It took way too long for Baekhyun to get over it, to get over that Chanyeol just left him. They’d been making love just the other day, Chanyeol had cried against Baekhyun’s shoulder while whispering words of love. He simply didn’t understand why Chanyeol so suddenly just up and left like that.

He refused to meet up with Zitao and Yifan, didn’t want to be a witness to their sickly sweet relationship when he no longer had one of his own. He only went out for work, and then he went with his head down and only spoke to the people he had to. This, of course, meant he also worked more effectively, which was something his boss rather liked.

The only people he really talked to were Joonmyun and Kyungsoo. They were his only hope of getting news of Chanyeol, as they had been almost closer to Chanyeol than Baekhyun, but they stubbornly refused to say anything. They just looked at him with something like sadness and pity in their eyes, but Baekhyun accepted it because they cooked him food when all he could fix for himself was takeout, they cleaned his apartment when he wouldn’t get up during the weekends, they listened when he ranted endlessly about Chanyeol and all the possible reasons why, and they held him when he cried.

About five and a half months had passed before Kyungsoo and Joonmyun got enough of his whining and practically forced him to move on. They fixed him a new apartment in another part of the city, they forced him to quit his job and find a new one and they quite literally dragged him to the club Friday evenings and out of bed Saturday mornings.

Against his will, slowly and grudgingly, Baekhyun got over Chanyeol – but he never forgot him. His new friends in his “new life”, as he called it, never got to know of Chanyeol. Baekhyun’s friends learned to never speak of him and he hid all the photographs, all the memories he had left in a box in a corner of his wardrobe. Sometimes, when he was feeling really lonely, he’d take it out and look at the pictures, let his fingers trace the letters in little notes and letters Chanyeol had written for him during the years. Even if it made him cry, it helped against his loneliness to know that they had been real, the love had been real and not just a dream.

Eventually he even found a girl he rather liked and decided to try out a relationship with. It was nothing like it had been with Chanyeol, no one could ever replace him, but she could make him feel some sense of happiness.

Then, thirteen months and eighteen days after Chanyeol had left Baekhyun – he secretly counted the days – Kyungsoo turned up on Baekhyun’s doorstep in an important errand about Chanyeol, he said. He wondered if Baekhyun was ready to tell his girlfriend about Chanyeol and it took Baekhyun a few good minutes of thinking before he finally said yes, but Kyungsoo waited patiently.

Baekhyun’s girlfriend refused to believe him at first, but then he showed her his box of memories and she accepted that there had been someone before her, someone better, someone she could never replace. Once that was over with, they finally turned to look expectantly at Kyungsoo.

“What about Chanyeol?” Baekhyun asked and he hated the spike of hope in his voice. Chanyeol was gone, he wouldn’t come back, no matter how many days Baekhyun counted without him.

Kyungsoo gave him a lopsided smile. “He didn’t leave without a reason, Baek, but he promised I’d wait until you were over him before I told you. He didn’t want to… He said you’d just hurt even more if it was still fresh. So I waited.”

Baekhyun and his girlfriend watched with attentive eyes as Kyungsoo fished out a crumpled paper- no, envelope, from his pocket. He pushed it across the table and Baekhyun’s breath hitched just a little when he saw his name written in Chanyeol’s handwriting on the white surface.

His hands were shaking as he picked it up and opened it to pull out a letter. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before he started reading.

My angel Baekhyunnie,

I hope you have moved on and that you’re happy. I’m really sorry I had to leave you like this, but see, I did it to protect you. You probably don’t even know it, but there are people who want to hurt you. I don’t know if they still do, but at least they did. I was out walking one day when a man pulled me to the side and asked if I knew Byun Baekhyun. Of course I said yes, and he immediately asked if I was his boyfriend. I realized he already knew and it was no use lying, so I said yes again. He was silent for a moment, before he told me that I had a choice; to stay with you and wait for the day you died – which would be soon, he said – or offer myself for you within a week. I think you can guess which option I chose.
I just wanted you to know that I did it for you. If I could have stayed with you until we grew old and died together, I would have. I’m so sorry Baekhyunnie. I love you so, so, so, so much, don’t forget!

Love,
Chanyeol

Baekhyun stared emptily into space for a few moments with tears running silently down his cheeks before his face crumpled and he leaned across the table top, shoulders shaking as he cried.

“Why didn’t he- he could’ve- could’ve told me!” he got out between sobs. “Idiot. Always such an idiot!”

He felt Kyungsoo’s hands on his back and wondered briefly if he’d scared his girlfriend off, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care as he let his friend hug him as he cried.

At least he knew how long he’d have to wait until he could see Chanyeol again now and he silently reset the countdown in his head from something unknown to the day he died.



Baekhyun lived his life seemingly perfect. He married his girlfriend and they had two kids. He opened a bookstore at the edge of the city and sometimes went out with his friends, but mostly spent the days with his kids, watching them grow up under his guidance until they finally moved out and left him alone with his wife again.

“You’re still waiting, aren’t you?” she asked him one day, taking him by surprise. He looked up at her with wide eyes, but then he smiled softly.

“Yes,” he murmured, “I’m still waiting for the day I can see him.”

Forty-eight years, seven months and three days after Chanyeol had left him, Baekhyun died in an unexpected heart attack at age seventy. Forty-eight years, seven months and three days after they had parted ways, Baekhyun finally got to see Chanyeol once more.