What Yifan was looking for was not something tangible, not something that could be held, caressed. Knowledge, he supposed, was not exactly what people would expect him to scour the whole world for. He was looking for a particular type of knowledge. He simply tried to discover lost antique legends, ones that had been gathering dust in the spaces of its words.

            What he did not plan on happening was having someone tag along with him. All he knew was that one day he was walking through foreign, bustling streets alone, and the next, a bouncy Park Chanyeol was right beside him. Their meeting went along something the line of this:

            Yifan (squinting against the glare of the five suns; this city was the closest to them) stared at the tall – child? His face was certainly youthful – in front of him.

            A slow, infectious smile spreading over Chanyeol’s face, one eye closed and not even looking perturbed that he had spilled lychee juice all over this aloof stranger. “Let me pay for your dinner as an apology. What’s your name?”

            And sometimes, Yifan regretted actually letting his real name slip out of his mouth because a second later, Chanyeol was gushing about how much he always wanted to meet the elusive Wu Yifan who was on a quest of finding all the lost legends when no one else succeeded before.

            When Chanyeol latched onto him and enthusiastically yelped about all the fun they’ll have together because he’s going with Yifan on this adventure too, Yifan gave him his signature scowl. “What about your life?”

            “I tried to live normally.” Chanyeol gave a carefree shrug with a bright smile. “And failed.”

            “It’s dangerous.”

            “I know.”

            Seeing Chanyeol’s absolute refusal to back down, Yifan gave him a lingering stare and said, “Fine.” Chanyeol was just going to be begging to go back to his home city after experiencing the tedium, the skin-crawling danger, the soul-dragging process of recovering just one lost literature anyway.

            “Is it true that you can call on dragons?” Chanyeol was giving him the awed eye-twitch later that night, in the broken down motel with the fungi crawling over the walls, glowing in the dark. He didn’t seem to mind the poverty. Almost seemed used to it, actually.

            Yifan turned his head to look at the bed opposite his and gave it his best glare. Amber once claimed that he could burn stuff with it and that should’ve been his power instead. He was on the verge of dreamland before Chanyeol’s timbre broke the silence.

            “Yes.” He turned towards the wall, closing his eyes.

            Clearly Chanyeol was incapable of processing social cues, because he continued talking. About anything and everything, really. The neon-green snails that he saw some people eating yesterday, and he wondered which region they were from – maybe the valley with two moons shining over it? Then he started rambling about his family, who was scattered all across the land and something about his parents who had given him free reign the moment he turned 16 and Yifan was weirdly enraptured but he couldn’t help his heavy eyelids from shutting. Chanyeol’s voice soothed him to sleep, and it would continue to do so for many years to come.

            The annoying thing (out of all the annoying things that he would list about Chanyeol, and the list was long) was that Chanyeol got distracted. Very easily. They would walk through a merchant market place, and Chanyeol would slip away, attracted to a shiny bauble floating in the air. The first time, Yifan had almost panicked (for some unknown reason), because how hard was it to lose someone that was almost his height? Chanyeol always came to him, tugging his hand and chirping about whatever new, shiny thing he had seen, and could they buy it please pretty please?

            “Dinner,” Yifan reminded, eyes narrowed, because both of them were lacking in rens and they had to take part-time jobs occasionally before moving onto the next destination.

            A pretty pout from Chanyeol didn’t even deter him.

            Still, as they were walking away from yet another town, Yifan sneakily snuck a paper package into Chanyeol’s pack. As they were settling down to munch on dry provisions, Chanyeol had taken it out with a surprised tilt of his eyebrows and carefully unwrapped it. It was a glittering little jewel with beads wound across it, and Chanyeol gave Yifan his own special trembling smile that spoke of glistening glass reflecting the rainbow hues of water drops.

            “It’s a protection charm,” Yifan said.

            “But our money,” Chanyeol said, fingertips ghosting across the jewel as he wrapped the beads around his wrist.

            “I found it a long time ago. In one of the ice caves. Just happened to carry it around with me.” He turned away, not sure if his heated face was because of the suns or his heart pitter-pattering.

            He was actually surprised that Chanyeol was still by his side – even though it had been one whole month and their living conditions had been mostly on the spectrum side of miserable squalidness. He was glad. The prospect of traveling by himself without a ball of sunshine matching each step of his gave him a punching, sinking feeling in his gut. It sounded… Lonely.

            “That.” Chanyeol pointed one day as they trekked across a dune hill. The sky was purple since all of the suns except one had set. “That kind of pink-purple. It’s my favorite color.”

            Yifan felt his mouth twitch up as Chanyeol stopped and panted after they reached the top of the hill. “It’s my favorite, too.”

            Chanyeol stood up, caught up to him, and reached out to tangle their hands and fingers together. Yifan’s stomach jolted up and down like iridescent jelly even though the contact was so utterly casual. As easy as breathing.

            “We have the same favorite colors,” Chanyeol said, eyes shining and tips of his hair light brown from overexposure to the suns. “We are MFEO.”

            Yifan was trying to snap out of the daze he was in from gazing at the strands of hair falling in front Chanyeol’s heart-breakingly gorgeous eyes. “What?”

            “MFEO.” A squeeze of their hands. “Made For Each Other.”

            And it shouldn’t be this hard to breathe but it was. He didn’t say anything because what was there to say? He just kept walking, hands clasped with the man who might’ve stolen his heart the first time he saw his smile.

            Chanyeol cheered and sat in front of the little hut once they reached it. It had been hidden by layers of foliage, and the forest labyrinth gave Yifan an incredible migraine in navigating it.

            “This is it, right? The place that your academic books said the text would be,” Chanyeol said, his eyes half-crescents.

            “It probably has traps,” Yifan said. “They usually do. The ancients were extremely protective of their legends.”

            “I’m going with you.” And he left no rooms for argument. It sounded like he was saying wherever you go, I’ll go with you and Yifan was struck by the force of an invisible hand reaching in and squeezing his heart.

            “Okay.”

            The traps turned out to be puzzles, and Chanyeol actually helped him solve most of them with his random insights. When Yifan looked at him with something akin to wonder, Chanyeol said with a grin, “A different set of eyes always helps.”

            The legend they had found turned out to be about a pair of lovers, reuniting once a year when the constellations in the sky held hands and formed a bridge for them cross and meet. Legends usually had a grain of truth to them, and that was why they were so sought for. They always told something about history, and Yifan his hand across the fraying ends of the parchment, half-awed.

            “At least you didn’t have to summon dragons this time,” Chanyeol said, sounding almost a little disappointed at not seeing his power first-hand. Yifan gave him the look.

            “That was only once.”

            Several seconds later, as they exited the hut, making sure to leave everything looking as it was because nature had been so ingrained with it, Chanyeol was squeezing Yifan’s bicep in excitement, saying, “We should celebrate! First legend we found together – this makes, what, your fourth?”

            Yifan hummed. “It was surprisingly easy this time.”  

            “I’m your good luck charm.” Chanyeol gave a little hair flip with his finger, smugly smiling and Yifan had never adored someone so much before and – Chanyeol was tangling their fingers together again; oh gods no matter how many times he did that, he would never get used to it. Chanyeol’s voice had dropped down to a low, adoring whisper. “I think we belong together.”

            And Yifan laughed because it sounded so utterly cheesy, and there was that pretty pout directed towards him again.

            Sometimes Yifan laid awake at night, looking at Chanyeol’s resting profile, wondering if it was just Chanyeol’s joker personality having fun with him – if he was kidding when he said those sweet, annoying love declarations. That they were soul mates or whatever.

            They had entered a crowded city, its lights powered by tired orbed faeries even in the middle of the night. Yifan waited for Chanyeol to finish buying their take-out so that they could hurry up and get to the place they rented (they were planning on staying for a few weeks actually, so Yifan could try and pinpoint where they should go next) and sleep. He was tired beyond belief.

            A group of whispering, giggling girls nudged one girl forward. She gave them almost-glares before approaching him, eyes averted and darting to his face before fluttering.

            “Are you a traveler?” she asked, leaning towards him into his personal space. Her lips formed a pretty pout (not as pretty as Chanyeol’s) as she gazed imploringly at him. “I can show you around. I know all the best places to eat here.”

            He sighed, used to the attention. Before he could reject her, there was a heated hand on his hip and he turned, startled, to see Chanyeol’s amiably smiling face.

            “Sorry, he doesn’t need your help. Thank you, though.” He gave her a sweeter smile and his words dripped sugary molasses, yet his eyes were so cold they could freeze a burning flame.

            Yifan saw the shiver that encompassed the girl’s frame before she stammered out a reply and returned to her gaggle of disappointed friends.

            The hand was gone and Yifan almost missed its warmth before his chest was spreading tendrils of flames at how close Chanyeol was, leaning towards him and eyes warm again. It was like nothing had happened.

            “They said they didn’t have sesame soy sauce, but they did have this weird orangey looking sauce. Are you okay with that?” Chanyeol asked, holding up the still-warm bags of food, and Yifan nodded.

            Later that night, the cold stole around their room because the heating (powered by stones infused with witch spells) , and Yifan’s teeth were chattering. Chanyeol had heard and sleepily patted the space beside him, eyes wide and inviting. He gave up on resisting and slipped underneath Chanyeol’s blankets, sticking his freezing nose right in the hollow area between Chanyeol’s neck and shoulders and earned a surprised yelp. He smiled widely, a little glad it was dark even though Chanyeol’s expression was probably priceless.

            “Why are you so warm?” He murmured, but didn’t expect a reply as he dozed off in the comforting heat.

            The next day, he found out why. They were walking towards the library, which was guarded by marble lions whose eyes moved to track each visitor, when they were ambushed. It was, thankfully, an empty deserted street, but Yifan was taken by surprise as someone’s (fortunately not dipped in poison) sword sliced into his arm. He had dodged at the last second at sensing some kind of danger, and the next thing he knew, they were both surrounded by unknown assailants with black cloth wrapped around their faces, with only their eyes exposed. Yifan gritted his teeth; he knew what they wanted. Authentic legends sold for billions of rens and he had been attacked before because of the greed of others. He didn’t sell those legends – never planned on it – his plan was to give them to the international museum so that they would influence generations of children to come. Never had he been surrounded by so many assailants before, though.

            He raised his hand up, and he knew there was too little time to call whatever dragons that were in the vicinity (the nearest he could sense were 5 miles away), but it was a good bluff. But there was Chanyeol and his heart clenched in worry and fear because he didn’t mean to involve him in such dangerous nonsense, but it had been too late anyway when Chanyeol had latched onto him like a puppy with a new toy.

            The assailants hesitated a little, but they moved in closer, boxing them in nevertheless. Chanyeol’s attention was only concentrated on the crimson stain on Yifan’s arm.

            “You’re hurt,” he whispered, voice shaky, eyes slightly wild.

            “Chanyeol, run,” Yifan hissed.

            “You’re hurt,” Chanyeol repeated, and he looked Yifan right in the eye and Yifan’s pupils expanded in shock because were Chanyeol’s eyes ever this golden-red? “They hurt you.”

            “Chanyeol.”

            “They’re going to pay for this,” Chanyeol said, with this fierce, intense look on his face that Yifan had never seen before and he was shaken from the core because where had the goofy Chanyeol gone? But the second that thought passed, there was heat everywhere, flames and lapping at Chanyeol’s skin and Yifan was, for a moment, terrified because he had thought that they set Chanyeol on fire before he realized that Chanyeol had set himself on fire. And Yifan, was for some odd reason (probably something of Chanyeol’s doing), fine while the people in black were screaming.

            There was a mad look in Chanyeol’s eyes, almost verging on the point of insanity, and he was still burning with the red-hot fire before Yifan wrapped him up in his arms, telling him that he was fine now, they all ran away before Chanyeol relaxed and passed out into his chest.

            “It usually takes a lot of energy out of me,” Chanyeol said after he woke up and finished fussing over Yifan’s injury. He was on a sugar cane to replenish his energy. “Summoning fire.”

            “You should’ve told me earlier. Almost gave me a heart-attack,” Yifan muttered, mussing his hair up with his hand.

            “Aww, was Yifan scared?” Chanyeol teased, eye corners crinkling up.

            Instead of responding like a normal person, Yifan leaned forward and the sugary sweetness from Chanyeol’s lips. Chanyeol was wide-eyed after Yifan leaned back with satisfaction. He felt a little smidgen of smugness because at least he found a sure-fire way of shutting Park Chanyeol up now.

            Then Chanyeol had whined, “More” and who was Wu Yifan to say no?

Typed this up in one sitting, actually. :D Okay, it's late and I should sleep. I really enjoyed exploring this Krisyeol au (/sobs because I really love them too much).