My impetus for writing this whole story was this: http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/313849/ , a fluffy, short Chanyeol x reader. It's where I got my idea for the plot, so please check it out! :)

~ * ~

“For ’s sake hyung, wake up!”

Kyungsoo took in a shuddering gasp of air as his eyes flung open to see Oh "Not A Morning Person" Sehun annoyedly hovering over him. “Damn, nightmare much?” the younger sighed as he flopped back down on his own bed. “You were talking and whimpering.”

“Sorry, yeah, it was. It was like…" He trailed off, trying to gather the right words for his thoughts. "Do you ever have dreams where you try to do something, but no matter how much or hard you try, you just…”

“I dunno. I don’t remember my dreams well.”

He was too lost in thought to acknowledge the fact that Sehun wasn't quite following. “I was trying to reach something, someone, and I was trying but the ground just kept moving backwards, faster and faster the more progress I made, and—”

“Fascinating. With all due respect, I’ve gotta wake up in a couple of hours, and I’m really busy tomorrow, so yeah.”

Sehun's clear disinterest quickly derailed Kyungsoo's train of thought. “Oh, yeah, sorry... 'night.” Kyungsoo curled up a little more tightly under his covers.

A few silent moments passed before Sehun spoke up one last time.

“Hope you don’t have any more nightmares.”

“Thanks.”

The next time Kyungsoo awoke (nightmare-free,) the second thing he noticed was that Sehun was gone. The first was the bright white folded note that lay less than an inch from his head, beaming the morning sun’s gift of photons right into his face. He scrunched his eyes shut.

“Well good morning,” he mumbled, fumbling for the paper. “What are you?” He grabbed and opened the twice-folded note, opening his eyes once he'd shifted into the shadow. There were small, very slightly damp circles on the paper, and his eyes flickered downward briefly to see who'd cried while writing him a note.

'Chanyeol?'

Hey Kyungsoo,

I wanted you to know that I wasn’t joking. I like you too. I’m really sorry about yesterday; I was an idiot, but that was only because I kept getting nervous. What I wanted to happen was to invite you to go celebrate five years as friends and tell you how I feel, not to bother you and make you feel the way you did.

I’m going to China today, but I hope you can forgive me, and if you do, maybe we can talk when I get back.

Sorry,

Chanyeol

Before Kyungsoo had time to process the error in judgement he had made, there was a shout from the common room. Then, all hell broke loose.

“What on Earth—“

Before he had the chance to go outside and see for himself what the commotion was, his door was nearly knocked off its hinges by Baekhyun.

“Get out here, now.”

“Hold on, let me grab a shirt—“

“Now!”

Not awake enough to argue, Kyungsoo followed out (managing to grab and put on a shirt and a pair of Sehun's sweatpants on the way,) wondering exactly what was so—

Oh no.

Oh God no.

Flight 824 was only one of many morning flights from Seoul to Beijing. He could have been on any one of those. The flaming wreck on the television screen, the jets of foam being sprayed over it, the ambulances that stood by empty, they didn’t, they couldn’t have anything to do with Chanyeol.

“Type faster!” Jongin, who was trying without success to call the manager who’d come to pick up Chanyeol, snapped at Junmyeon.

“Calm down,” the leader replied quietly but firmly as Chanyeol's itinerary finally loaded on his phone.

It fell out of his hands as he fell into a squatting position and covered his eyes with his arms.

With trembling hands, Kyungsoo numbly took the phone from where it had come to rest by his feet and stared at the screen. Stared directly at the numbers 824 and could see nothing, yet somehow understood everything in his world to be lost.

‘He’s gone… he’s gone and I didn’t even get to apologize.’

“Chanyeol…” he whispered before screaming it again at the top of his lungs and dissolving into tears.

Jongin had his face tilted up, trying his hardest not to cry as he took a step forward and pulled Kyungsoo into a tight hug. It was less than two seconds before he let out a shuddering sob of his own.

“Damnit!” The three jumped when Baekhyun, who had just tried without success to use the remote to turn off the television, had just launched it at the screen, killing the pixels around the impact zone.

“Stop,” Junmyeon warned, looking up with a tear-stained face.

“!” he shouted again as he lobbed a pillow at the machine, knocking it back noisily, dangerously close to the side of the table.

“Baekhyun, stop!” Junmyeon barked, this time jumping to his feet and grabbing Baekhyun’s arm in mid-backswing of a water bottle, not letting go as he struggled against him, only letting go when he started wailing and collapsed into his chest. so he could wrap his arms around him as the two cried, Baekhyun shouting Chanyeol's name between curses and insults.

"You ing idiot! Why'd you have to go and die, you ing piece-of- idiot, Chanyeol!!!"

“Who’s -talking me— Why are you all crying and who killed the TV?”

Four tear-and-snot-riddled faces shifted toward the deep voice coming from the open doorway.

“W-What...?”

Chanyeol took a half-step back as the others shakily approached him as if he were Jesus and the second coming had just begun.

“Why... How are you here?” Junmyeon spoke first.

He blinked and cocked an eyebrow. "Excuse me? I live here."

“We-we-we thought you were on the plane!” stuttered Jongin.

“I was supposed to be, but I forgot my passport. Why, what happened?”

A collective sigh was released.

“You idiot, we thought you were dead!” Baekhyun yelled, then sniffled. “Your flight crashed on takeoff!”

Chanyeol’s eyes, which were already wide as saucers, flickered back to the broken television screen, taking in what was on it for the first time. “Holy… t-that’s my flight?”

“Oh my God, we thought you were gone for sure,” Baekhyun groaned.

His eyes didn’t leave the screen. “If I hadn’t forgotten my passport, I would have been-“

The remainder of the air in his lungs was forced out in a pained wheeze as some force trucked him— no. It was more like being hit by a train, a train he quickly realized was the Kyungsoo Express, squeezing the life out of him. His heart tried but failed to escape through his throat. Fortunately none of the others were able to notice his reddening eartips as they were too busy also piling on for a group hug. By the time they all let go, he’d calmed himself down. At least, until he realized that not everyone may have entirely let go.

I.e. Kyungsoo may or may not have had his index finger curled inconspicuously around Chanyeol’s pinky.

A fortunately timed update on the crash meant the others’ attentions were turned toward the TV as he looked down in surprise and his gaze was met with one that didn’t need words to express the sentiment they both well knew was there. Reluctantly, he slid his finger away from Kyungsoo's, the scant contact missed the second it was broken.

“I guess I should find my passport and get back downstairs,” he declared after clearing his throat.

“I’ll help you look,” Kyungsoo offered immediately.

“Yeah, guys, let’s-“ Baekhyun started as he turned around.

And immediately stopped when he saw how close his best friend was standing to the other, the glowing tips of his ears, and the look on his face that screamed, "Please magically read this situation without actually understanding what's going on!"

Against Chanyeol's hopes, that was the moment the answer to, "What The Has Been Wrong With Chanyeol This Week?" finally dawned on Baekhyun.

“Let’s... let's go beg the managers to not make him go.” Suddenly, Jongin and Junmyeon fond themselves being taken by the wrist and being pulled swiftly off-balance in the direction of the front door.

“Alright?” Jongin replied, a bit confused at Baekhyun’s sudden urgency, thankfully not as quick to realize what the sudden impetus was. “D.O., you com—“ His question trailed off in a squeal as Baekhyun’s short-but-present nails dug sharply into the flesh of his wrist. By the time he glared at his sheepish-looking hyung and turned his head to look in the other two’s direction, they’d vanished from sight.

“Thanks for offering to help,” Chanyeol said in a half rushed, half nervous, trembling tone. “I think I tossed it on the desk when we were sending laundry out, but—“

“Wait, wait, wait.” Kyungsoo froze in his tracks, just inside the doorframe. “You can’t seriously be going.”

“Well… I mean…” He stopped shuffling through the material piled up on the desk and turned to face the other while keeping his eyes down. He’d sort of assumed they were on the same page about this sort of situation, and the answer to Kyungsoo’s astonishment didn’t come immediately. “Unless management says I don’t have to go, y'know… I kind of have to. I mean, I don’t want to, but you know as well as I do that it’s not up to me.”

The expression on Kyungsoo's face melted from disbelief to disappointed belief, to looking like he was about to cry again. His mind wasn't in the position to be rational, a fact that was reflected by every inch of his being as he started to blubber, “But the— But you just— You can’t.”

Whether it was Chanyeol who pulled in Kyungsoo or Kyungsoo who needed to be close to Chanyeol, who first bridged the gap in that moment wasn’t important, because both of their hearts did. And the muffled voice that came from the face buried in the crook of his neck, the phrase that came out on a broken whisper, was almost enough to break Chanyeol’s.

“…I thought I'd lost you.”

Chanyeol bit his bottom lip sharply to drive off the tears that were threatening to come to eyes. Several witty comebacks popped up in his head, "I couldn’t die without knowing you accepted my apology" being his favorite, but everything he thought of seemed out of place in the face of the lives just lost; if he’d been anyone other than his forgetful self, he would be along with them.

When Kyungsoo felt a shudder run through the body of the silent man whose embrace he was in, he looked up, seeing just enough of a split second to see glistening drops pour over closed eyes as the contact he needed, the lips he craved, finally met his own.

That was all the response Chanyeol could give. And it was all that was necessary.