For his seventeenth birthday, Chanyeol gives Baekhyun a box of puzzles and disappears like a whisper in the wind, leaving behind a note stuck to the box in Baekhyun’s trembling hands, written in shaky characters, maybe with a tear stain or two. I’m sorry, is all it says, but when Baekhyun flips the paper over, the tiny words I love you are etched out in faded graphite on the back.

He doesn’t understand until the next evening, when a call comes as he’s out eating dinner, and there’s a breathless, urgent voice talking rapidly into his ear, garbled sounds of nonsense echoing futilely at him—We’re sorry, your friend Chanyeol is dead, is all he can discern, but even then, he doesn’t quite believe them, because Chanyeol isn’t a friend, Chanyeol is much, much more—

Someone comes up to him and leads him to a chair, says something about being run over a car, but accidents like that only happen in dramas, Baekhyun’s sure, because this is real life, not a drama. Chanyeol’s just gone for a while, or maybe the entire world is playing some sick joke on him, but sick jokes are bearable if they end, as long as he has Chanyeol back.

“Hey, are you okay?” a different, unfamiliar voice asks, almost unnoticed in the rush of conversation roaring in his ears, but Baekhyun isn’t sure who the people surrounding him are. “You should get some rest. You’re in shock. Sleeping will make you feel better.” A hand grabs his arm, leading him away, and Baekhyun follows blindly, not aware of where he’s being taken and not particularly caring either. He has the vague sensation of falling onto a bed, the mattress giving away beneath him, hands the edge of his bangs, a quilt pulled gently over him. “Rest well,” the voice whispers, and Baekhyun almost tries to figure out who the person is, but the exhaustion washes over him and he sinks into an endless fall into the dark.

For his seventeenth birthday, Chanyeol gives Baekhyun a box of puzzles, but it’s Baekhyun who ends up in pieces.

They liked to meet at the back of the school, leaning against the brick walls, where Baekhyun wondered out loud what it felt like to kiss someone and Chanyeol laughed, leaning towards Baekhyun and capturing their lips together so all Baekhyun could think of was threading his fingers through the taller boy's silky locks and losing himself in his warm embrace. “Experimenting” was what Chanyeol called it, when they hid behind doors and explored the maps of their bodies, learned where fingers could leave the most burning sears on their skin, where lips left the most noticeable marks.

“Do you just go around kissing friends for fun?” Baekhyun once asked after their fifth kiss (or maybe it was their sixth, he couldn’t quite remember). “All this experimenting makes it sound like you do this a lot. A learning process, right?”

“No,” Chanyeol replied, and maybe it was just Baekhyun’s imagination and the fact that they were pressed against each other, hair tangling together, but when Chanyeol continued with a low, barely audible “I only kiss you,” something intangible began fluttering in Baekhyun’s stomach.

They parted ways still holding hands, and only when Baekhyun reluctantly let go of Chanyeol’s fingers did he think that maybe this wasn’t just an experiment after all.

Chanyeol’s funeral is held on a sunny day, when the sky is a crisp blue and clear, not a single cloud in sight. Baekhyun decides Chanyeol’s not actually dead, because it’s supposed to rain during funerals, when the skies are pouring out their grief. Or maybe the world is just laughing at him.

They let Baekhyun throw handfuls of Chanyeol’s ashes into the air, where they scatter in the wind, and Baekhyun doesn’t quite understand the feeling of someone’s life slipping through the spaces between his fingers, rough silver grains catching at his fingertips before they fade away. He sits through the service, staring at the ground the entire time, rubbing his fingers against each other and remembering the ghosts of ashes on them. It’s a strange feeling.   

“Park Chanyeol was important to all of us,” is the only thing Baekhyun hears, but Park Chanyeol wasn’t important, Park Chanyeol is important. Park Chanyeol isn’t dead.

He slips away from the funeral when it’s done, ignoring the calls of others asking him to come back. He wanders the streets and doesn’t stop walking until he finds himself standing in front of a small coffee shop, where he can hear the faint sounds of someone inside singing along with the soft strums of a guitar.

There’s nothing else for him to do, so Baekhyun pushes the entrance doors of the coffee shop and walks in, smiling blankly at the waitress when she walks by and asks him something he doesn’t remember the instant the words leave her lips. His eyes immediately focus on a hooded figure sitting in the back of the shop, singing quietly as he strums a guitar, eyes closed.

Baekhyun pauses mid-step and suddenly, he’s not sure whether he should continue walking forward or run away as fast as he can. The singer is sitting by a window, sunlight streaming down on his face, highlighting a stark contrast between the shadows. The edges of his blonde hair are lit up like a halo, and for a moment, Baekhyun thinks this is what angels are supposed to look like, bright and warm, too beautiful to exist on earth. But this isn’t what catches his attention—what makes Baekhyun freeze in place is the song being sung.

He’s singing that song. The one that reminds Baekhyun of sitting shotgun next to Chanyeol, singing at the top of their lungs and laughing into the wind flying past their hair, when Chanyeol almost crashes into the side of the road because they’re giggling too hard and Baekhyun ends up shrieking like a teenage girl, clinging onto Chanyeol’s arm and squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

The music stops and Baekhyun blinks in surprise, only to find that the singer is staring back at him, a faint smile on his lips as he sets the guitar aside and nods to him. “I’m glad you seem better,” he says gently, and Baekhyun starts, because the voice sounds so familiar but he can’t remember why.

“Do I know you?” he asks instead, because he’s sure he has never seen the singer before, yet there’s something about his voice that stirs up a memory he can’t quite grasp.

“I’m Luhan,” the other replies, standing up and walking up to Baekhyun, holding his hand out. Baekhyun takes his hand, but it’s hard to breathe all of a sudden, when Luhan smiles at him and continues, “I guess you do know me. May I buy you a cup of coffee?”

It’s like he’s one step closer to Chanyeol in a way, and Baekhyun doesn’t even know why.

“What’s it like to be happy?”

The night was quiet when they lay down next to each other on the grass, gazing up at the stars in the heavens above. Baekhyun traced the constellations with his fingers and watched as they glittered in the darkness, illuminated by the moon. “You seem happy all the time.”

“But there’s a difference between being happy and being happy,” Chanyeol insisted, resting his head on his arms and sighing as he turned to face Baekhyun. “You can be happy, but you can’t be truly happy unless you never feel that weight on your shoulders that’s pressing in on you and choking you so you can’t breathe no matter how hard you try.”

“I don’t know. It’s not something you can explain.” Baekhyun frowned and shook his head slightly. “Let’s not talk about this right now, please. Just be happy for me, okay?”

“I’m happiest whenever I’m with you.”

“Mhm.” They watched the stars in a comfortable silence, listening to the crickets chirp softly and the night birds croon into the inky blackness of the sky.

“Baekhyun-ah.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t ever let go.”

The saddest people, Baekhyun remembered as Chanyeol reached for his hand, smile the brightest.

Luhan orders two cups of coffee and doesn’t say anything other than a comment on Baekhyun’s name when he introduces himself until the waitress places the drinks in front of them. Baekhyun stares down at his cup, swirling the bitter drink absentmindedly, not sure where to begin as Luhan fumbles awkwardly with his hands as he reaches for his coffee.

“Sorry,” Luhan apologizes sheepishly when Baekhyun looks up curiously, wondering why the other would have trouble reaching for his cup. “They say something about the color coffee black, right?”

“I’m not sure. I guess.” Not exactly a question someone asks on a first meeting, but Baekhyun has heard worse.

Luhan shrugs and takes out a pair of sunglasses, and Baekhyun thinks there’s something not quite right, because after Luhan puts on the sunglasses, he has no difficulty with finding the coffee cup. People aren’t supposed to see better with sunglasses on inside, when it’s not bright enough to block vision. “I was there the other day. When you got the phone call. There was someone there to tell you the news but I was there at the time and they asked me if I could help.”

“Oh. I don’t really remember anything,” Baekhyun mumbles, which is true, because he vaguely remembers waking up in an unfamiliar bed and walking home, too numb to notice anything. “I remember your voice though. Thanks, I guess. For helping.”

“It’s what anyone should have done,” Luhan replies quietly, but Baekhyun doesn’t continue speaking, because he remembers hands tucking him into bed and gently his hair, and he’s not exactly sure what he should make of that. “I was just there at the time.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, drinking their coffees, before Baekhyun ventures a hesitant, “You sing very well. Your voice is beautiful.”

“There’s some truth to the saying that lacking a sense will heighten your other senses,” Luhan replies. He still hasn’t taken off his sunglasses, so Baekhyun can’t tell what his expression is, or his reaction. “Singing keeps my head out of the clouds, you could say.” He smiles wryly and it looks so distant that Baekhyun wonders if Luhan is actually listening to him. “Do you sing?”

The question takes Baekhyun by surprise. “I suppose. It’s not as nice as your singing, though.”

“Don’t be modest.” Luhan finishes his coffee and stands up, taking off his sunglasses and nodding apologetically to Baekhyun. “Sorry, I have an appointment. But come talk to me more, will you? Maybe we can sing together or something. I’d like that.”

There’s a breeze at the door, carrying the scent of warm coffee and vanilla, causing Baekhyun to blink as the wind caresses his hair and Luhan’s eyes shine at him. When he opens his eyes again, the singer is gone, leaving no trace of himself except for a note tucked into Baekhyun’s palms, one with a phone number sketched out in bold blue marker.

“Hi again.”

Luhan nods to him from his seat as he continues singing, so Baekhyun stops talking and steps back to enjoy the music. He almost turns around to ask Chanyeol what he thinks of Luhan’s songs, but with a start, he realizes Chanyeol isn’t standing beside him. Chanyeol still hasn’t appeared, but Baekhyun still expects him to pop up behind him at any moment and shout Surprise! as if everything had been a joke and Chanyeol is just hiding somewhere, waiting for the right moment to make the world spin again.

The song ends and Luhan walks up to Baekhyun, and there’s a moment of déjà vu passing through, when Luhan smiles and asks, “Are you up for more coffee?”

Baekhyun smiles up at him, and the world seems a little brighter all of a sudden. “Yeah. I am.”

This is déjà vu day after day, when Baekhyun starts understanding a little more of someone who isn’t Chanyeol.

He finds the puzzle box still sitting on his desk, unopened weeks after Chanyeol gave it to him. After a moment of hesitation, Baekhyun reaches across and takes it into his hands, running his fingers over the cover and staring down at the colorful illustration. It’s a puzzle of a mirror, five thousand pieces. Chanyeol knows Baekhyun all too well—it’s perfect to distract Baekhyun and have him struggle over it when his mind is cluttered with too many thoughts.

Like now. Had Chanyeol known Baekhyun would need to be distracted? The I’m sorry is still burned into Baekhyun’s mind, the note stained with tears is something he doesn’t think he’ll forget for a long time.

He opens the puzzle box carefully, lifting the lid off gently, because he has to keep it intact for Chanyeol to see when he comes back. There’s a slip of paper covering the puzzle pieces, a list scrawled in Chanyeol’s familiar messy handwriting, ink smudges blurring the Happy Birthday, Baekhyun-ah! written at the top. Underneath the note and resting on the puzzle pieces is a small, framed picture of Chanyeol smiling up at him, eyes aglow with mirth, hair messed up, mouth wide open in a joyful grin forever captured in time by the camera.

Baekhyun feels his own lips turn slightly upwards as he takes the photo out and sets it on his desk, staring back at Chanyeol. “Are you coming back soon?” he asks out loud, setting the puzzle box aside to read the note. “I miss you, you know. Stop hiding and come back already, you idiot.”

The photo doesn’t respond.

The next line of the note reads Why I love you, and Baekhyun pauses for a moment, the world freezing in place as he rereads the line again and again. Why I love you.

“Chanyeol…” He doesn’t know what to think anymore, because why I love you doesn’t fit with Baekhyun throwing Chanyeol’s ashes into the wind and watching them scatter and disappear in thin air.

I love it when you smile and your eyes crinkle at the corners, is the line after that, and something is blocking Baekhyun’s throat, clogging up his breaths. I love your laugh and your expressions whenever you’re sleepy and tired and all you want to do is bury your face into my shoulder and mumble my name over and over again.

This puzzle is for you, Baekhyun-ah. It’s a mirror, broken into pieces when not assembled, but when you put it together, the puzzle isn’t broken anymore, and you can see your reflection again. Maybe you’ll understand one day of exactly how much I love you, because I can’t explain it in words.

This is my goodbye. I love you. Never forget that.

Baekhyun thinks he might be a broken puzzle, scattered pieces forced against each other, trying to fit together perfectly even though the edges are rough and crooked. He places the note in the drawer where he keeps his sheet music and buries his face into his hands, trembling. This is my goodbye. I love you. Never forget that.

Chanyeol is dead, he tells himself, and a tear finally makes its way down his cheek, long overdue. Chanyeol is dead and I’ll never see him again. Chanyeol told me goodbye.

Chanyeol is gone.

He presses the numbers out quickly, clumsily, fumbling with his fingers in his haste. The rings last for too long, and he almost hangs up when no one responds for several seconds. Then, a light, almost breathy voice sounds in his ear—“Hello?”

“Luhan,” Baekhyun whispers, “it’s me.”

“Baekhyun. Is there anything wrong?”

“Can we meet tomorrow? Are you free?” The cell phone is too heavy in his hands all of a sudden, weighing down his resolve.

“Yeah. Why?”

His words come out barely audible, even to himself. “I want to sing with you.”

Chanyeol caught his wrist as Baekhyun walked by, spinning him around, asking excitedly, “How did it go? Did you pass?”

Baekhyun let his expression fall for a split second, just long enough for Chanyeol’s smile to drop a fraction of a centimeter, before grinning broadly and nodding, unable to keep himself from laughing any longer. “Easily! Full score!”

“I knew it!” Chanyeol pumped a fist into the air then turned back to Baekhyun, kissing him soundly on the lips before drawing away, still grinning happily. “I knew you could do it! What did you sing?”

“Our song,” Baekhyun said, “I sang our song.”

The smile on Chanyeol’s face was worth all the hours spent practicing and the pain in his throat that seemed to never go away.

Luhan arrives at Baekhyun's apartment with a guitar case strapped to his back, sunglasses on and hair covered under a baseball cap. He looks like an idol, Baekhyun decides in amusement as Luhan walks up to the couch and sets the guitar down on it, seemingly scanning his living room in quiet appreciation.

“Where do you want to practice?”

Baekhyun shows Luhan up to his room, where the photo of Chanyeol is safely stored away in a drawer and the puzzle box hidden from sight. Luhan sits on his bed and takes out the guitar, his sunglasses finally tucked in the collar of his shirt as he looks at Baekhyun with clear, bright eyes and tilts his head. “What do you want to sing? We could actually have duets and perform them together at the coffee shop. I get paid for doing that, actually.”  

“That would be nice,” Baekhyun says quietly, looking down at his hands. “I don’t know. What songs do you like to sing?”

“Do you have any sheet music?”

“Yeah.” Baekhyun nods towards a set of drawers by his bed, easily within Luhan’s reach. “It’s in the red drawer.”

There’s a moment of silence as Luhan doesn’t get up from his sitting position and stares down at the strings of his guitar instead. “Um,” he finally mumbles, “which one is the red drawer?”

“The one on the right,” Baekhyun replies, but there’s definitely something strange going on now. He waits until Luhan finds the pile of sheet music and sits back down on the bed before giving the other boy a questioning look. Luhan laughs softly, sounding slightly embarrassed as he picks absentmindedly at his guitar, playing odd little melodies with his fingers.

“I guess I owe you an explanation.” Luhan closes his eyes and hums a bit to his guitar strums before continuing. “I’m colorblind. Achromatopsia. All I see is white, shades of gray, and black. It’s hard to see in bright light, because everything gets blurry and undefined, so that’s why I wear sunglasses a lot.”

“Oh.” And everything suddenly makes a lot more sense to Baekhyun—Luhan’s hesitation, the fact that he never talks about the color of anything, the sunglasses, the avoidance of bright light. “I see.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you earlier,” Luhan says, opening his eyes again and glancing at Baekhyun before sorting through the sheet music in his hands, flipping through the titles rapidly as he talks. “I guess I was afraid you’d reject me or something. Or think me as someone who needs constant care and pity. Are you angry?”

“No,” Baekhyun replies honestly, blinking in surprise at the question. “I’m just startled. I didn’t think of that.”

“Not many people do,” Luhan admits in amusement, taking out a sheet of paper. “Hey—what’s this?”

Baekhyun reacts too late, reaching his hand out to snatch the note away a few seconds after Luhan manages to read the first line of the back. “Don’t read that!”

“Sorry.” Luhan lets go of the paper and Baekhyun gingerly takes it from him, staring at the single line he had missed when reading it before.

By the time you read this, I’ll be long gone.

“Chanyeol died in a car accident,” Baekhyun says thickly, staring at the note in his hands. His fingers are trembling and he doesn’t know why. “They told me he died in a car accident. I don’t understand why it feels like he planned everything, that he died on purpose.”

“Chanyeol?”

“The person I was told about when we first met,” Baekhyun mumbles, tracing the characters over and over again, staring at them as if his gaze will go back in time and erase them. “The one who died.”

“What was he to you?” Luhan asks, and Baekhyun has this strange feeling, as if something’s half stuck in his throat, choking him with unshed tears.

“Color,” he says, and almost regrets saying it, because the look on Luhan’s face plainly tells him that he’s gone too far—not now, not when he’s just learned of Luhan’s condition. Not now, not ever. But Luhan doesn’t say anything else about it, just nods silently and slips off of the bed, taking his guitar with him.

“I’ll talk to you when you’re feeling better,” he murmurs softly, but almost instinctively, Baekhyun reaches forwards and grabs Luhan’s wrist, pulling him back towards the bed.

“Don’t go,” he pleads, closing his eyes and letting his hands guide him to Luhan’s face, “Don’t go.”

Don’t go, Chanyeol called out when Baekhyun shifted away, getting ready to leave. “Just stay by my side for tonight, Baekhyun-ah. Okay?”

Baekhyun settled down next to Chanyeol and sighed, smiling slightly at the taller boy. “Why so desperate?” He said it lightly, as a joke, but Chanyeol merely kissed the tip of Baekhyun’s knuckles and maybe Baekhyun was imagining it, but a single tear slid down his face and landed on Baekhyun’s fingers.

“I don’t want you to leave me,” Chanyeol whispered, “because I’m afraid. So don’t go.”

Luhan is gossamer threads fading in the air, fragile shards of porcelain, slipping through Baekhyun’s fingers when he tries to understand the map of his mouth, and Baekhyun understands maybe this is how Luhan sees in bright light, when everything is a blurry and undefined, and nothing matters except the sensation of Luhan kissing him back between murmurs of are you sure?

He’s not sure. He has no idea what he’s doing, but Luhan is pliant under his touch, warm and comforting, and Baekhyun doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want to stop kissing and exploring their bodies, but at the same time, he’s crying, shaking with sobs that wrack his frame. Luhan whispers into his ear, his hair, telling him that it’s going to be all right, it’s going to be okay, and Baekhyun lets himself cry, shuddering in Luhan’s arms, desperately seeking stability in Luhan’s kisses and touches.

“I don’t understand,” he finally mumbles, “I don’t understand why Chanyeol would do this.”

“You can plan out deaths with car accidents,” Luhan says softly, playing with the fringe of Baekhyun’s bangs. “Find some unsuspecting driver. Or maybe he was going to do it, but the car accident ended his life even before that.”

“But why?”

“We can’t understand everything in this world, Baekhyun-ah. Maybe he was too sad. Maybe he had no will to live left in him.”

“I could have stopped him. I could have been there for him. I never understood how he was truly feeling.”

“Hush,” Luhan croons when Baekhyun starts crying again, “Don’t cry.” He hums softly, a soothing tune that washes over Baekhyun and calms him down slightly, and suddenly, Baekhyun feels tired, weary to his bones.

“Luhan,” he asks, half drifting off, eyes closed as he begins to fall asleep, cradled in Luhan’s arms, enveloped in Luhan’s voice. “What’s it like to see the entire world in monochrome?”

He loses consciousness before he hears Luhan’s reply.

Luhan writes duets for them, silvery symphonies of voices, accompanied by the simple harmonies of his guitar. “This is yin yue,” he points out when Baekhyun stops in awe after they sing, listening to the echoes of their voices lingering in the space of his room. “Chinese for music.”

“You’re Chinese?” Baekhyun turns to him in surprise, scrutinizing the flawless features of the blonde-haired boy’s face. “I didn’t know that.”

“There are a lot of things you didn’t know.”

“You never tell me anything!” Baekhyun complains, but when Luhan stares at him with such a contemplative expression that Baekhyun looks back at the elder, all traces of laughter gone from his expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Is this okay?” Luhan leans forward and gently presses a small kiss to the side of Baekhyun’s mouth, eyes open as he watches Baekhyun for a reaction. Baekhyun nods and settles back against Luhan’s shoulder, clasping their hands together, threading their fingers in between spaces. Luhan’s hand is warm and comforting in his, soft and delicate.

“It’s okay.”

“What about…what about Chanyeol?”

Baekhyun tilts his head back and closes his eyes, feeling Luhan’s hair sweep over his forehead and tickle his skin. “It’s like I’ve been taken apart, but you’ve taped me back together,” he says quietly. But something is missing, or rather, the lack of something is missing.

Luhan kisses him again, running his fingers through Baekhyun’s hair, murmuring I really like you, and Baekhyun lets himself be carried away, bruises vanishing with every burning touch of Luhan’s lips.

“What if I died and you had to move on?”

Baekhyun stared in shock and frowned at Chanyeol. “What’s wrong? You shouldn’t be asking these things.”

“Nothing. I was just wondering.” Chanyeol laughed lightly and took Baekhyun’s hand, staring down at his fingers, but the troubled expression in his eyes did not vanish. “The only way I would ever leave you is by death, you know. So I wondered what you would do after I was gone.”

“Never get over you, of course,” Baekhyun huffed, glaring at Chanyeol. “Seriously, why are you talking about dying so much these days? It’s frightening me.”

“I think you should move on.”

“What would you do if I died first?”

“But what if you don’t?”

“Chanyeol—”

“That’s not the question I’m asking you.” Chanyeol shrugged and smiled sadly at Baekhyun. The air suddenly felt tense, cold and unknown. “You should move on. Pining after me for the rest of your life—I’m not worth that. Go find someone else. As soon as possible, so you won’t be hurt for too long. I don’t want you to be hurt.”

Baekhyun snorted in disbelief, taking his hand out of Chanyeol’s grasp. “Easier said than done.”

“Why?”

“You idiot.” And maybe Baekhyun felt like crying, when his eyes stung and vision blurred, tears threatening to fall out. “Even if I found someone else, I would never love him as much as I love you.”

“I want to know what color is,” Luhan mumbles against Baekhyun’s neck, late at night, when they’re tangled together, breaths soft and quiet in the calm. “What is it like, seeing the world in color?”

“Red,” Baekhyun whispers back, not sure where to begin. “Red is when you’re angry, and something’s burning at the base of your throat, choking you until you can’t think properly, but it’s also when you’re in love, desiring something so much you can’t breathe. Blue is when you feel the breeze on a sunny day and there are no clouds in the sky, and you feel calm and at peace, but it’s also the faded whispers of being alone, crying silently for help. Green is the fresh scent of grass being cut in the spring—” Something wet lands on Baekhyun’s neck and he realizes that Luhan is crying, murmuring in Chinese to himself, repeating the same phrase over and over again.

Baekhyun will never remember that one night when he’s curled up with Luhan and Luhan ventures a tiny, quiet I love you, but Baekhyun merely snuggles up to Luhan’s chest, half-asleep and confused, whispering “I love you, Chanyeol.”

Luhan never mentions it again, and Baekhyun never remembers.

It’s almost imperceptible at first, but Baekhyun realizes Luhan is slowly starting to distance himself, brushing cold butterfly kisses at the corners of Baekhyun’s eyes but not saying much, gazing blankly as if he’s lost in a different world. When Baekhyun asks if there’s something wrong, Luhan shrugs and doesn’t say anything, drifting off in his thoughts like dandelion dust blown away into eternity.

“Two weeks left,” Luhan announces suddenly one day, when they’re practicing yet another duet, voices rising into the ceiling and chiming in harmony.

“Two weeks left of what?” Baekhyun asks curiously, adjusting his sheet music and making several quick little marks on the key. “Any important events coming up?”

Luhan smiles faintly and tunes a string on his guitar, tapping his foot slightly against the floor in rhythm. “I’m leaving for China.”

“China?” Baekhyun blinks in surprise and frowns. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Baekhyun-ah…can I ask you something?”

“What is it?” He’s hurt, because it’s like Luhan isn’t trusting him. Luhan doesn’t tell him anything, and now…Luhan’s leaving.

“Can we break up? If we were together in the first place, anyways.”

Silence. Baekhyun struggles to find the words sitting on his tongue but Luhan shushes him with a gentle finger on his lips. “Let me explain. I know it’s abrupt. But just hear me out first, please.”

“Go on,” Baekhyun finally chokes out, too much in shock to say anything else. The sheet music drops from his hands and collapses on the floor, paper flying everywhere.

“I’m glad I met you, I really am,” Luhan begins, staring down at his guitar, “but sometimes, no—a lot of the time, when I’m with you, it’s like I’m a shadow. I want to go home, Baekhyun-ah. I want to go home, back to China, and maybe I’ll breathe freely for a bit and think about us.”

“You’re not a shadow,” Baekhyun protests, shaking his head vigorously. “How are you a shadow?”

Luhan smiles faintly, eyes bright, lips slightly parted. “I’m the ashes in the wind,” he says quietly, and Baekhyun thinks of Chanyeol’s ashes scattered into the wind, gone forever. “You told me Chanyeol is color to you, and I know what you meant by that. Color is something I’ll never have. I’ll never replace Chanyeol for you, so unless you truly want me here, then there’s no reason for me to stay, no matter how much you’ll ever love me. I’m sorry, Baekhyun-ah.”

And Baekhyun lets Luhan go without a fight, because he realizes it’s true.

A month passes and Baekhyun wakes up every morning to find the spot in the bed next to him empty, and it’s too cold to sleep alone, when there’s no one beside him to wish him a good morning, no one beside him to kiss his forehead and hum mindless, soothing tunes.

He misses Luhan.

It’s not letting Chanyeol go, or forgetting about him. It’s more that he needs Luhan by his side to heal the gaping wound in his heart, to piece him back together with tape, reshaping his puzzle pieces so that they fall into place without being forced together.

Maybe they don’t have to be lovers, but Baekhyun needs Luhan beside him, needs Luhan to talk to him with his cheerful smile, and maybe he’ll be able to tell Luhan what color is one day.

He grabs his cell phone and dials the phone number without any hesitation. It’s been a long while since he last saw it, but Baekhyun has it memorized firmly in his mind, along with the bold blue marker it was scrawled in.

“Hello?”

“Luhan.”

There’s a pause on the other side of the line and for a moment, Baekhyun’s afraid Luhan is going to just hang up, but then Luhan’s voice asks, “What’s up?”

“How are you?”

“Okay, I guess.” Luhan’s voice sounds so far away, across time zones miles of sea away. “How are you?”

“I miss you,” Baekhyun whispers quietly, clinging onto his cell phone as if it’ll disappear into smoke at any moment, and Luhan chuckles softly into his ear.

“Yeah. I miss you too. You didn’t call.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to call.”

Another pause, in which Luhan goes silent and Baekhyun tries not to breathe too loudly into the phone because he’s trembling too hard, too scared of what Luhan might say.

“I thought about us.”

“Yeah?” He’s definitely shaking now, knees weak as he tries to stand still, grasping at the edge of his table.

“I want to come back to Seoul.”

“Really.”

“And about us…I thought about it for a long time, and I decided maybe…maybe we can start slow. I guess we went too fast. But even if I’m not coming back for us to be together, we’ll still be friends. I hope that’s all right with you.”

He relaxes a little, sitting down on his bed and almost sobbing in relief. Friends is better than nothing. Friends is okay. They can take it slowly. He can heal in time with friends. “It’s all right. I’d like that. Thank you, Luhan-ah.”

“What do you want me to do now?”

“I don’t know.”

Baekhyun can almost hear the smirk spreading across Luhan’s face, the familiar shine in his eyes, the one so alive that it becomes impossible to tell that his vision isn’t quite right. “I know what I want you to do, though.”

“Yeah?”

“My plane lands in Seoul in two days. Incheon, gate twenty-four. Will you be there to pick me up? Since I need someone to guide me and all that. I’m an invalid, remember? Colorblindness and all that.” There’s laughter in Luhan’s voice, but there’s also apprehension, so slight that Baekhyun almost misses it, but he understands what Luhan’s asking, if they’ll ever make it work between the two of them again.

He stares at the photo of Chanyeol across his room, sitting on his desk, and Chanyeol’s face stares back. His expression in the picture is still the same, as it will always be, frozen in time, a memory for Baekhyun to love, but Chanyeol’s gone and he’ll meet him again someday. Just not today. “I’ll be there.”

“Really?” Luhan sighs softly in relief, and Baekhyun thinks he’s made the right decision. Chanyeol may have been the only one for him, but Luhan is the tape that holds Baekhyun’s broken puzzle pieces together. Maybe Luhan forgot to take Chanyeol out when he reassembled the stars in the sky, but Baekhyun prefers it this way.

“Really. I promise.”

“Three in the afternoon, then. I’ll see you there. Don’t be late!”

There’s a sharp click and Luhan’s voice fades away. Baekhyun hangs up the phone, smiles to himself, and waits. 

wow i am very done with myself sobs thanks to helena and angela for betaing and reading over this!! betas are the world's most beautiful people t b h because they catch all your stupid writing mistakes cries lifesavers ;;

anywho yeah so this is almost 6k of craptastic baekyeol/baekhan and i really want my sleep back because no sleep because trying to write fic along with homework and tests ugh

too lazy to find a postermaker for this sigh

okay if you have made through this entire fic without facepalming/headdesking/headflooring/facewallingidek then i will love you forever kthxbai