EP 1: Chanyeol thought his name kinda looked nice beside Baekhyun's.


They called it the Tree House War.

It was the summer of 2002 and after watching an episode of Kids Next Door together, ten-year old Chanyeol decided he wanted a tree house for himself so of course just-turned-eleven-year old Baekhyun wanted one, too. Never mind that they didn't have trees on their backyard or on their front yard either. They each wanted one and that was that.
It started peacefully enough. After nagging their fathers endlessly for two days, Mr. Park took them to the neighborhood junkyard to get the materials they needed for their tree houses. Chanyeol and Baekhyun got all sorts of wicked stuff--big cardboard boxes, planks of wood and old tires--and they couldn't wait to set them up. It was a sunny Saturday morning when Chanyeol bounded down the stairs with his glasses askew, excited to start on his tree house, getting up extra early because he wanted to finish first (for what is being best friends without rivalry) than Baekhyun. He even peeked at the window of Baekhyun's room just to make sure that the other was still asleep.
He quickly drank his milk, snatched bread from the dining table and got scolded by his grandma for not eating breakfast properly as he ran outside to their backyard. He was starting to rummage through his father's small tool shed when he heard banging on the other side of the white picket fence separating his and Baekhyun's house. He walked towards the part of the fence where three pickets were missing (a convenient passage to each other's backyards) and stuck his head through. His jaw dropped promptly as he saw Baekhyun with a hammer in his hand, already hard at work on his own tree house. The older boy had the foundations up and was piecing together what looked like a wall.
"What time did you wake up?" Chanyeol asked dumbfounded, his voice barely heard over Baekhyun's pounding on the wooden boards.
The sweaty boy paused, wiped an arm over his brows and looked up at Chanyeol. "I've been awake since five, dummy,” he said before going back to his hammering.
Chanyeol's brows knitted. So much for waking up early. He went to the pile of junk sitting at the end of their yard. It was considerably smaller since Baekhyun already used some. He took out the paper he spent all night drawing the treehouse plan on. There was this piece of wood he picked up yesterday that would go nicely in the front. He folded the drawing again and went to search for it through the pile. Where was it? It was one of his best finds. It was a medium-sized square much like what Baekhyun was hammering on... wait. He trudged back to the fence and stuck his head out again. "Ya, Byun Baekhyun!"
"What?" The boy didn't look up this time and just kept on hammering away.
"That's my board!" he shouted over the noise.
He didn't think the shorter boy would answer but then he heard him say, "Says who?"
"I was the one who found that yesterday."
Baekhyun finally paused to look at him. "Does it have your name on it?"
"No." He answered and he got a feeling where this argument was going to.
"Well, then." The shorter boy said and turned his back on him as if in dismissal.
Chanyeol stomped his foot. "Ya, Baekhyun!"
"Chanyeol, go away. I'm busy making my house."
"But that's my board, you thief!" Chanyeol watched as Baekhyun faced him and placed his hands on his waist, a stance he knew so well.
"That's not how you talk to your elders."
"What elder? You're just older by six months. You're not even my hyung!"
"I don't care, Chanyeol." And then he proceeded to get the board--Chanyeol's board--so he could attach it to his house. The taller boy stomped his foot again and yelled his best friend's name some more to no avail except to hear his grandmother scold at him from inside the house. Tired and chastised, he ended it all with a threat. "I'm never gonna let you enter my tree house. Never."
The shorter boy just raised his eyebrow at him. "I have my own, Chanyeol."
"Yeah? But mine will be the greatest of all time!" he boasted before he went back to building his house.
By the end of the day, Chanyeol had one wall up and what promised to be a disaster of a tree house while Baekhyun's looked cool and nearly done. Maybe spying on his friend's progress half of the time didn't help at all but Chanyeol (being Chanyeol) thought it was the stolen board that made the difference. So he had to get it back. The greatest tree house of all time depended on it.
It was around 9pm when the light in Baekhyun's room was finally turned off. Chanyeol waited some more to make sure that his friend was already asleep before sneaking down to the backyard and executing his brilliant plan of getting the board back. He didn't count on it being cold outside. He didn't count that walking barefooted across the prickly grass made him itchy. He didn't count on the board being already nailed on to the house. He didn't count on a lot of things (he said the plan was brilliant not well thought out) but he was determined to get the board back so after almost an hour of prying and praying, the piece of wood loosened and gave. Chanyeol, for all his baby fat, was able to return to his room without a hitch. He set his pikachu alarm clock at a quarter to 5am and slept peacefully with the knowledge that he would be able to build the greatest tree house of all time with the board safely back on his turf.




"Ya, Park Chanyeol!" Chanyeol ignored the sight of his friend's head through the picket fence and pretended not to hear him angrily calling out his name. "Ya!" He continued working on the wall of his tree house and hummed to himself. He felt Baekhyun walk towards him before he got his big ear pulled at painfully. "You thief! Give me that back!"
"Ouch!" Chanyeol stood up to frown at Baekhyun. "This is my board. I have my name on it." He pointed smugly at the haphazardly painted name on the border of the wood.
Baekhyun shot him a murderous glare before harrumphing back to his yard. Chanyeol really thought he won but then he woke up the next day to find the roof of his house gone.
And so the war began.
Baekhyun lost a door then Chanyeol lost his side windows. Baekhyun's back wall went missing as well as Chanyeol's cardboard flooring. The three or so days it should have taken to finish their not-so treehouses became a week and then two. Their fathers gave up on them. Their mothers gave up on them. Even Chanyeol's pet dog Spud gave up on them. The war could have actually raged on for the whole of summer but then Chanyeol made Baekhyun cry.




It happened when there was nothing else left to take from Baekhyun's house since the remaining parts were nailed and super glued on but Chanyeol just lost the bicycle tire he wanted to use as decoration. His eyes fell on the cute bunny paintings on Baekhyun's roof and on the brush and paint sitting closely by. Well, hello there.
He hid by the fence the next morning, waiting for when Baekhyun would come out to the yard and see Chanyeol's modifications. He heard his friend's footsteps getting closer but when he was sure he should have heard a Ya, Park Chanyeol at that moment, there was none. He peered through the fence break but all he saw was Baekhyun's back while the shorter boy stood in front of his tree house. Curious, Chanyeol crossed to his best friend's backyard and poked him at the back.
"Baekhyun-ah?" Baekhyun cast a quick glance at him before turning away again but not before he saw the boy's cheeks stained with tears. "Baekhyun--" He started to speak but his friend ran inside his house and Chanyeol was left with the mutant bunnies, their red eyes and sharp teeth staring at him accusingly.
He didn't see Baekhyun all day and Chanyeol didn't have the enthusiasm to finish his house even though he did get the tire back (it was on Baekhyun's pile). It was entirely too quiet without the sound of Baekhyun hammering away over the other side of the fence and everything didn't feel right. It was nearing bedtime when it finally hit Chanyeol what he had to do.




He was exhausted and he could barely keep his eyes open because he had been up all night. The sun had started to rise. He plopped down on grass and sighed. It was finally done: the greatest tree house of all time. His mom would probably scold him for getting grass stains on his pajamas but it was worth it. His vision of the sky was suddenly blocked by a small face peering at him.
"What are you doing on our lawn?" Baekhyun asked.
Chanyeol quickly jumped to his feet. "I-I was just--" he started to explain but Baekhyun's attention wasn't on him. The smaller boy's eyes widened as he saw the finished tree house. It was bigger than his original one. The roof was painted red and the walls were blue. There were no bunnies but there was a small bicycle tire with pinwheels made of colored paper hanging from it (Chanyeol's sister made them the other day). On the door was nailed a sign with the words Baekhyun's Tree House (Do Not Enter XXX).
Chanyeol fidgeted while he waited anxiously for his friend's reaction.
"It looks like a dog house. A big dog house." His shoulders fell as he watched Baekhyun go around it, inspecting the house here and there. The boy touched the board, yes the board, and Chanyeol winced as he noticed he hasn't completely erased his name from it when he attached it on Baekhyun's house.
"I'm sorry, Baek." He said quietly before he turned around to go home.
"Where are you going?" he heard Baekhyun say. "This isn't finished yet."
He looked back in confusion. He was pretty sure it was done. He even took down his own house just to make sure Baekhyun's was complete. "You missed a spot." He saw Baekhyun take the paintbrush and painted something on the door. After a few , he motioned for Chanyeol to come closer. "There. Done."
The taller kid broke into a smile as he peered over Baekhyun's shoulder. His name was a little crooked, written in a smaller font, but the sign now read: Chanyeol & Baekhyun's Tree House (Do Not Enter XXX).