3 years later

“Yes? Where to meet you up? Okay. I’ll be there right away.”

Chanyeol hangs up the phone first, before gathering his stuff to bring with him. He’s not exactly in a rush, but he’d like to have the stuff organized in his bag first before he goes out of his apartment.

After making sure of his stuff, he walks leisurely outside, and he stops for awhile to see the yellowing leaves of the trees and the ground around him. Autumn is coming and it never fails to amaze Chanyeol how beautiful it can be in the fall season.

He brings out his camera to shoot the view before leaving for his appointment.

He searched for everything, anything. Like probably a photo or something. But there was nothing at all.

“I don’t have his pictures,” Baekhyun simply replied.

“What? Don’t you at least have one? I remember he was asking you to take a picture of us.”

“I don’t know where the pictures are gone. Perhaps he deletes it before he leaves.”

“What about Kris?”

“You know that he doesn’t like taking pictures so much. The only picture in his phone would be that one where I was reading a book in the college’s library. And that was when he was a stalker of mine.”

“He sounds really creepy.” Chanyeol looked at the messy room he was in. “Well, I’ll call you later on, okay?”

“Okay then. Bye.”

Chanyeol couldn’t think of anything at the moment. He didn’t think Sehun would be able to erase any traces of him from Chanyeol’s life so well. Chanyeol had asked to anyone that he knew who also knew Sehun, but most of them were his distant acquaintances and therefore, didn’t know pretty well about his relationship with Sehun, not to mention their pictures together.

Chanyeol felt like an amnesiac, even though he wasn’t. But he couldn’t help it.

He decided to collect as many memories as possible, just to stop himself from not knowing anything.

He walks by the small street only filled by pedestrians, with a few bikes occasionally passing through. It’s the first time he ever walks by a street alone, and the first time he looks at the surroundings that he’s been missing for possibly his entire life.

Then he finds his feet stopping in front of a small café, moderately crowded by its customers who enjoy what he thinks might be bubble tea, because he can see tapioca balls from one of the empty glasses perched on the table outside the café.

His eyes shifts right away once the empty glass is taken by a hand, to the owner of the hand, to the face, to the hair—

And everything feels like it comes to a stop.

At this moment, he finds his hands moving to catch his camera inside his bags, and he captures at the waiter’s general direction, who eventually notices him and looks surprised, resulting in the glass in his hand falling to the ground into pieces.

He slings his camera to his shoulder, and instinctively approaches the man who's scrambling to collect the broken pieces on the ground.

"Let me help you," Chanyeol offers.

"No, thank you," the man replies softly, but it's enough to make Chanyeol visibly taken aback.

The voice is eerily familiar, even after all these years, he still remembers that voice.

"Have we...have we met before?"

The man abruptly stops, and he tries to sneak a glance at Chanyeol, but he somehow decides he shouldn't do it. Then he goes back to collecting the broken pieces of the glass without saying anything, which makes Chanyeol somewhat irritated but he helps too anyway.

Once they're done, the waiter stands up abruptly, followed by Chanyeol. The latter has his eyes darted on the waiter's nametag, but before he manages to read the name, the waiter raises the tray he's holding, which covers the nametag perfectly.

"I-thank you." The waiter immediately walks quickly inside the shop, leaving Chanyeol dumbfounded.

"I haven't apologized to you..."

At night, Chanyeol can't stop staring at the picture of the waiter of that bubble tea shop. He's intrigued because of how his voice sounds so much like Sehun. He's not entirely sure though if it really is him. But he thinks the male is really beautiful, although his eyes look like it holds a great maturity than his appearance.

He wonders if he should show the picture to one of his friends. Then again, if the person is someone unfamiliar, they will think he's a stalker of some stranger. Chanyeol decides to stay silent for now.

When Chanyeol decides to visit the bubble tea shop in the next day, he doesn't find any appearance of the waiter that he saw the day before. He's still curious though, so he lets himself in the shop and picks a table for two at the corner of the shop.

He's greeted by another waiter with an extremely warm smile.

"Hello, Sir, what would you like to order?"

He gives a menu for Chanyeol to look over, and truthfully Chanyeol doesn't really drink bubble tea, so he's unsure of what to order.

"Hmm...which one is the best one?"

"Oh? Well...most people like to order the chocolate flavored one. Our staff mostly like that one too."

"Ah. Well, I'll order-"

At that moment, he sees a familiar figure passing through the throng of customer who then disappears behind the counter. It's the waiter he saw yesterday.

Chanyeol is about to leave the seat to chase after that particular waiter, but he is reminded to the fact that a waiter is waiting for his order by his table.

"I'll order the chocolate one then. But can I ask something?"

Sehun shoved a cold glass into Chanyeol's hand.

"What is this?" Chanyeol flinched when his hand made contact with the cold.

"Bubble tea. You try it."

"Is this another one of your new favorite drinks again? Because from what I know, we're pretty much soulmates in everything but favorite drinks."

"Hey, it really is good, okay! I ordered the chocolate flavor, your favorite! Just give it a try."

Chanyeol finally gave in with a sigh. He grabbed the cold glass with his other hand searching for the straw. He then sipped on the drink slowly, and soon he tasted the sweet liquid entering his mouth. For once, he actually enjoyed a drink that Sehun suggested to him.

But then something hard got stuck in his throat and he started coughing violently.

"Chanyeol? W-what happened?" Sehun asked in panic.

Chanyeol couldn't really hear the concern in Sehun's voice, because all he really cared about was to get the thing out of his system.

Then all of the sudden, the thing shot out of his mouth, and he felt a pair of arms around his waist. One of the arms went missing and he then felt a hand caressing his back.

"Hyung, are you feeling better now? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have forced you to drink it."

"I-I'm fine," Chanyeol reassured through a strained voice. "But I don't want to have that drink ever again."

It takes a painfully long wait until his drink is being delivered by the waiter he's been wishing to see since yesterday.

"Here's your drink," he says softly, pretending as if he didn't see him yesterday passing through the shop. Chanyeol notices that the guy doesn't have his nametag on his shirt today.

"Thank you," Chanyeol replies, giving in to play his game. He can't stop thinking about the familiar voice, and he's starting to wonder if this guy is really Sehun, and not just some random guy he saw on the street.

"Why are you coming again," the waiter starts, "and why are you always asking for me to deliver your drink?"

"Is it a wrong thing to do?" Chanyeol inquires, but when he thinks about it on a stranger's term, it can be terribly wrong, actually.

"You seem to me like a stalker," the waiter deadpanned.

"Just to reverse that thought of yours, I don't even know your name. I mean, you don't wear your nametag ever since that day I made you break that glass."

"You think I should wear my nametag? What if I don't want people to know who I am?"

"Then what's the use of the nametag given to you?"

"It's not even your business. I just delivered your order, and that's that."

The waiter turns on his heels, but this time Chanyeol stops him by grabbing his wrist. His action makes people around them turn to watch them.

"W-what are you doing? People are watching, you know?"

"I don't want to let go before you tell me your name." Chanyeol looks at him pleadingly. "Are you someone I know?"

The waiter can't stop looking around him, and finally, he whispers a name to Chanyeol.

"Shixun."

And the grip on his wrist instantly loosened.

Chanyeol's room consisted of a big window on the west, a shelf on the north and a bed on the south. The door was perched on the east.

When the door opened, he'd usually expect his father or mother to come, greeting him shortly or having short talk with him about how their days had gone by, and how they promised him that he'd be able to go to school soon.

He just didn't expect a childish voice to greet him that day.

"Hi~"

The moment felt weird for him, because he wasn't entirely used to it.

"I was told to come visit you... And you seem lonely."

Chanyeol couldn't express his surprise to hear that voice talking so straightforwardly to him.

"What's your name, if I may know?"

Something was stuck in Chanyeol's throat. He wanted to say it, but he had a hard time.

"Are you nervous? Well, I'll start first then. My name is Oh Sehun. What's yours?"

Oh Sehun.

That was the only thing that appeared in his head.

"Oh Sehun."

Then he heard a giggling voice, and it sounded like a bell ringing in his ears.

"You shouldn't repeat my name. Say your own name."

Chanyeol tried hard to rake his brain for the possible answer, and then it occurred to him. He thought he was an idiot for forgetting his own name.

"Park Chanyeol." It unexpectedly got easier for him to say his own name.

What he didn't expect next was the hand that grabbed onto his tightly.

"It's nice to meet you, Chanyeol."

Joonmyun is busy cleaning the counter when he spots one of his employees moping the floor with an obvious lack of energy. He seems to be like that ever since that one particular customer keeps coming to the shop. He even refuses to wear his nametag when Joonmyun told him to deliver that customer's drink.

"Minseok hyung, can you take over here?" Joonmyun calls out to Minseok who's wiping the tables close to the counter. Minseok immediately agrees and walks towards the counter, and Joonmyun approaches the table Minseok was cleaning.

Joonmyun takes the cleaning kit to the table near the boy who's busy moping like it's the most interesting thing to do in the whole world.

"Sehun-ah."

The said boy doesn't respond, as he keeps on his moping activity.

"Sehun-ah. Hey."

Joonmyun finally grabs the younger's arms to stop him, and it's only now he seems to snap out of his daze.

"Hyung," he says with that look of disbelief on his features.

"I kept calling you but you didn't respond. Seriously, what has gotten you? Is it that customer? You definitely attracted a lot of audience this afternoon."

"Hyung, can I just...can you stop inquiring me about this?"

"Look, I'm really worried about you. You start losing your focus on work these days. If you actually want me to chase away that guy, I'll do it."

"No, Hyung, it's not that. I..." Sehun looks away from his hyung towards the window where only a few people passing through at night. "I'll take care of it on my own. Don't be burdened by me, because I'll definitely work just like before."

Sehun decides to mop to the other direction, away from Joonmyun. He can feel the elder's gaze boring into his soul, but no, Joonmyun can't see what's on his mind, so Sehun feels a tad bit assured.

He just doesn't know what he'll do once Chanyeol appears on the doorway again. He doesn't know what to do with him at all, after spending all this time apart from him.

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Updated with longer chapter~ I've decided that this will be a fairly short story, so I guess you can see the ending coming soon.