and portraits and one looks creepily like you.”

 

“Baekhyun, this is Chanyeol. And Chanyeol, this is…”

 

“I thought it was just mere coincidence her description of the mysterious painter fits you very well.”

 

“It’s been a while, Baek,” Chanyeol says, Baekhyun’s nickname rolling smoothly from his tongue like before.

 

“Yeah, it has.” It almost sounds nostalgic, the way Baekhyun says it. A whisper of sorts he doesn’t necessarily want anyone hearing.

 

Eunji is left gaping at the side, assessing the situation while she looks to and fro the two males. It would actually make sense that she didn’t know about any of this and probably neither did Dara—of the fact that Baekhyun and Chanyeol knew each other. He’s only ever known Chanyeol some few months back when she’d chanced upon his exhibition and met him as a really friendly painter then and Baekhyun’s a new comer at their company. She just had to blab about the wonders of Chanyeol’s work to Dara, who’d eventually provided the little information about Baekhyun liking painters. And then this…

 

“You know each other?” Eunji’s confused voice bounces from Baekhyun to Chanyeol.

 

“Used to,” Baekhyun and Chanyeol answer in unison.