Chapter Text
The flight had been long, extremely long - even without the delays, it felt like they'd be stuck on a plane for eternity, yet there they were. Or at least, they hoped they were.
It had been a year, almost. One painful, long year of separation, living in two entirely different continents. When there's seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel, time seems to drag out far too much.
When the person you love gets the chance of a lifetime, do you let them take it, or make them sacrifice it all for you?
That was the choice Youngkyun had made almost a year ago. And yet, even as he stood in the middle of the airport, he still didn't know if he'd made the correct choice.
Letting Taeyang go was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do.
They'd never once lost contact. But even video calls don't feel the same when you're miles and miles apart. And with Taeyang's schedule, it was no surprise that it hadn't been as easy as they'd wanted it to be.
Nothing's ever as easy as it may seem.
It wasn't as though he didn't have his own dreams - of course he did. But his dreams were very different, and didn't require the sudden geographical separation.
He wished it hadn't come down to that.
Even now, he wished he hadn't let Taeyang go.
The problems with being in love with someone so talented, it seemed.
People change so much in a year, he knew that. He'd changed himself, though not drastically. Longer hair, perhaps, and a different outlook on certain things, but not too much.
But Youngkyun's real fear was finding that they were too different to be together now after a year apart.
Foolish, of course, considering they'd kept in contact as often as they could, but no matter of rationality could shake off his uneasiness.
Reality came crashing back down on him as he was violently shoved aside by a complete stranger, which only made him lose his temper - his nerves were practically at breaking point even without the sudden encounter.
As the stranger vanished, he gave a heavy sigh, the heaving crowds of Charles de Gaulle International Airport finally forcing him to move, taking his first steps headed towards the exit, just like every other person around him.
He'd waited for a year already, extra seconds only did more damage.
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It was quiet. Too quiet, even for him. Maybe he should have expected that when booking an early morning flight, but it hadn't occured to him til then.
When you're constantly surrounded by noise day in day out, you quickly learn how to tune out of reality.
And yet, at that moment, he didn't want it to be quiet. It was the last thing he wanted.
But even he knew Youngkyun wasn't there yet. They'd arranged the flights as close together as possible, but with a 14 hour time difference it definitely wasn't guaranteed.
Even thinking that thought hurt. Even after a year, it hadn't stopped hurting.
If he'd have said that moving to America to pursue his dream was a bad idea, he'd have been lying. But he'd have also been lying if he said that he hadn't regretted it the moment he'd left.
Of course, he'd accomplished plenty in the year he'd spent away - it hadn't been a waste at all. Yet, on the other hand, he'd never felt so alone.
Being in a country where he knew practically nobody and only spoke basic amounts of the language didn't help him in the slightest in the friendship department, even without considering his natural shyness.
It was times like those, and even at that particular moment in time when he missed Youngkyun the most.
Well, aside from the fact that he'd missed Youngkyun continually since the moment they'd said goodbye.
Perhaps he was overthinking it all, but one particularly nasty thought jumped out at him - what if Youngkyun didn't come after all? What if he was left stranded in Paris, completely alone?
Of course, he dismissed it - no matter how much had happened during the year, he knew Youngkyun, and Youngkyun definitely wouldn't do that.
Even as he checked his phone, which naturally had no notifications, he felt even lonelier than he had during the flight.
One thing was definitely for certain - whenever he did finally see Youngkyun, he was never leaving him ever again.