Kris spent a grand total of a whole month  in Chanyeol’s house. Not for free, of course. His good manners and excellent upbringing wouldn’t allow that. No, he helped out with the chores daily and even -once in a while- cooked for all of them. Kris’ cooking skills were superb; he had been attending special classes since he was young.

During the first week or so of the month, he consulted with Baekhyun and together, they came up with a house plan for Kris. Designing a three-storey house was a tad challenging for Baekhyun, who lost several nights of sleep because of it, but all was well when Kris simply told him that he frankly didn’t care about the two top levels of the house. After some internal debate, Baekhyun decided to leave the original structure alone and just maybe strengthen the walls.

During a trip back to properly view the structure of it, Kris discovered two things about the abandoned house he had bought on a whim. One, it seemed to have hundreds of bullet shells in the living room, which he didn’t notice during his first, brief trip. That fact sent a jolt of anxiety down his spine. People could have been killed in there. The thought made his palms damp with fear and he nearly considered shoving all his plans down the drain and going back to his parents to beg for their forgiveness.

Then, his father’s stern and disappointed face flashed briefly in his mind and ghosts didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

Secondly, the top two levels of the house were completely furnished and untouched from their days back in the nineteen fifties. They would be perfectly functional, if it weren’t for the fact that they were buried under five centimetres of dust and whatnot.

 In honour of the old place, and partly because Kris’ unlimited credit card had expired, he decided to keep everything and allow Baekhyun to work his magic.

And, just like that, a month passed and soon, he was waving goodbye to Chanyeol and Baekhyun, suitcase by his side.

“Ayo goodbye Krees!” Chanyeol yelled as Kris drove away down the street. Baekhyun swung his arm wildly back and forth in the air until Kris had finally disappeared.

Kris grinned as he adjusted his rear view mirror. He was going to miss living with Chanyeol and Baekhyun. He had a feeling living in a nine-roomed, three-storey house as one person was going to  get lonely as hell at one point or other.

It was then, in his car, that he made a decision to get two dogs and maybe a cat, for company.

Before he could debate on their names, however, he reached the front doorstep of his house.

Not for the first time, he patted himself on the back mentally for getting Baekhyun to do his renovations.

The house, which was thankfully not coloured pink, yellow, and purple, instead, a cool blue for the walls and a deeper, richer blue for the door. He had decided that keeping the original colour was the best thing to do. Baekhyun had agreed instantaneously, as another customer had ordered the same blue for her house but had changed her mind at the last moment. The less hassle, the better.

The window frames were painted the same calming colours as the door, creating a nice, balanced look. The lawn had been mowed, watered, and clipped to perfection. Instead of the wiry straw that had littered the hard ground just a month before, a lush green carpeted the entire expanse of garden, complete with rhododendrons and rose bushes.

A bit too overly romantic for his taste, but still acceptable.

Kris got out of his car, locked it, and swung the well-oiled gate open. A little pathway embedded with smooth pebbles s a way to the steps of the large house. His house. Kris felt overwhelmed by the scale of it all for a split second. He felt like his younger self again, hiding behind his mother’s skirt as his whole family of three stood in front of the mansion his father had bought to show off his wealth. His mother hadn’t protested, but three-year old Kris didn’t want to leave their former, cosier house by the hillside.

But, despite little Kris’ wishes, they had moved into the unneeded mansion, and Kris had grown up in that cold place, whether he liked it or not.

He didn’t like it. From when he was a teenager to an adult, he was still more likely to be found at Chanyeol’s house instead of his own.

But reflections would have to come later. For now, he brushed the memories aside and focused on really exploring his house. He was determined to see every bit of it, down to each nook and cranny.

He fumbled with the key for a while before it turned successfully in the new lock and swung the door open. Since it was daytime, light streamed in and the whole place was washed with a warm, slightly yellow glow. Kris couldn’t help but to stare in awe at his living room, even though he had designed some parts of it on paper, but seeing it in real life was so much more…magical.

It looked like a room torn straight from an Ikea handbook. The colour scheme Kris had chosen at random, a pale turquoise, was perfect. Everything blended so well together, it almost took his breath away.

Every room had the same effect on him. The kitchen was large and spacious, and had everything he needed, and even some he didn’t. His bedroom had been arranged by Baekhyun so that it was uniquely Kris, and had everything he liked and nothing he hated.

The rest of the afternoon was well spent familiarising himself with the house, although he didn’t really spend much time on the two top levels. He figured that he would, really, only be using the first floor. The second floor only had his bedroom and the toilet. The rest, he considered to be storerooms.

There were too many storerooms, in his opinion. But the rest of the house was awesome. There was even an old-fashioned telephone in one of the rooms. Kris made a mental note to try calling someone on that sometime.

He continued the wondrous adventure of exploring his house until the sky was bruised black and the moon shone white in the endless space.

*:･ﾟ✧ﾟ･: *

A week later, Kris had a small housewarming party. Baekhyun and Chanyeol were invited, of course, as well as Sehun, Luhan, Xiumin and Chen, Kris’ other friends.

It turned out to be quite a flop. Baekhyun and Chanyeol kept it in their pants well enough, but after some drinks, Sehun and Luhan spent half the time making out on Kris’s couch. Baekhyun kept running off to inspect his handiwork, and when Kris initiated a drinking game with Chanyeol, the guy could only stomach two cups before he was dead drunk and giggling all over the place.

Chen ran off together to explore the house as well, and Xiumin busied himself in the kitchen tidying up the drawers and other stuff.

So, basically, Kris was stuck with a drunken Chanyeol who kept on trying to kiss him. Not exactly what he had in mind when he organised the house warming.

In the end, Kris glumly had to get all of them to go back to their homes. If Sehun and Luhan continued, he would have to get a new couch, and frankly, he was running low on money. Baekhyun and Chen were hard to pry out of his house; they seemed so fascinated with everything. But in the end, he was left alone, again.

He waved goodbye to Xiumin through his window for the last time and drew the baby blue curtains shut.

With a great sigh, he flopped down onto his sofa (not the ones Luhan and Sehun were on earlier) and, with his eyes closed, threw his head backwards.

Peace, finally.

He had no idea what made him have a housewarming party in the first place, especially with the five other idiots that were his friends.

That makes me an idiot too, technically. He mused.

Ah, whatever. He rolled onto his side and stretched his tall frame out on the couch. He had made sure to get one which could accommodate his height so that it could double as a bed when he got too tired to climb up the stairs.

Bliss. Sweet bliss. He yawned and scratched his stomach absently. Soon, he was asleep.

*:･ﾟ✧ﾟ･: *

He dreamt that he was a tree. Serene, peaceful, with nothing to bother him. Sure, there was a family of squirrels in him and they tickled sometimes, but heck, they were adorable, and the eye candy was worth it. He swayed with the wind, his branches bending and flowing to the motion of the cool breeze. Birds came and went, there were thousands of them; crows, ravens, magpies, even a seagull.

Then there came a woodpecker.

Incessant knocking connected his dream world to reality. The red-capped woodpecker dissolved into the inky darkness in front of his head as he was slowly into reality. For a moment, as the wisps of his dream clutched at his mind, he worried that the bird was pecking away at his flesh, slowly carving out a hole.

He blinked the cobwebs of sleep from his eyes and finally realised that, no, he wasn’t being hacked away at by a woodpecker, there was someone at the door.

His eyes automatically flickered to the clock hanging on his wall.

At two in the morning.

The knocking intensified into a hammering of fists on wood.

Grumbling, Kris stumbled his way to the front door, one hand running through messy hair in an attempt to comb it down.

The hammering became a loud, frantic banging.

“I’m coming! Sheesh. Don’t knock down my door.” Kris nearly tripped over his rug as he navigated through the blackness.

“I swear, this better be good, or else-“ Kris swung the door open.

A pair of black, angry eyes ringed with puffy eye bags stared back at him, illuminated by the meagre amount of moonlight. There was a tense moment where the stranger’s gaze flickered to the hallway behind, then back to Kris’ bewildered face. The stranger’s face was twisted with fury, anguish, and fear, among other unreadable emotions. Then, teeth gritted, he spoke.

“Get the hell out of my house.”

*:･ﾟ✧ﾟ･: *

Dun dun dunnnn >:D

/evil laughter/ I can't wait to write the rest. As usual, thank you all for liking this and subscribing/commenting c: