Chanyeol didn’t really know when he started loving Baekhyun. It happened somewhere along the way, under the clear blue sky and in the green meadow, between the cherry-blossoms, tall grass and flowers. It happened sometime during the long summers and cold winters they spent together, with butterflies and fireflies in the summer, and ice-cold snowmen in the winter.

But Chanyeol knew that he loved Baekhyun. It was pretty much the only thing he knew, to be honest.

They had known each other since they were children. The tall and lanky Chanyeol with the wide smile and happy personality, and bubbly, smaller Baekhyun with the sparkly eyes and lovable laughter. They lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and even though there were many children living there, Chanyeol and Baekhyun never felt the need to include another person in their friendship.

Well, at least not Baekhyun. Chanyeol was always a little bit taller than the other kids, and he had a naturally deeper voice. It was still a children’s voice, but the other kids didn’t like him much. Chanyeol didn’t think anyone would want to come near him anyways, so he never even thought about other people than Baekhyun.

Baekhyun however, was the complete opposite of Chanyeol. He was a little bit smaller than the other kids, but with his happy-go-lucky attitude and his bubbly personality, everyone liked him. He knew a lot of people and a lot of kids wanted to be friends with him, but for Baekhyun, no one could compete with Chanyeol.

And so, Baekhyun and Chanyeol slowly grew up together.

It was one of those summer mornings when you wake up, and instantly feel happy. As soon as Chanyeol fluttered his eyes open and stared at the wooden ceiling, he knew it was going to be a fun day. The sun shone in through his window and his light curtains filtered the light before it hit the unstained panel of the wall. 

He didn’t even have time to eat his breakfast, before Baekhyun showed up at his doorstep. Or rather, he barged into the kitchen through the back door, disturbing Chanyeol to the point where he almost chocked on his water. Somewhere along the way, that had become the same thing.

“YEOLLIE!” Baekhyun shouted excited. They were teenagers already, but still called each other their childhood nicknames when they felt it fit the mood. Which it did most of the time, to be honest. Today, Baekhyun was dressed up in light clothes, only a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. These clothes however, were accompanied by Baekhyun’s newest discovery; eyeliner. It would’ve looked weird on anybody else, but on Baekhyun Chanyeol had to admit, it looked great. How Baekhyun managed to pull that off he didn’t know, but somehow he did.

As Chanyeol looked up at Baekhyun after a couple of strangled coughs, he sighed. “For Heaven’s sake. At least give me a sign that you’re going to cause World War III in my kitchen,” he exclaimed. He still felt the water stuck in his throat, and it made it hard to speak. The words came out raspy and weird, and he gasped for air. Baekhyun realized this and smiled widely at Chanyeol.

“You sound like you’re being strangled. And anyways, I was shouting your name all the way here, so there isn’t any way you couldn’t have heard me,” he grinned. He knew Chanyeol usually didn’t pay attention to his surroundings, so even if he shouted Chanyeol wouldn’t notice. But he shouted anyways – just for the joy of it.

As Chanyeol coughed one last time, he puffed his cheeks and stared at Baekhyun. “I am not sounding like I’m being strangled. I just swallowed some water wrong,” he defended himself, “and you know I never hear you even if you shout. Next time, you’ll have to use a megaphone.” He laughed, his mood changing halfway through. Once, they had actually had a megaphone. But it was sadly confiscated when they ‘accidentally’ left it outside the mayor’s house in the middle of the night, and it suddenly started to make extremely loud animal-noises. Absolutely not their fault.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol liked to think they weren’t responsible at all, but the mayor seemed to think differently and confiscated it. That was three years ago, and they still hadn’t got it back.

“But onto another topic,” Baekhyun said, his eyes shining. “There’s the Summer Festival coming up soon!”

Chanyeol, who at the moment was very interested in his breakfast, dropped his food and sat up straight. “What?” he exclaimed. “But I thought they were cancelling it this year!”

The Summer Festival was the highlight of their year. Every year during June, the festival would take place, and it was the most fun thing in the whole world. Local bands came to play, stands with the weirdest things were put up, and everywhere, they sold caramelized apples and roasted almonds as well as traditional Korean food. But the best of all; they could play as much pranks as they wanted too, and no one scolded them (maybe except for the mayor but no one counted him in). Everyone was too happy for that. Usually people were divided, but on this special occasion, they all came together. And Baekhyun and Chanyeol loved it.

Although this time, it was supposed to be cancelled due unknown reasons. How did Baekhyun know it was going to be arranged, as usual?

“Well, seems like the mayor found some very interesting bands to play this year. Remember how the last artists flopped last year? He was afraid of it failing again. Well, this time it certainly won’t. At least not with us there,” he grinned, a slight smirk appearing playfully on his lips. And Chanyeol knew he wasn’t kidding. Because every time Baekhyun got that look on his face, another mischievous plan had formed in his mind, and now it probably had something to do with the Summer Festival.

“Baekkie­?” Chanyeol said and lifted an eyebrow, slightly smiling. Whatever Baekhyun had figured out, it was going to be great. And Chanyeol was all in for it.

“This time,” Baekhyun announced, “It’s going to be spectacular,”

Everyone in their town knew Baekhyun and Chanyeol. They were already known as the inseparable couple, playing so many practical jokes that people started to refer to them as the real-life Weasley-twins. And because of their pranks, the town was evenly divided in two. The ones that loved them, and the ones that hated them.

But even the people that hated the two pranksters, looked forward to the Summer Festival’s big prank. It had become quite the tradition. It had started when Chanyeol and Baekhyun were little, and they decided to play a trick on the mayor. It wasn’t big, but it got them attention and they soon found out how fun practical jokes were. And it quickly escalated from there. Now, every year, they would pull a stunt greater than the last one. The previous year, they had let loose a horde of birds during the mayor’s speech, causing the whole thing to be messed up. And Chanyeol honestly wondered how Baekhyun was going to top that one.

Even though Chanyeol begged and pleaded, Baekhyun had no intention of telling him what they were going to do this year until the reached their usual hangout-spot, where they planned most of their stunts. Baekhyun was the mastermind, figuring out what to do next, but he was also as secretive as he was excited. He had all the ideas, and Chanyeol usually planned how they were going to go through with it without getting arrested. The jobs were nicely parted between the two, and never had something gone wrong.

And so, Chanyeol couldn’t do anything but admire Baekhyun. The creativity that Baekhyun possessed was so widespread, and his ideas were never the same. They didn’t even resemble each other. When Baekhyun always started blank with a white canvas and painted their next prank in a whole new, different colour, all Chanyeol needed to do was finding a suitable frame for it, for everyone to admire. But it was how they worked. And it was how it fit them.

Most people have hangout spots in a café, on a street-corner, or on a bench. Baekhyun and Chanyeol liked sitting on the edge of the roof of the City Hall.

Not that they were allowed, of course. In fact, they had been chased of there countless times. However, they still found their way back one way or another.

“So?” Chanyeol asked, hanging over the edge of the railing on the roof, which prevented them from falling down to their deaths. “Are you going to tell me?”

But this time, Baekhyun had another look on his face than he usually had. He looked more lost in thought, more unfocused. He kept tapping his fingers on the railing, and hummed a small melody that resembled nothing he had heard before. For a couple of seconds, Chanyeol just observed Baekhyun. He had noticed a long time ago already, but Baekhyun had really long eyelashes, which made his pretty eyes more noticeable. And after he started using that eyeliner, it just accentuated his beautiful eyes even more, framing them together with his eyelashes. Quickly, Chanyeol shook his head, and concentrated on the plan. No time for the stupid admiration now.

In the end, he had to nudge Baekhyun to even get a response. “Baek? Hellooo?” he said, waving his hand in front of his face and snapping a few times.

Baekhyun quickly regained is focus, and looked at Chanyeol. “What?”

Chanyeol rolled his eyes. It wasn’t often Baekhyun became like this, but it didn’t mean he was excused. They still had a job after all. “Plan? Hello?” he asked, trying to get Baekhyun’s full attention.

Baekhyun nodded slowly a few times, and then fully realized what Chanyeol had said. “Oh yeah, the plan!” he grinned, and then turned his eyes to look over the town like he had done seconds before. He suddenly became serious again, like he had been.

“You know Chanyeol, I’ve been thinking…” he started, before his voice faded out in the silence, and it became silent for a few seconds. Chanyeol lent forward to get a full look at Baekhyun’s face, and he saw something in the other’s eyes, which he hadn’t seen in a long time. Doubt.

Baekhyun cleared his voice. “This is after all our last year of high school here, right? And then we’re going to university. You’ll be majoring in music and song writing and whatnot, and I’ll be singing, and we’ll… we’ll move away, you know? For years we’ve pranked all the people here, making them either love us, or more commonly, hate us. But this time, it’ll be our last Summer Festival. So I want to… I want to do something great, so they’ll remember us. Something so spectacular, it’ll be remembered forever.” He spoke slowly, and chose his words carefully. But somehow, even though the usually bubbly Baekhyun had taken a break, Chanyeol still couldn’t really wrap his mind around what serious Baekhyun had said. It was true, of course it was true. They were going to university. Well, they’d go to the same school, so at least they wouldn’t be separated. But they would leave this town behind. They would leave everything and everyone behind. Why hadn’t he thought about it, when Baekhyun had? Why hadn’t he even realized Baekhyun had been having these thoughts, even though they were best friends? Even though they were… as cheesy as it sounded, one soul in two bodies? It was like they drifting away from each other already, before even entering university. Maybe he was overthinking it. Doubting Baekhyun wouldn’t help, so he quickly pushed the thoughts away.

Instead, he nodded. “Spectacular,” he said agreeing, without having really taken notice of the word. Spectacular… Baekhyun wanted it to be spectacular. It was their last Summer Festival for a good while… in the end, he realized the meaning of the words. It was their last Summer Festival. He hadn’t even thought that far into the future. And Chanyeol also realized that they needed to make it just that. Spectacular.

He followed Baekhyun’s gaze, staring into the horizon. “So, what do you have in mind?” he asked.

And as Baekhyun turned to Chanyeol again, he had gotten the mischievous look in his eyes again, replacing the serious one. “Fireworks.” he smiled crookedly. “Fireworks and balloons.”