"Chanyeol-ah..." she whispers close to his ear while staring at the train they just departed from. "Was that... him?" No response. He couldn't even look anywhere else. All he could focus was on the train that disappeared into the tunnel. She tugged on his arm slightly while looking at the back of his head with a pleading stare. 

"Do you want to go after him?" she asked, voice cracking. Still, Chanyeol didn't let a word come out of his mouth. "Chanyeol, please tell me." She slowly dropped her head as she realized his answer. Her grasp let go of his arm and let it swing back to his side. 

"If you're not going to answer," she started while fiddling with her fingers, "then go run." Chanyeol finally whipped his head back to look at her. He found her face looking down, as if she was hiding something. Chanyeol did have the feeling she was falling for him, but that wasn't the original plan.

__________

 "Forget him."

Chanyeol stares at Kris, his best friend who he's known since elementary, completely flabbergasted. 

"You need to forget him, Chanyeol."

Chanyeol had only woken up an hour ago without anyone watching him. He was certainly confused about waking up in a hospital bed around 2 in the morning. He looked around the room that seemed to only have light coming through the glass window of the door. When he sat up from the bed due to shock, a loud alarm went on. Nurses came in rushing with expressions that seemed unclear to Chanyeol since his eyes were still adjusting to the light that poured into the room once they entered. 

"Dr. Jung, he's awake," shouted one of the nurses through a telephone attached to the wall. Within a second, an old male doctor burst into the room with a joyful smile and hesitated before he walked up to him and bowed slightly.

"Welcome back, Park Chanyeol."

"Kris, what the hell are you talking about?" Chanyeol asked entirely confused. Kris scratched the nape of his neck as he sat down at the end of Chanyeol's bed. They had returned back to his house once all the release papers had been signed and approved, and once they got there, he asked where Baekhyun was thinking he'd be asleep in their bed. 

"Chanyeol, you've been asleep for two whole years, and throughout those years, each and every single day he'd come in and visit you. Yes, that is very sweet of him, but every single day, Chanyeol."

Kris looked at Chanyeol right in the eye, not looking for a sign of sympathy. Chanyeol could only feel the love coming from Kris– love from Baekhyun. He didn't feel anything else but the feeling of being cared for. 

"Everyday? He... He didn't leave me then?" Chanyeol wondered with a bit of hope. The first thing that appeared in Chanyeol's mind was the question: did he leave? Chanyeol was of course shocked that he had been in under a coma for 2 years, but was Baekhyun still there?

Kris arched his eyebrows in amusement. To him, Chanyeol didn't get the hint of what he was trying to point out. 

"But isn't that unfair to you? Baekhyun wasting two years of his life... Inside of a hospital room waiting for someone who might've never woken up?" Kris asked as he shook his head wondering if reality wasn't clear enough for him yet. But the only thing Chanyeol could understand was that the reason why Baekhyun wasn't here by his side... Was because of him. 

Chanyeol rose from his bed and loomed over Kris's body with the most provoked glare he had ever witnessed. 

"Wu Yifan, what have you done," he commanded, not even bothering to add a hint of question at the end because 'reality' was crystal clear as it could get. Kris finally gave in to Chanyeol's glare and turned his face away. 

"I told him to move on," he replied dryly. Chanyeol's fingers started to tremble and closed in to tight fists that his knuckles turned white as the bones became visible. 

"What do you mean 'move on'?Move on from what?!" Chanyeol barked as he raised his fists. He already knew what 'moving on' meant for Baekhyun, but he couldn't process it. He was denying that Baekhyun was gone. Gone away from him. 

The room was silent and nobody moved. The only sounds you could hear were the faint pants of Chanyeol's breath. Kris gripped onto the bed sheets as he stood up and walked towards the door, wanting to leave from the erupt tension. 

Chanyeol spun around and followed him ready to beat the crap out of him. 

"ANSWER ME, YOU BASTARD!" he roared so loud that Kris twitched, obviously scared of the man. But still, he didn't dare look at the furious Chanyeol. So Chanyeol gripped his shoulder and pushed him against the door as he held him tight onto the collar of his shirt and his jaw tight and made him face him. 

"I don't think I did anything wrong. Baekhyun was your everything. I didn't want to see him rot inside of that tiny room. You wouldn't either, now would you? Wouldn't you rather have him enjoy his life?!" Kris yelled back, but it didn't scare Chanyeol. "So I told him to leave! Look, I'm not trying to be the bad guy–"

Chanyeol punched Kris square in the jaw which sent him flying to the floor. He had enough of this. He looked at Kris while he breathed hard, finally releasing his anger. Still he didn't know if that was enough. He didn't know if punching him was going to help anything. And then Chanyeol realized how big he messed up. He realized what Kris meant: Baekhyun was growing alone in this world, relying on another person who was considered dead already. His eyes enlarged, feeling immensely guilty of his stupid act. He crouched down to Kris and looked for his eyes, but Kris kept them covered under his bangs as he looked down. 

"Kris," he whispered while laying his hand on his shoulder. But he whipped it away and stood up. 

"Chanyeol, I think we need to end it here," he muttered under his breathe and walked out of the room. Chanyeol didn't even have to ask what he meant. But, his heart felt unstable and he clenched his chest. 

He had lost his best friend. 

One week has passed and Chanyeol was still adjusting to the time, and his life without Kris and Baekhyun. He hasn't gone back to work so there's no way Kris would ever interact with him besides there. For someone as lazy as Chanyeol, people would think he's at home resting, taking a break from the world, but that was the total opposite of what he was doing. Chanyeol was trying to get in touch with Baekhyun. Over the past nights, he had been crying himself to sleep, thinking if Baekhyun had really left. He got in contact with his university, but they don't know where he's at. He just packed up and left without another word. They tell him that the last time they've seen him was 5 months ago. 5 months? Has it been that long already? Questions flooded his mind. Did Baekhyun start anew somewhere else? Did he get a job? Does he have a house of his own? And most of all, did he find love in someone new?

That last question, even to Chanyeol, seemed unlikely. He wasn't a cocky person, but he was sure Baekhyun would never fall in love with another person besides the new Park Chanyeol he'd wake up next to every morning in bed. 

"Look, oppa! It's the Statue of Liberty!" Jiya exclaimed as she pointed out the window. 

"Mhm! Isn't she cool?" Chanyeol asked her smiling. She gave him a single nod.

"You know, the statue was originally brown since it was made out of copper, but as time passed by, it rusted into green," he informed the astonished woman.

"Wow oppa, you know so much about New York," she said surprised. He leaned back into his chair and put on his shades and nodded. She leaned back into her chair as well and put her hands on the coffee table and then leaned forward. "Where should we go next?" she whispered to him playfully. He leaned forward and pinched her cheeks.

"Out of all places in the world, I've always wanted to go to Manhattan," he whispered back. She held onto his hands that held on her cheeks.

"Really? Then let's go there tomorrow, okay?" she asked while rubbing his hands trying to keep them warm. He grinned and nodded giving her his confirmation.

"Do you want to know a secret?" he whispered again. She grinned and nodded frantically. He let go of her cheeks and grabbed her head lightly to pull her closely.

"Jiya," he said in a monotone voice. He gripped onto her shoulders and bent down to her short height and crouched down. "Thank you for helping me finding him." And with that, she looked up to him with tears leaking from her eyes that were widen from his words.

Chanyeol let go of her and began to run in the direction the train was going. He ran up the stairs, hopefully finding a ticket booth. He moved side to side dodging the fast moving bodies walking towards the opposite direction. 

"Baekhyun, please... don't leave me again," he huffed as he ran. Again, he found himself running after Baekhyun who was taken away from him. Finally, he found a ticket booth and he instantly took out his wallet from the back of his pocket. 

"One unlimited pass please," Chanyeol breathed hard as he tried regaining his breathe. The lady just stared at him wide eyed, not understanding. Then he remembered they were in America. "Oh... Uh one unlimited ticket please," he asked again but in English with a heavy accent. She got what he meant right away but raised a brow. 

"Uh, sir, you do know how expensive those are, right?" she asked leaning into him making sure he was speaking correctly in English. He nodded frantically and waved his hand towards him motioning to give it to him now. She just have him a nod and gave one to him. 

"That'll be–" she started giving him the fee but he didn't care how much it cost, he just threw a bunch of $20 bills onto the counter and made a run for it again. He found a train map, but the thing was, was that he didn't know which stop Baekhyun was at. 

Chanyeol ran pass the flooded floor of moving bodies and rushed towards the direction the train left. As he ran, he didn't know what to feel. Should he feel worried? Sad? Nervous? Or exceedingly happy Baekhyun and him stood under the same roof again. Have you ever gone to a concert and felt like crying? Crying because it's finally happening? Because you're breathing the same air as your idols. Because you're within meters from them instead of miles like always? That's how it felt like for Chanyeol. 

But like every concert, the show must come to an end. 

Chanyeol felt so emotional at the moment. When was the last time he had ever heard that sweet, melodic voice of his? Baekhyun's voice was his diagnose for everything. 

"Baekhyun," he panted as people slowly passed him, "just wait a little longer, please."

But it was no use. Chanyeol had rode on a various amount of subways, but Baekhyun wasn't on any of them.

"It's no use," he told himself, "he must've gotten off a stop a long time ago." Chanyeol looked around and realized that there were only custodians in the platform with him. How long has it been? He checked his phone and read the time 11:42PM. He stood there holding his phone watching the minutes go by wondering how much time did he waste. It'd been months. Months he could've gone looking for Baekhyun. 

Precious time runs past us like a bullet. Don't stand in the way if you're not ready to get hurt. 

Chanyeol walked outside and sat down on one of the empty benches. Cars drove by on the street and people walked on the sidewalks. Everyone moves, but most refuse to do so. 

Chanyeol reached into his pocket and pulled out his earphones and plugged them into his phone. He put them on and scrolled through his music library. It hasn't been updated in two years. He wondered what the music trend was now nowadays. Chanyeol thought he was someone from the past. He skipped two years without looking around. He was someone living in the 2012 world, not 2014. 

Baekhyun crossed his mind again and wondered if it was the same for him, except it wasn't Baekhyun's own fault; it was his.

Chanyeol pressed shuffle and listened to his old songs from high school. He was into rock more than anything else before. The deep bass and the loud beats on the drums started to play and it helped him shut up the world. He leaned his head back and looked up at the stars. 

Stars. 

"You're no match for Baekhyun," he smiled to himself remembering again. 

"Chanyeol..."

Someone tried talking to Chanyeol, but his eyes were closed now and was currently deaf by the music. So they took out one of his earphones. 

Surprised, Chanyeol blinked open his eyes in a flash and turned around to see who did it. 

"Hey, what are you—"

Chanyeol sat there flabbergasted at the sight of his one and only in front of him once again. Chanyeol could already feel tears immediately streaming down his cheeks feeling more than happy to see Baekhyun smiling at him, and he plans to keep that smile with him forever. 

____________________________________________________________________________

Hello everyone^^  this isn't the best ending and I'm sorry for disappointing you but I'm only "good" and making plots; not writing stories of them ><  thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. And keep in mind I tried making this a short story because writing stories with more than enough chapters tire me and I never get to finish them.