Archive of Our Own

It’s sometime in mid-December of 2018 that Chanyeol decides to move.

The warm sunlight bounces off his cheeks in the incredibly cold weather as he trips over broken cobblestones to get back to his house. The two-story building he has called home is situated in a neighborhood currently void of indistinct conversations and children’s laughter that he was so used to. Maybe it’s because everything is below freezing temperature that nobody’s showing their face. Either way, it’s not important to him.

“C’mon, pup, let’s get inside. Your little paws must be freezing cold.”

He tugs at the leash slightly when Zzar decides to take a detour to sniff the dead plants barely emerging from under the inches thick snow. Chanyeol looks around once more; there’s nothing else in his vision other than white. A pure, untouched, and innocent beauty that blankets over the living and turns them cold and gray. But of course that’s okay, because even when the bitter wind reminds Chanyeol of nothing but the dead, people just seem to appreciate anything that pleases their eyes – anything beautiful and pretty.

Zzar hops on all 4 paws into the warmth of their home and when Chanyeol closes the door behind him, he stops. A heavy breath escapes his lips; flashes and ghostly figures of what used to be still haunts him every time he enters.

He sees his mom cooking in the kitchen in her pink apron, slightly peering over her shoulder and urging him to take his shoes off, and then he sees his dad, dressed in his all-time favorite shirt with a worn down graphic print, telling him with a dramatic sigh that his favorite baseball team had lost.

There’s the loud yelling of his sister coming down the stairs as she looks for her earphones, and Chanyeol smiles at the loud and chaotic jumble that his family used to be – enveloped in laughter, lame jokes, and filled to the brim with happiness.

Then it’s empty.

The soft taps of Zzar’s paws against the wooden floor turns loud, and the ticking of the clock takes over.

He lets out a long, dragged sigh before tossing his shoes to the side.

It’s been a month. It still hurts, and it’s been a month of living in the continuous cycle of hating himself and wallowing in pain, and a month is supposed to be enough time to ‘get over it’, like some people had so graciously told him to.

He likes to convince himself he’s gotten pretty used to it by now – all the loud silence and irritating calmness that surrounds his childhood home, or the loud stares of his neighbors and the carefree laughter that pokes at his newest wounds, but at times, he feels a growing hole in his chest boiling over with the strong urgency to leave.

So, that’s exactly what he’s been planning to do.

He’s going to pack all his things up, throw all of it in a cardboard box, hoard it onto a truck, and move somewhere where nobody even knows his name. A place where he could blend into the crowds and miss out on all those pitying gazes from everybody that walked by. He wouldn’t have to pretend to be deaf to all the whispers of ‘Oh, he’s lost both of his parents at once. What a poor soul’ because if there’s something he doesn’t need, it’s fake pity.

Especially from the people who have never once cared enough to ask his parents how they were doing when they were alive.

His attention gets directed towards Zzar, who has her front paws up on Chanyeol’s chest and her tongue poking out.

Chanyeol pets her head gently, watching as she closes her eyes and wags her tail.

“What do you think about Japan?”

The pup does nothing but continue to wag her tail; she just likes whatever her owner says.

“You think it’s going to be a good choice? Or not? What do you think?”

Zzar does nothing, only engages in a staring contest with him.

Well, it’s no use asking a dog.

He sighs and drowns himself deeper into the old gray couch he used to share with his dad on game nights. There’s a sinking feeling in his chest again, one that no matter what he tries to do to fight it, he still ends up with his head underwater.

It’s Christmas when Chanyeol first runs into Baekhyun.

The morning is cold, the windows are fogged up and little ice crystals form near the windowsills, freezing the wooden frame. Chanyeol lays on his bed for a while, staring at his cream colored ceiling, pondering over everything and nothing at once.

He looks at the clock. It’s way past his waking time, yet he refuses to get out from under the blanket. It’s especially hard when every chill in his bone only reminds him of everything he no longer has.

He misses the way the smell of his mom’s cooking smothered his nose in the morning, and the way his dad is usually knocking on his door, telling him that they’re late for their weekly basketball match. Sometimes, he misses the way Yoora would pull on his ear until he’s angry and wide awake.

The name crosses his mind once more before it slowly settles.

Yoora.

Maybe he should give her a call. It’s been way too long since he last heard her voice, the last of it being her loud sobbing at their parents’ funeral.

“Hi, Chanyeol.”

“Hey.”

Then he realizes he doesn’t quite know what to say. He struggles against himself to find sentences, a word, anything, to not seem like such a child in his 28-year-old body.

“Chanyeol?” his sister’s voice, gentle and comforting, comes through the phone again. “Hey, are you okay?”

Is he? Has he ever been since a month ago? Has he ever been okay since his birthday?

He blinks back the salty tears forming in his eyes. It’s useless to cry about it now. It’s also useless to be calling Yoora when he knows she’s carrying a much heavier share of the burden than he is; she has a family, two kids, an actual life to be living instead of listening to her brother cry.

So, in the end, he musters up a soft, “Yea, I’m okay. I just miss you.”

He could see her eyebrows smoothing down, and a small yet sad smile on her lips. She looks so much like their mother. “I miss you too, Chanyeol. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call me, okay?”

“Mhm. Yea. Okay. I love you. Bye.”

“Okay, bye.”

Zzar jumps up onto the bed, making it her own personal mission to finally get Chanyeol up on his feet. And it works. Like it always does, because Chanyeol believes that the only thing still working the gears in him is the little pup he needs to take care of.

Their daily walks are monotone, only filled with random conversations with his little pup and mumbling some nonsense under his breath. He kicks his feet in the snow occasionally, trying to search for any color other than white, and sometimes he lets Zzar stop to pee on a snowman.

An amused scoff leaves his lips, then he praises Zzar for peeing on the ugly imitation of Olaf. Because how dare they try to build a fantasy above someone’s wreck of ruins? It annoys him how inconsiderate the world could be to someone’s misery.

As soon as they start meeting the growing crowds, the sudden regret of leaving home is now hitting him like a truck.

It’s Christmas.

The red and green and yellow lights are lining up every café’s door and windows, the mistletoes that have spread a ridiculous amount of rumors about kissing are hung up every few feet, and the people have managed to put up an enormous shining Christmas tree where it would be visible to everyone.

Any other year, Chanyeol would be delighted to welcome the seasonal celebration.

This year, however, all the beautiful lights and lively carols seem to be mocking him.

It feels like the universe is laughing upon his misfortune; out of the 7 billion people in the world, he had to be the odd one out. And out of all the seasons and holidays they could choose from, the universe chose Chanyeol’s favorite to destroy.

Was the need to paint winter in such a bad light really that urgent? Had Chanyeol been too happy for the heavens’ likings? Is that why they took his parents away?

There are question marks and connotations to life that he could never understand, and he’s scared he may never will.

A loud and rather gruffy voice catches his attention.

“Write your wishes to Santa!” an old man in an elf costume waves little red cards in the air, occasionally bending over his bulging stomach to hand it to little kids. “If you’ve been good this year, he will send you a present!”

Zzar’s barking, and she rarely barks.

“Why?” Chanyeol asks. Then he looks up at the elf man again. “You want me to write wishes? Seriously? Only kids do that.”

And Chanyeol’s a broken kid at heart.

So he takes one of the little red cards (although he would have preferred green, but he’s in no position to choose), and borrows a pen from this little girl who looked up at him like he was the grinch. She’s probably wondering what a grown man is doing, writing notes to Santa Claus, and Chanyeol knows it looks absolutely ridiculous, but he wants to give it one last try; he wants to give winter and Christmas and all of its magnificent glory one last chance to redeem itself.

He scribbles down his little wish. Makes sure to press down on the pen hard until the inks are almost ingrained to the paper, because he has to do this right. He needs Santa Claus – or anyone out there – to see how tired he is and he hopes the angry words on this lame piece of paper are enough to do just that.

“What did you ask Santa for?”

Chanyeol almost jumps at the sudden interruption.

There’s a man, a stranger, probably one head shorter than him, looking at him with a smile. Chanyeol freezes for a moment, blinks a couple times before backing away a few steps, very much clumsily too as he does that.

“Did I scare you?” he asks, then follows it with a laugh. “I didn’t think you’d be much of a scaredy-cat.”

Chanyeol closes his fist around the red card. “I-I’m not. I was just surprised.”

“So, what’s the present you’re asking for?”

“This? It’s- It’s not mine.”

“Really?” the stranger asks, although he looks far from convinced. “It’s okay to be asking for presents, though. Everyone likes presents. I like presents!”

Chanyeol eyes him carefully, wondering what he’s on about. They both say nothing for a while, only stares at each other for what feels like over an hour.

“…”

“…”

The stranger breaks the contest first. “I’m Baekhyun,” says he with the beautiful brown eyes. “And what’s your name?”

“Chanyeol.”

“Chanyeol.” And he’d be lying if he said the syllables didn’t sound good rolling off Baekhyun’s tongue. “You should hang your card. Santa won’t read it if you take it home.”

Dumbfoundedly, he follows Baekhyun to the huge and ugly green tree perched right in the middle of the city. Kids are hanging all of their wishes, and with a little peek he could tell over half of them had asked for a new barbie play set, while the other half asked for the new limited-edition hot wheels.

Baekhyun reaches up, as high as he could, to hang his own card – which Chanyeol did not even realize he had been holding onto until this point.

“Why are you tip-toeing?”

“Because-” Baekhyun mumbles as he jumps. “-Santa likes to read the ones from the top first.”

“That’s ridiculous,” says Chanyeol as he himself hangs it high, even higher than Baekhyun’s.

He then grabs Baekhyun’s and puts it right beside his own. Consider it a little act of kindness.

“Thank you!” he exclaims happily. “Now Santa’s going to see our cards first.”

There’s something about this man with his warm winter smile that stirs a feeling inside him. Maybe a small whirlwind, but not enough for Chanyeol to put a meaning behind it yet.

Zzar, however, seems to be busy soaking up all this random happiness radiating from a stranger she’s just met. She’s jumping onto his legs, barking and wagging her tail furiously until Baekhyun looks down and decides to give her some sweet attention.

“You’re very pretty, aren’t you?” he coos, voice going slightly higher as he leans in to pepper the pup with kisses.

The loud ringing of church bells accompanied by the squealing of toddlers to 12-year-olds washes through the crowd and Baekhyun looks up at Chanyeol.

His eyes crinkles as he smiles widely and for the first time in a long month, Chanyeol finds something beautiful enough to look at in the midst of all the rubble and debris his life had become.

“You want to grab a drink together? Maybe something warm?”

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now! You can’t go through Christmas without some hot chocolate, after all.”

Like a broken robot, Chanyeol keeps on repeating his words. “Hot chocolate?”

“Yea, hot chocolate. Do you want to… or do you not?”

Somewhere between being startled and mesmerized, Chanyeol finds himself nodding.

That Christmas, he had written down, in his imperfect font of letters: ‘Happiness’.

It’s New Year’s Eve when he invites Baekhyun over.

He looks down at his phone for the nth time that day, rereading Baekhyun’s texts over and over again to make sure he didn’t hallucinate the cute ‘Okay ^^’ he received. His heart’s in his throat, and he’s counting down the seconds to the promised time.

It’s been so long since he felt like he could look forward to anything. After his sudden birthday disaster and in all the resilient darkness that came after it, Chanyeol had always found it hard to find anything meaningful in the hours he spent awake.

His days have become a blur of boring routines and sitting in the living room doing nothing but heavy thinking and questioning and trying to put a reason or a message behind everything that’s happened. There’s not much to his life anymore; he’s too tired to reply to his friend’s messages, he’s too sad to see the smiling faces of everybody else whose life isn’t as messed up, and he just wants to sleep.

He's only wanted to sleep.

But for once, in what has felt like a very long time, he’s chosen to wake up early.

For once, when he opens his eyes in the morning, the thought of it snowing outside didn’t seem so bad anymore.

He’s sitting in the living room, watching the slow hands of the clock move every 60 seconds and quietly wondering to himself whether or not Baekhyun is the punctual type.

They’ve only hung out together once, in a little café sipping on hot chocolate and taking in Baekhyun’s ramblings about reindeers and the north pole. It didn’t make much sense, but Chanyeol was welcome to any sort of filler to take place of the eerie silence his demons have scribbled in his head.

Baekhyun arrives just 10 minutes past 4, which is 10 minutes late, but 20 minutes earlier than Chanyeol’s prediction; he didn’t want to disappoint himself in case Baekhyun arrived super late, so he decided not to put his expectations in the clouds just yet.

“Hi!” he greets, his tone lively. There are bits of snow in his brown hair, and his nose is a little red from the cold, but it’s his corgi-patterned scarf that catches Chanyeol’s eyes the most. It’s a navy color, a little fuzzy with small corgis all around – cute brown and white corgis.

Baekhyun takes notice of his stare very quickly. “It’s cute, isn’t it?” Baekhyun asks, happily showing it off to him.

Chanyeol can’t help but nod.

He invites Baekhyun in, helps him with his coat while he greets Zzar, whose tail wags are more furious than ever. Baekhyun leads the way into the house, and although he’s never stepped foot into Chanyeol’s home before, he’s definitely acting like he was born here.

“Chanyeol!” he hears Baekhyun yell from the living room.

“Yea?”

Baekhyun’s rummaging through a white plastic bag he had brought with him, all the while gesturing for Chanyeol to come over immediately.

“Okay, so on the way here, I saw these. And I thought you’d like it!” he holds two glass cups in his hand and upon closer inspection of the surprise present, Chanyeol realizes there were little paw prints all around.

Rolling his eyes playfully, he smiles. This feels like Christmas.

Chanyeol sits on the floor and takes the glass in his hand. “That’s pretty cute.”

“Right?” Baekhyun moves from the couch to the floor too. Their shoulders are pressing and Baekhyun’s slightly leaning on him, his weight unfamiliar yet Chanyeol doesn’t want to move away.

Baekhyun smells of pine trees and fresh snow. His voice is filled with honey, and he, in a way, reminds Chanyeol of something winter used to be before it dwindled into a loud reminder of grief.

Baekhyun looks up at him, beautiful brown eyes reading Chanyeol from the low. His breath tickles the bottom of Chanyeol’s neck, prompting the taller to look at him, too.

“Do you drink?”

Chanyeol blinks quickly a few times before clearing his throat. He’s not supposed to be taken aback; it’s New Year’s Eve, most people are going to drink the night away.

“N-No, I don’t. Not really.”

“Then we can fill this up with apple juice or something!” Baekhyun pulls his knees up to his chest and giggles like a kid whose wishes have been granted by Santa. In almost a hushed whisper and fake secrecy, he tells Chanyeol, “I don’t drink, either. My friends say I’m embarrassing for not being able to hold my alcohol, but they don’t know how stupid they sound when they’re wasted.”

He furrows his eyebrows at Baekhyun for a moment before breaking into an awkward chuckle. “Really? Okay. Juice will do.”

It should be expected. Chanyeol could tell in a single glance that Baekhyun’s more suited for chocolate chip cookies and marshmallows by the bonfire than intoxicated drinks in a dimly lit room with loud music blaring in the background.

If anything, Baekhyun’s energy is telling Chanyeol to soak in all his childhood memories, his happy ones – the holidays he spent cuddling on couches with Yoora, or the ones he spent visiting his grandparents’ home and planting roses – and he’s sort of enchanting, in his own little and pure way of unknowingly sprinkling glitter onto Chanyeol’s dark canvas.

So they spend the night talking over cold apple juice, and Chanyeol finds out that Baekhyun owns a puppy, hence his love for dogs and Chanyeol tells Baekhyun about the first time he broke his arm.

“I slipped!” Chanyeol argues, grabbing Baekhyun’s shoulders and pulling him upright. He has tears forming in his eyes from laughing too hard at the misery Chanyeol once experienced, saying in between breaths, “You’re just a clumsy idiot!”

“I’m not clumsy!” he defends, even though he knows well he is more clumsy than anyone.

Heck, it’s his habit to trip on air.

And yet, for what feels like the first time, he doesn’t find the sound of boisterous amusement maddening; he finds that it sounds more like the soft melody of a slow song being played in a large ballroom – gentle and delicate.

How weird.

When the clock reads 11, Chanyeol’s refusing to let Baekhyun go. He doesn’t want to lose this short-lived happiness. Not yet. Because he knows as soon as Baekhyun walks out the door, his demons will take his place, their smiles sadistic and vengeful and their words nothing but salt on Chanyeol’s wound.

Fortunately, Baekhyun doesn’t question anything when Chanyeol asks him, “Do you want to stay the night?”

He only nods, the warm smile on his lips a powerful weapon against the horror in Chanyeol’s head, and tells him that they should watch a movie before going to bed.

They’re on the couch, sitting too far apart to be touching yet too close for Chanyeol to focus on the High School Musical episode Baekhyun had chosen. He glances at him every once in a while to find his eyes glued to the screen, wide in focus like a little kid sitting in a cinema and it’s when he’s starting to get too entranced with Baekhyun that a question comes up.

What if this person is his newly found drug?

And then the fear sinks in rapidly, crawling under his skin and tightening around his heart all at once.

If he’s getting too caught up in all this joy and comfort Baekhyun brings, what’s going to happen when he leaves? Although he pretends hard to not know the answer, it’s very clear what’s going to happen.

The darkness would be twice as bad. The voices in his head would be amplified. His monsters would become twice as vicious and the pain he feels would probably be doubled. His house would turn ice-cold again, reminding him that everything good in his life is temporary.

It’s scary. Terrifying. Paralyzing.

His hands turn clammy and the thought of breathing is suddenly difficult. The panic rises in his throat, and he’s about to excuse himself away, but then Baekhyun touches his arm, leans in close and whispers a gentle, “Happy New Year, Chanyeol.”

His breath runs short. In a good way, because the chains suffocating him suddenly loosen their python grip, and the heavy weight lodged in his heart slowly unshackles itself.

Their foreheads touch, and Chanyeol’s nose brushes against Baekhyun’s for a moment, softly acknowledging the little twinkle in his brown eyes that sends an unnamed wave of emotions tumbling inside him.

Chanyeol can hear Troy singing in the background, but all he sees now is Baekhyun’s smile – offering comfort and safety.

He takes a deep and shaky breath before whispering in reply, “Happy New Year to you, too, Baekhyun.”

It’s on the first day of 2019 that Chanyeol feels a golden glow envelope him in the midst of winter’s somber skies.

It’s during the first week of February that Chanyeol realizes time with Baekhyun is never enough.

When he’s alone, curled up in a fetal position with nothing but his blanket to hold, time seems to intentionally drag its feet across the floor, taking slow steps and mocking him as it passes by.

When he has his eyes shut in a prayer to the heavens that never listen, time just seems to be slouching on the couch, one leg over the back as it watches – laughs at – the fragile words of a crestfallen man that’s desperately trying to fill in an abyss – to fill in an emptiness he could not quite label.

When he’s alone, a day feels like eternity and the only moments he would even consider blissful are the times he spends asleep – in the darkness where his nightmares could only occasionally come to haunt him.

Yet, when he’s with Baekhyun, time never stops running. It sprints across the green fields, leaving a trail of beautiful daisies and tulips and sprinkles of sunshine for Chanyeol to enjoy – albeit, momentarily.

It skids out of his grasp, slips through his fingers, and God knows how hard he tries to put a pause to it; he’s trying his best to slow time down, to slam on the brakes, put a rope around its neck and dig his feet into the ground because this is not enough.

He doesn’t want these moments with Baekhyun to turn into a blur of beautiful colors. He wants to stay here, in this warm and vibrant and welcoming scenery. He doesn’t want to be forced back into the dark and cold cave where the silent void screams at him that he doesn’t deserve happiness.

He doesn’t deserve to be relishing in this pleasure because how could he? After all his parents went through because of him, all he deserves to be is chained to hell.

It’s a never-ending cycle. A never-ending chase he knows he can’t win; trying to run from time, and then trying to run after it.

He sighs, loud enough to catch Baekhyun’s attention.

“Is something wrong?” he asks.

They’re sitting among a bunch of people talking over pasta and wine, but all Chanyeol can think about is how he doesn’t want time to bolt. Baekhyun leans closer, his eyes flashing with something akin to concern and curiosity, and Chanyeol just shakes his head.

“It’s nothing.”

“It is something,” Baekhyun states. “Your shoulders look heavy.”

He brushes it off and straightens his back. “They’re not.”

Baekhyun puts his fork down and grabs the coat he had so neatly placed on the chair beside.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

“Go?” he looks up, eyes widening when he notices Baekhyun already in the midst of putting one arm in his coat. “G-Go where?”

A goofy grin bloomed on Baekhyun’s face. “Somewhere. Anywhere. We can go look at candies, shop for new clothes, or… we can go to build-a-bear! I’ve always wanted to go there!”

Unknowingly, Chanyeol’s lips starts to tug upwards. Whenever Baekhyun gives him that look, that expression, that pure beauty of his, he just can’t help being charmed. It’s like a hushed whisper in the back of his mind telling him ‘it’s going to be okay’ and it’s beautiful enough for Chanyeol to believe in all the good things life has to offer – to believe that after every storm, he’ll be met with a one in a million rainbow.

Outside, Chanyeol pulls his coat tighter to his body when the winds blows, but this time – just like every time he is with Baekhyun – he’s not reminded of what the bitter cold has taken away from him; it only presents to him a glimpse of what his future could be, all wrapped up in a corgi-patterned scarf and topped with fluffy brown hair.

Following Baekhyun, he asks again, “Where are we going?”

Baekhyun giggles, stretches his arms out wide to the side and shouts, “Anywhere your problems won’t follow us!”

And that’s when Chanyeol feels the weight on him evaporate into the frigid weather, the thorns in his lungs slowly crumbling away, and when he breathes in deeply and feels the crisp air rushing through him, he laughs. This is how he had longed to feel for months, to finally be able to breathe and not feel like he’s responsible for everything the world pushed off-course.

“Chanyeol! Don’t just stand there!” Baekhyun’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. The shorter male had ran up to him, grabbed ahold of his hand, and had began to tug him forward while he’s in a daze. “C’mon! Let’s go build a friend! I doubt your problems would want to follow us there!”

“Okay.” They start breaking out into a small run, footsteps light on the snow. “Let’s go!”

It’s during the first week of February that Chanyeol realizes, he might have gotten himself a remedy for his shattered soul.

It’s on the third day of March that Chanyeol decides to start working again.

He’s a freelancer, working on his own desire and free will as a graphic designer, and he usually enjoys his time spiraling creativity and honing his skills, but ever since November, he’s not touched his computer once. He’s refused all requests from his loyal clients, or even offers that would have given him a good amount of fortune, or maybe even get his picture printed on a magazine page.

He barely has any driving force inside of him left; he just feels weary and trapped behind mental bars.

Baekhyun has only asked him about it once as he wondered what Chanyeol does in his free time, and that simple, simple question of “Don’t you get bored doing nothing?” had pushed Chanyeol up from his sinkhole and dragged him to his feet – maybe still a little shaky on his legs, but at least he’s learning to hold his own weight again.

As he clicks away with his mouse, dragging shapes and adding a gradient of colors on his computer screen, Baekhyun relaxes on his bed, holding their bear friend he had named Sir Brown close to his chest, and Chanyeol smiles.

With Baekhyun around, his house feels more like a home – albeit a little differently than the home he grew up in, it’s starting to feel warm again, the comfortable heat very slowly thawing away at the solidified darkness his house had become over the last few months.

He finds himself seeking for Baekhyun more often that not. Finds himself constantly missing the soft giggles of an innocent soul. Sometimes the solace his smile gives, but all the time the way he never has to pretend around him.

He feels… safe.

From his demons, from his nightmares, from the howling of a disastrous past.

A sweet voice calls his name, drifting in between his thoughts, “Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol spins around on his chair. “Yea?”

“Is this your mom?”

His gaze travels from the curious brown eyes to his hand. He’s holding a frame – a haggard looking golden frame worn down by time – and the never-changing picture it carries.

Chanyeol nods.

“She’s beautiful.”

“She’s dead.”

The gaze in Baekhyun’s eyes shift from curiosity and awe, and drops into something he wishes he’d never have to see in them: pity. He puts the frame back on Chanyeol’s drawer, handling it like a fragile memory seconds away from shattering.

“I didn’t know,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Chanyeol gets up from where he is sitting to go and sit on the bed instead. “But you’re right, she is beautiful.”

He stares at the picture for a moment. It’s black-and-white in ink and he’s so much younger in the picture; it was his birthday – his 9^th birthday – and their family had decided to go on a trip to the zoo. He still remembers vividly asking his dad if he could feed the giraffes and then crying when he said no, and he can still see Yoora fussing over her melted chocolate ice cream, and he can still piece together the memory of taking a picture with his mom.

It’s in front of the elephants, and she’s smiling, her eyes bright even in the monotone picture, and Chanyeol can’t help but feel something tug at his heart. She’s beautiful. So beautiful.

And then it flashes to memories of a hospital call and running through hallways and suffocating on the cold-tiled floor as the doctors walk away after a regretful apology, and then barely having it in him to scream and ask “Why?!” because in just a split second, that beautiful smile is gone – buried 6 feet underground beneath a montage of mournful petals.

The memories start to suffocate him again. It’s clawing at his throat with blood-stained nails, threatening to throw him into the deepest and darkest parts of hell. They’re yelling at him to stop being so happy – to stop smiling above the graves of his parents.

It’s all a blur of darkness and evil laughter. He feels the sheets beneath him and clenches them into tight fists, trying to stop the slight trembling in his hand.

Then he feels a hand on his own.

Baekhyun looks up at him, with a soothing smile and a reassuring touch.

“Come here,” is all that Baekhyun said. He moves away, making enough space on the bed for both of them to lay down.

Chanyeol’s bed isn’t the biggest, but it fits and if there is something he needs right now more than space, it’s the physical touch between their skins to convince him that Baekhyun’s still here.

He flips and moves around in Baekhyun’s arms at first while the smaller male lets out a small laugh. However, it feels nice. He likes the way Baekhyun’s fingers run through his hair slowly, and the way Baekhyun feels warm, and how their legs are tangled together.

“Are you not going to ask what happened?” he asks Baekhyun, because if there’s something everyone wanted to know, it’s the how and the why and the reasons behind everything that happens.

They want to know the answers that Chanyeol always struggles to give. The ones he finds himself choking on every time. And sometimes they want to know the answers he doesn’t have – the ones he himself is trying so hard to look for.

But Baekhyun shakes his head.

“It’s not my place to ask,” he answers, “If you want to tell me, I’ll listen. If you don’t, then I’ll listen too.”

“That’s… That’s a first.”

“There are a lot of other things to talk about!” he says, running his hand through Chanyeol’s hair once more. “We can talk about how we’re going to welcome spring, or the way you always complain about the wind being too cold. Maybe we can talk about buying new toys for Zzar, or how you spent your day doing nothing but eating nachos on the couch.”

Chanyeol hums softly, a satisfied and sleepy one. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am!” He lets out an adorable giggle. “There are endless of things to talk about! I don’t want to force you to tell me about all those battle scars you have. You can decide the timing for that. However, we can always fill our conversations with little words, pure amusement, and they can pile up little by little, slowly and over time, into a big memory.”

“I’d like that.”

“Have you watched Inside Out? Well, if you haven’t, there’s this thing called a core memory! All our little moments can pile up into one of those!”

And although Chanyeol’s never seen Inside Out – never even heard of it – he nods. The thought of a core memory with Baekhyun is enough to make him smile.

This is nice, Chanyeol thinks. He closes his eyes. Listens softly to the gentle drumming of Baekhyun’s heartbeat – a quiet song – and relaxes more and more by the second.

“That’s right, hold Sir Brown close.” Baekhyun pats his head gently. “He likes hugs.”

Chanyeol opens his eyes quickly to see Sir Brown against his chest, sitting in between him and Baekhyun. It makes him chuckle, feeling a little shy about holding such a childish object, but he doesn’t care.

“I’ll hug Sir Brown, then.”

Baekhyun wraps his arms around them tighter, holding a few more broken pieces of Chanyeol in place. “Good! And I’ll be right here hugging the two of you! So, go to sleep if you’re tired. You’ll still find me here when you wake – with Sir Brown, too!”

“Okay.”

So, he listens to Baekhyun’s humming and starts to slowly drift away from the world. This time, he finds himself under blue skies instead of hollow tunnels.

It’s sometime before April that Chanyeol decides to ask Baekhyun out (officially).

The last of winter is falling onto the concrete pavements, leaving little specks of white before the breeze switches up into something fresh and new. It gives Chanyeol a newfound courage to do something he has been meaning to do since last Valentine’s Day, but the weakling side of him had beaten any ounce of courage left.

He’s kept the intention tucked away in his back pocket for too long. So he has decided that along with the new flowers blossoming, he will make sure to do this right.

He wants to ask Baekhyun out. Officially.

They’ve been going back and forth between some blurred lines for a while. Sometimes just on the border of having their lips touch, but never closer. And with every conversation, every inside joke, he finds himself wanting to wipe that invisible line away, to destroy the barrier that’s stopping him from kissing Baekhyun when he wants to.

He pulls his jacket tighter around his body. He has it all noted down in his head; he’s going to list all the reasons he’s in love, make Baekhyun all happy, then he’s going to ask him.

It should be easy.

But he’s fidgeting with his outfit over and over again, and then checking his hair to make sure it’s not out of place, and he’s looked in the mirror too many goddamn times he’s starting to memorize the scratches on it.

“How do I look?” he asks Zzar.

The pup looks at her Dad, tilts her head the slightest bit, and doesn’t say anything. Of course she won’t say anything. She’s a dog.

Chanyeol rolls his eyes. Rubs his hands together. “You know what? Let’s go before I drive myself crazy.”

He walks to the first café they visited together, skipping over a few patches of snow left and doing a few arm stretches to throw off the jitters. It’s long past Christmas now; the colorful lights and mistletoes have all been taken down and now that they’re gone, Chanyeol realizes everything looks a little bare.

Although he knows it won’t be long before people start drawing colorful flowers and butterflies on their windows, it feels kind of weird to see the absence of winter after being stuck in it for so long.

He stops to see the small buds emerging from fresh soil, enjoy the warmth of the sun on his face again, and even says hi to a few people passing by.

The wind brushes against his skin as he puts a little hop into his steps and listens to the soft chirping of the little birds making nests above. Colors are starting to become more vibrant – yellows, pinks, beiges, even whites – everywhere he goes.

There’s a new graffiti on the wall right beside the café. It might have been there long before Chanyeol noticed, but now that he does, it makes him laugh. Who gave the artist an idea to draw such an eye-catching piece of a man stepping on some bird poop?

There’s a chime of the bell as he walks into the café before the scent of freshly baked pastries welcome him. He sees Baekhyun typing into his phone at one of the tables, just by the window, and he gives Zzar one more look of determination before strutting over.

“Hi.”

Baekhyun looks up. “Oh, hi!”

He settles into the chair across from Baekhyun and grins.

“I ordered chocolate croissants,” he informs. “Do you want anything else?”

“N-No, it’s okay. I’m not that hungry.”

Baekhyun nods before he points outside. “Look outside, Chanyeol! This is probably the last bit of snow we’re going to get. Look at how softly it’s falling – Oh, that’s really pretty.”

The snow falls on the leaves, like feathers floating in the air, and Chanyeol finds his gaze shifting from the brightness of the outside world to the bloom on Baekhyun’s cheeks.

“You’re beautiful.”

Baekhyun snaps his head back at the sudden compliment. “Huh?”

“You’re beautiful,” he repeats. And he would gladly parrot that like a broken radio because he does not understand how someone can look like that – not even just physically beautiful, but there’s something surrounding Baekhyun that enthralls him, something so fascinating and peculiar.

“Well,” the corners of Baekhyun’s lips tug up and his eyes twinkle, “I haven’t heard that in a while.”

A pink hue paints his cheeks and he brings his hands up to cover his ears. “Ah, this is embarrassing,” Baekhyun laughs. “My ears are probably turning red.”

“Why?” he teases. “I’m sure you get that a lot.”

“No, no, I don’t. Really. That caught me off guard.” Baekhyun straightens up and clears his throat. “Thank you, though.”

“I actually have something to say.”

Baekhyun rests his elbow on the table, leaning his cheek against his fist as he urges Chanyeol to continue with an acknowledging hum.

He finds himself fiddling with the hem of his button-up shirt again and not being able to nail his gaze to one spot – especially when Baekhyun looks at him so intently. He sees the waiters dressed in gray stripes. The couple laughing across the street. Zzar. Anything else but Baekhyun.

And it takes him a good amount of courage to force himself and meet Baekhyun’s anticipating eyes.

As if he’s about to step into war, he sucks in a sharp breath. “I really like spending time with you. Really. With you, things are better. My problems aren’t so heavy. And I like how I don’t have to be someone else.”

“So, you like how I make you feel?”

The word slips out of his lips involuntarily, “Yes.”

And Baekhyun stifles a small laugh. “Okay, and?”

“And, I like the way you smile. The way you radiate so much bright energy.”

He pauses for a hot second.

“I just… I wanted to ask you if… Y-You want to be my boyfriend?”

He holds his breath and zooms his vision onto every change in Baekhyun’s features. The way his eyes widens a little and the way he pulls his hand down from the table – Chanyeol notices it all.

When Baekhyun doesn’t say anything for almost a minute, Chanyeol decides to shrug it off with a lame chuckle. “I mean, it’s really okay if you don’t want to. I just-”

“And if I say yes?”

“If you say yes, then…”

There’s another pause. He knows relationships are not easy; there will be ups and downs, valleys and mountains to destroy, but he doesn’t want this to be a fling.

“I don’t know – I’ll probably be really happy. I-I just really want you.”

His answer digs up a hearty chuckle from Baekhyun.

Baekhyun glances outside the window once more and with every second that passes, Chanyeol’s heartbeat slams harder against his chest. He wipes his hands on his jeans again and takes his lower lip between his teeth. The wait is killing him.

After a moment, Baekhyun finally opens his mouth. “But there’s something I want you to know.”

“Y-Yea?”

“I don’t want you to depend on me for your happiness,” he says, with that ever soft smile and genuine kindness. “You said you like how I make you feel, how your problems aren’t so heavy around me. Then what if I’m not around? It’s all going to return to the starting line, right? I don’t want you to depend on me to lessen those burdens, Chanyeol.”

He doesn’t say anything yet.

“I want you to be able to find happiness within yourself. And then I can double that, of course! I’d love to!” then he leans forward a little. “Do you think you can slowly learn to do that?”

It strikes him like a chord. There’s something in those words that almost compels him to cry, something so comforting and hopeful, and it roots a new faith in him – a belief that he’s not going to be forever miserable when he’s alone.

The road seems far and rocky, but as soon as he looks into Baekhyun’s eyes, he knows where he’s headed is not awful. If anything, it’s the opposite.

So, he nods. “Yea, I can. I will.”

Baekhyun holds out his hand, urging for Chanyeol to take it. When he does, Baekhyun threads their fingers together, a firm reassurance coming into friction with a brittle palm.

“Today’s our first day together, then!” There’s a burst of excitement in his voice. “Since we’re a couple now, we need to do so many couple things!”

Chanyeol sits up straight and grins. He squeezes Baekhyun’s hand a little tighter as he leans closer too, now feeling the anxiousness melting away like the last of winter.

“I want to introduce you to my grandma, and my friends! You should meet my friends! They’re like this messy crowd who just fits so well with each other!”

His cheeks almost hurt from smiling so widely. “I would love to.”

As spring breaks free into an abundance of joy and flourishing blue skies, Chanyeol can also see himself slowly piecing his life back together. Hand in hand. With Baekhyun.

“Why do you think people find it so hard to let go of things?” he had asked Baekhyun.

And Baekhyun had answered him.“I think… I think the reason people find it so hard to let go and accept things is because humans have the tendency to cling onto the ‘why?’”

Confused, he asked, “The ‘why?’”

“Yea. They’re obsessed with seeking for an answer that might not even exist. Because people feel the need to put a reason behind everything to justify them, you know?”

Baekhyun had continued with, “The question ‘why?’ just keeps you hanging onto the past. It’s mean and it’s a liar, because not everything has a ‘why’. Sometimes there are no reasons to why unfortunate things happen. The universe is just a bitch.”

“Oh…”

“It’s not your job to save what the universe wants to take back.”

Chanyeol had let out a long, dragged breath that caught his attention.

“Take your time. Slowly learn to let the question leave you, piece by piece. Why did this happen? Why me? Why them? Let them go. It’s painful and hard, I know, but you just need to understand that shit happens. The world is not kind enough to give you an answer to ‘why’ they did it.”

Chanyeol doesn’t think he’s ever felt so free.

Maybe he has, at some point in his life, but those times now feel rather distant – like a beautiful art he could only admire from afar. He’s more used to keeping himself in check and standing in corners until…

Well, until Baekhyun.

Date nights with him leaves Chanyeol smiling before sleep, and feeling all the curves and dips of his body was an experience that never fails to render him breathless. Every single time. The hours of his days are now filled with cute text messages and slowly, but surely, starting to accept the beauty of the world again.

Chanyeol groans in annoyance when the ear-splitting sound of his ringtone cuts through his dream. He grumbles low curses under his breath as he sits up, running a hand through his disheveled hair, and searches for the source of EXO’s Monster that ruined his sleep.

Squinting his eyes to read the caller ID, he slides his finger across the screen lazily and lies back down on the bed.

“Hello?”

“You know what? I’m not going to make it for our date today.”

Chanyeol jolts back up. Pulls his phone away from his ear quickly to check the caller again. It is Baekhyun.

He rubs the sleep away from his eyes quickly. “W-Why?”

“I’m stuck with work, okay? And I don’t know if I’m going to get this done – God, this shit’s annoying!”

He glances at the clock. It’s 5 am. This is weird.

He throws the covers off his body, stumbling over a few random shirts on the floor as he tries to get to the bathroom. The light switches on and he’s left to stare at his mess of an image; messy hair, chapped lips, and eyes that barely open. He lets out a big yawn before turning the faucet on.

“If you’re really busy, then that’s okay,” he tells Baekhyun, his voice coming out a little dry and coarse. “We can go some other time.”

“No, no, no. I’ll try to finish up soon. I don’t know if I’ll make it though.”

“I can just go to your place.”

“You want to come here?”

He wipes his face dry with a little towel and leaves his phone on the sink while he rummages through his closet for anything he could wear. A hoodie would do. It’s in the ungodly hours of the morning; nothing is better than a warm hoodie and comfortable sweats.

“Yea. I can go there.”

Then there’s a momentary pause on the line. Chanyeol pokes his head back into the bathroom to check.

“Hello?”

“I’ll send you the address. Don’t be loud, my grandma’s still sleeping.”

“Okay.”

A beep comes through before Baekhyun says goodbye and hangs up.

As he pulls the hoodie over his head, Chanyeol purses his lips. Baekhyun usually manages his work and his life well, but the stress in his voice is indicating otherwise this time around. Either way, he’ll find out how bad it is when he arrives.

He puts his hands in his hoodie’s pockets as he leaves, not forgetting to put on a cap.

The fresh air rushes into his lungs, along with the smell of wet pavement and fresh soil after the night rain. The moon is still painted beautifully above, around it the beautiful specks of white that scatters across the dark blue. He hops over some newly blooming buds growing by the sidewalk to get to his car, and smiles when he realizes that all of winter has seeped away now.

The low rumbling of the machine pulls his attention back from the surrounding world. He grips the steering wheel tight and lets out one long breath before putting his foot on the gas. Off he goes.

It’s a 7 minute drive from his house to Baekhyun’s.

He parks his car right in front of the driveway before pulling his phone out to give Baekhyun a text. The lights are still off in the house, with the only exception of a warm glow coming from a window on the second floor.

Once he receives a “The door’s unlocked” from Baekhyun, he sets foot onto the concrete and makes his way up to the entrance. The wooden porch is new in color yet old with age. There’s a Christmas welcome mat before the door that’s yet to be changed, and a dim light just above it casts ghostly shadows onto the ground.

The creaking of the door is loud as Chanyeol moves in. He places his footing lightly on the floor, looking around the place once to notice the random fuzzy blankets thrown over the brown couch and a collection of framed certificates and golden trophies in a shelf.

Then he hears a frustrated yell slightly muffled by the walls from the floor above. Baekhyun, probably. So, he brushes off his curiosity over the honors to jog up the stairs.

Spotting Baekhyun’s room is an easy taske; the slightly ajar door and bright light had been a big giveaway.

“Hey.”

Baekhyun looks up from the mess that his desk is and smiles a little when he sees Chanyeol. “Hi.”

He looks tired. There are dark bags under his eyes, his hair is pointing out in different directions, and there are 3 empty coffee mugs placed on his desk. Not to mention the sketches and crumpled  up pieces of paper strewn around the entire room, creating a clutter that very much resembles a shipwreck.

Chanyeol sits on the corner of Baekhyun’s bed. “Do you want to take a break?”

Baekhyun pinches the bridge of his nose. “No – I want to finish this.” He picks his pencil up again and looks like he’s about to start drawing before he pauses. “But I’m tired. I’m sleepy. I want to lay down, but I can’t because I need to finish this.”

His voice is on the verge of breaking, filled with annoyance and frustration and exhaustion. Chanyeol watches as he goes back and forth with the object in his hand, like he’s engaged in a muted debate with himself whether or not to carry on. His eyebrows furrow and his blinking becomes quick before his bottom lip starts to tremble.

“I’m just – I’m tired. I want to sleep. This is so tiring… Why am I even doing this?”

In the end, Baekhyun throws the pencil on the floor and buries his face in his hands instead. Then comes the shaking of the shoulders and the desperate gasps for air while he breaks.

Chanyeol moves from the bed to the desk in a heartbeat. “That’s enough work for today,” he whispers, trying to unravel the chaos Baekhyun is in.

The cries are loud against his shoulder, smooth hands clutching fabric tightly as he tries his best to hold Baekhyun still. It punches through his heart with every single sob that Baekhyun lets out, his wailing gut-wrenching and throbbing painfully against Chanyeol’s body.

“Ssh.” He strokes Baekhyun’s brown hair gently with his hand. “Let’s take a break. You need some rest.”

They end up on the bed, tangled in each other and Chanyeol gets the urge to fight all of Baekhyun’s problems. Just like how he had always been the tallest wall and strongest barrier to keep Chanyeol’s demons out, he could only wish he can provide the same sense of comfort to him.

“You must be sleepy.” Chanyeol presses his cheek on Baekhyun’s head. “Go to sleep. Don’t worry about your work.”

“Fuck- I’m really going to quit doing this job! I-I can’t do it anymore!”

He hums in acknowledgement, holding Baekhyun’s shaking body in his strong arms.

“I don’t want to d-do any of this anymore… I really- I really don’t want to.”

“I’m really going to quit,” Baekhyun says again. “I’m going to s-scrap this up and throw it away. Who cares about my client?”

“Okay. You can quit. Just go to sleep for now.”

“It’s so a-annoying and I’m so tired,” he sobs, “-I haven’t slept in almost 2 days and this just- Ugh, it’s never going to be done!”

As Chanyeol continues to listen, his voice slowly descends from a quavering earthquake to the small thunders of a dying storm.

He places a kiss on Baekhyun’s temple, one soft and sweet. Hopefully a reassurance.

Baekhyun’s breathing starts to even out after a few minutes, the trembling of his tiny body diminishing into quiet breaths, softening like petals in the gentle wind.

“You’re really tired. Go to sleep, hm?”

“Wake me up in an hour,” he murmurs sleepily.

Chanyeol’s eyebrows drew together. “In an hour? Why?”

“I need to finish work.”

He’s silent for a while, but then he lets out a low, amused chuckle. “Okay,” he promises. “Go to sleep and I’ll wake you in an hour.”

As he watches Baekhyun’s eyelids droop slowly into a dream, he smiles adoringly at the worn out male in his embrace.

Baekhyun’s eyes are red-rimmed and his cheeks tear-stained, yet even in his tearful havoc, he’s nothing but a freshly bloomed jewel. A crystal white lotus amid the grubby complications of the world.

On most days, it’s him who needs being pulled back together from the foul game he had considered his life. But on other days, it’s Baekhyun not being at his finest, not being able to stitch together a glowing sunshine smile and having to come to terms with the broken tears of a gemstone beauty.

Chanyeol doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind holding Baekhyun until his cries disappears, seeps into the pillowcase, leaving nothing but a damp trail when he wakes up. He doesn’t mind being the one to hold them together at times, because he knows when it’s his turn to crumble, Baekhyun’s going to be there.

And it’s in the early hours of snowdrops and daffodils that Chanyeol realizes, home is not a place.

It’s Baekhyun.

It’s in April when Baekhyun surprises him with a one-night trip.

He had called Chanyeol up one random night and in a delighted sing-song voice, tell him that, “I booked a hotel for us somewhere!” and when the question “Where?” was asked, Baekhyun had been very adamant on keeping it a secret.

The only thing Chanyeol needed to know is that they’re leaving at 6 in the morning. Nothing else.

“Wake up, Chanyeol!”

“I’m awake.”

“You’re sleeping while standing!”

He forces his eyes open and lets out a big yawn. Baekhyun’s standing on his tip-toes with narrowed eyes to try and threaten him, but Chanyeol only shakes his head in adoration and wraps his arm around Baekhyun’s shoulder.

He’s all dressed up in an oversized cardigan and matching colored boots, because he said and Chanyeol quotes, “Spring has to be welcomed in the right way!”

Not that he’s complaining or anything. Baekhyun looks very cute.

“When is the bus arriving?” he asks.

“At 7 – Hey, stop yawning!”

Baekhyun slaps his chest playfully, faking an annoyed expression for a moment but ends up tackling him in a big hug after.

The air is thick with the satisfaction of waking up after a long winter sleep, breathing new hope and dreams into sapped and wearied souls. It smells of yellow tulips and freshly mown grass. Of warm coffee on sunny mornings. Of new opportunities and possibilities.

Chanyeol looks around. Everything is in color now. The green leaves rustling above, the yellow coat a little girl in front of them is wearing, the sky a beautiful blue. He’s been through 28 springs yet none of the colors in his memory seem to stand out as much as today.

At exactly 7, their bus pulls up.

“Are you not going to tell me where we’re going?” he asks as they take a seat.

“Hm…” Baekhyun pretends to fall into thought before bursting out, “Jinhae!”

Chanyeol stills. Takes a very long second to process the word through his mind before turning his body slightly towards Baekhyun.

“Jinhae?” he asks again, just in case he misheard.

When Baekhyun nods quickly, he feels a part of him sink.

“Why… are we going to Jinhae?”

“To see the Gunhangje Cherry Blossom Festival, of course!”

Gunhangje Cherry Blossom Festival.

He purses his lips, feeling a heavy weight land on his shoulders. He unhooks Baekhyun’s hand from his arm and shifts around in his seat for a moment, clearing his throat a couple times; he can’t breathe.

Baekhyun’s hand is on his shoulder in a matter of seconds. “Is something wrong? Do you not want to go?”

He doesn’t. That’s the last thing he wants to do in spring. But he turns back to see Baekhyun’s hopeful eyes staring at him, the beautiful gaze washing over with concern, and he stops himself from saying anything remotely close to that; he can’t possibly make Baekhyun sad.

“N-No. I just didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

Baekhyun’s resigned sigh says he knows so much more than he shows. However, he only nods and puts a little space between them – one that Chanyeol appreciates so much more than he can say.

The ride is filled with static silence. Chanyeol’s busy wrestling his own mind, begging them desperately to leave him alone just for one day – to take all his miserable memories with them and quit putting him in a chokehold.

He spends most of the ride staring out the window, watching as the trees and people and tall buildings turn into a quick blur of movement, and his mind drifts in and out of the daunting chamber in his head. Baekhyun doesn’t talk to him, either, probably too busy trying to put two and two together and figure out why he’s acting this way.

It’s only when they get down at the rest area that Baekhyun finally says something. He pulls at Chanyeol’s arms gently, demanding the taller to look him in the eyes.

“Are you okay?” asks Baekhyun.

Chanyeol nods stoically. Forces a smile on his face.

“We can… not go, you know. If you don’t feel like it.”

“We should go!” he argues, trying his best to lift the tone of his voice, although it comes out a little awkward. “Why shouldn’t we?”

Baekhyun sighs, his eyes downcast. “Because I don’t want to go if you’re just going to play pretend.”

Then he looks up again, squeezes Chanyeol’s arm gently, and offers a smile, sending forth a safe and secure feeling. “Do you want to talk to me about it? Whatever it is that’s bothering you?”

And although he’s biting on his tongue, pulling back all his urge to say anything, in the end he lets the words slip out of his mouth.

“I promised my parents to take them to the festival this year.”

It’s an outdated promise. Just some measly words that deserved to be buried, because he can’t possibly keep promises made to a dead person.

“It’s pathetic, I know.”

Baekhyun shakes his head. “It’s not.”

“When you lose someone, there are always regrets. Things that you wish you have done for this person, time you wish you spent on them instead of going shopping, or whatever. We’re all left with some sort of regret,” he continues. “It’s not pathetic. It’s human.”

He continues with a smile. “But you want to know what my grandma told me when grandpa left?”

Chanyeol swallows the lump in his throat.

“What did she say?” he asks, words fragile as it leaves his lips.

“Don’t feel guilty when you’re happy.” The edges of his lips tug up even further. “It’s okay to feel sad. But when you’re happy, you shouldn’t be guilty about it. It’s okay to find the good in your dark days, Chanyeol.”

Like a dumb little child, he starts repeating Baekhyun’s words. “The good… in my dark days?”

“Yes! When you’re sad, then you’re sad. So why should being happy mean anything else? You should just be happy! No need to feel bad about it.”

It slowly clicks in his head. Like a puzzle piece falling into place. A tight knot coming undone. A riddle finally being solved.

Baekhyun’s hand runs down his arm to hold his hand instead. “We can go there, paint pretty memories and bright colors over the place. Then it wouldn’t always have to remind you of bad things, right? You shouldn’t stop yourself from feeling happy because of what happened in the past, Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun’s right. The happiness that awaits him should be worth dropping all of his worries and guilt. He looks down at their hands, locked together tightly, and then back up to Baekhyun’s eyes.

“So… what do you think about going to that festival?”

Just like how he had granted winter a second chance at justifying itself, maybe there’s no harm in giving spring the same privilege. Because just like how Baekhyun had waltzed into his life amid harsh winds, maybe just like that, he’ll be able to take the unpleasant load away again.

“I guess… Maybe I can give it a try.”

A burst of adorable giggles erupts from Baekhyun. He jumps up to kiss Chanyeol’s cheek.

“We can take pictures for your parents, too! You can tell them you came with me!”

“That… That would actually be very nice.”

Chanyeol steps back on the bus with a stronger back and lighter steps.

All this time, he had been stuck in a dark box. Surrounded by 4 thick and burdensome walls. And he’s gotten quite used to it, sitting in a corner and having his eyesight obscured by the darkness. Yet, this trip – this trip with Baekhyun seems to be crafting a door, so graciously drawing an escape route from all the mundane things his life had turned into.

Maybe there is a better view, greener fields, and bigger smiles awaiting him on the other side.

Not only that, but a strong reassurance settles in his heart as he knows he’s going to have someone with him – someone to double the happiness, to double the beauty, to make everything twice as better.

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom when they arrive, with pale pink petals dancing in the wind before falling onto the ground. It’s filled with the bustle of tourists and locals and it’s when night falls that Baekhyun gets the most excited.

He peers over the bridge, tugging Chanyeol’s hand and urging him to bend over and look below. Dazzling lights of all colors lights up the small stream that flows past, drawing beautiful pictures as it dances across the water; it’s the starlight festival, the one that Baekhyun had constantly talked about ever since they touched down at Jinhae.

“It’s so pretty,” he says in a soft gasp. “We should go down there and take pictures!”

And who was Chanyeol to decline?

So they find themselves walking along the stream, with Baekhyun stopping every few feet to admire the lights. Chanyeol watches with amusement as the smaller male’s jaw drops at every new thing he sees before turning around and in a silent astonishment, point at them all to make sure Chanyeol’s seeing them too.

He has his phone out, wanting to snap every little piece of memory he could. He takes a picture of the cherry blossoms, the small stream, the enchanting lights, then of course, he fills his phone’s memory with Baekhyun.

“Baek, let’s take a picture here.”

They stood in front of a star, lit up in bright yellow and gold, as the tourist they asked for help counted down with his fingers.

Chanyeol smiles for the first few pictures before he couldn’t resist the urge to pull Baekhyun in by the waist and kiss his breath away in such a beautiful scenery. It receives Baekhyun’s surprised yelp as a reaction at first, but he soon smiles into the kiss, hands going up to cup Chanyeol’s face.

Granted, it’s not the first time they kissed. But somehow, the feeling of Baekhyun’s soft lips against his under the falling flowers wraps him in a peculiar feeling, as if all the pain and loneliness he had to endure all along was to lead up to this exact moment. It feels like someone is breathing new life into his soul, splashing a golden glimmer over his ugly scars and sealing it with a silent promise of eternal joy.

He pulls apart, far enough to see Baekhyun’s eyes, and he whispers, “This is the core memory you’re talking about, isn’t it?”

Baekhyun throws his head back and laughs, filling the air with the beautiful sound of his voice.

He tiptoes, places a soft kiss on Chanyeol’s jaw. “It is,” he answers.

And Chanyeol would have kissed him over and over again, bask in the satisfaction and beauty of it all, had it not been for the tourist clearing his throat and handing over his phone awkwardly.

So he lets Baekhyun go and as the night grows dark, starlight festivals turn into hotel rooms, funny conversations fade into intimate touches that erupt goosebumps, and cute cardigans switch over to bare skin and drunk kisses over a concoction of gratifying moans and delicate pleasure.

That night, as he watches Baekhyun sleep, the thick blanket covering his tiny body, Chanyeol smiles fondly and realizes that this is a night he’ll remember until his very last breath.

It’s a couple weeks after Baekhyun’s birthday that Chanyeol introduces him to Yoora.

He sits on the edge of his bed, watching as Baekhyun paces back and forth in the bedroom, stopping every other minute in the mirror to straighten his shirt and fix his hair. He looks nervous, as if he’s about to attend the conference of his life, when in reality they’re just waiting for Yoora to arrive.

He fusses over his hair again. “This looks messy, doesn’t it?” he asks Chanyeol for what feels like the fifth time in 15 minutes. “It does, right! Ah, I knew I should have just done nothing with it.”

“You look fine, Baekhyun.” Chanyeol grabs his waist as he walks by and pulls him to sit on his lap. “You’re always beautiful.”

The golden necklace Chanyeol had gifted him for his birthday gleams beautifully against his milky white skin. It’s an anchor, because Chanyeol realizes after a lot of thinking that it’s what symbolizes Baekhyun’s existence in his life – an anchor to keep him grounded to Earth, to pull him back when he’s straying too far off, and to keep him standing on his own two feet.

“You really think I look okay?” the smaller male asks again, lips forming a small pout.

Chanyeol kisses his exposed collarbone. “Of course.”

At the feeling of the kiss, Baekhyun shakes Chanyeol off and pulls up his shirt. He moves to look in the mirror again. “You’re going to mess up my outfit,” he whines, “I need to look put together when your sister arrives.”

“More put together than when you were a wreck and shouting that you’d quit your job?” he teases, moving behind Baekhyun and placing a series of soft kisses on his neck despite the complains – not that Baekhyun was making any effort to push him away either. Chanyeol knows he secretly enjoys it.

“Hey!” Baekhyun warns, but quickly breaks into a laugh. “Everyone has breakdowns!”

He peppers more kisses on Baekhyun’s neck, arms going to wrap around the smaller’s torso. “You-” One more kiss just below his ear. “-look perfect, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun turns around in his arms, sending a fake annoyed look at his boyfriend. “Sir Brown is cringing right now,” he says. “Sir Brown thinks you are trying to-”

The sound of the doorbell ringing is enough to pull Baekhyun’s attention away from Chanyeol. He squeals and wiggles his way out of Chanyeol’s arms to straighten his already tidy shirt once more.

“Oh, God, my heart is going to burst.”

“It won’t,” Chanyeol laughs as he walks towards the door. “Come on, let’s go meet her.”

The meeting runs smoothly, no worrying glances or suspicious eyes being narrowed at him, but it doesn’t surprise Chanyeol.

He knew way before that Yoora and Baekhyun are going to get along.

His sister… she’s a mix of his mom’s stern brows and his dad’s lame sense of humor. Just like Chanyeol, laughing and smacking the nearest person (or object, that works too) came very naturally. Her laugh is loud, her energy is high, and she gives off a very energetic and active vibe – despite having given birth to two lovely kids.

And Baekhyun… well, he’s Baekhyun. Random at times, with a child-like way of bestowing cheerfulness and pure innocence to the people around him with a smile that could light up New York City within seconds.

As soon as they’re introduced, Yoora immediately shifts into mom mode and starts doting on Baekhyun, complimenting his sweet voice and his eyes and how he looks way too perfect for the lanky tree she has for a brother. Her husband and her kids are next in line, geared with warm greetings and a delightful fusion of thrilling screams and more than a dozen excited“I miss you, Uncle Chan!”

They all warm up to each other very quickly. Soon enough, Baekhyun’s sitting on the floor with his nephews, his eyes wide in focus as he listens to something Haneul is telling him with such intense passion – probably something along the lines of his favorite superhero or the squirrel he made friends with the other day.

“He’s quite the amazing one, huh?” Yoora bumps into her brother and raises a knowing brow.

They’re in the kitchen, washing the dishes when the elder notices her brother’s loving gaze on the scene playing before them.

“He is,” Chanyeol admits, feeling his cheeks turn a little hot.

“I think he makes you very happy. You can’t even stop smiling when you’re around him, you dummy.”

It’s true. Baekhyun’s appearance in his life had been far from expected. He was just drowning in all the nauseating horrors of his past when Baekhyun popped his head in, his smile stronger than the winter sun, and unknowingly shining light onto the darkest parts of him.

Although some nights he still struggles with the evil cackling behind his door, the moments he spent with Baekhyun are starting to outweigh the self-loathing and the guilt he has collected for months, piling up into a tower of horrifying thoughts that slowly crawls its way up his body to blind him from seeing color.

With Baekhyun, things are bearable. Beautiful, even.

He smiles, continues to scrub the dishes as he answers, “He really does. He’s like magic.”

“How did the festival go, by the way? Was it pretty?”

“Beautiful. The flowers were breathtaking. God, I just know mom would have loved that. She would have been so busy taking pictures.”

“While dad sits on a bench and complains about his bad knee,” Yoora snorts.

“That’s just very typical of him,” Chanyeol laughs.

“This is nice.”

“What is?” He looks to the side to see his sister lost in some kind of thought, a soft smile gracing her features.

“This.” She gestures between them. “Being able to talk about mom and dad.”

Chanyeol nudges her with his elbow playfully. He could tell she’s starting to get emotional by her silence, a stillness that Chanyeol could decipher from a mile away.

“It’s nice to talk about them like this.”

“It is. Gosh, when the accident happened, you wouldn’t speak to anyone. I was so scared at that point, you know?” She sniffs a little, turning on the faucet to start rinsing the dishes. Chanyeol sees it as a strategy of distraction. “I’m just really happy that you’re talking about them now. Like they’re a golden memory instead of… being just a sad tragedy.”

 He puts the dishes down, cleans his hand, and wraps his strong arms around Yoora instead. “What a crybaby,” he teases.

Yoora punches his chest playfully before murmuring something about the dishes needing to be done and how the water bill on Chanyeol’s table will be really expensive if they keep talking. He releases her, but not before giving her one last squeeze, and goes back to what they were doing.

For a brief moment, his mind reels back to all those times he spent in the corner of his room, crying and begging God to take him too. It had been too much for him to take at once, the poison-coated dagger in his heart too much pain for him to handle.

Weirdly, Baekhyun had been patient enough to sit by his side, talking to him in words that mimic the calmness yet magnificence of the quiet sea, and watch as he starts to shake off the mud clinging to his skin and bones, coming undone in a messy and pathetic turmoil.

He had been there, with his compassionate touches and affectionate smiles, ready to show Chanyeol what the world still has in store for him.

It’s amazing to think what another soul could do to his own.

The things Baekhyun have done for him so far, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to repay them.

But what he does know, is that he loves Byun Baekhyun. With every cell in his body, down to his core. He loves Baekhyun.

It’s on a beautiful August night that Chanyeol asks Baekhyun a question.

“How is your smile so child-like?”

Baekhyun lifts his head from where it nestles on Chanyeol’s chest, furrowing his eyebrows.

“No, no. Not in a bad way – no. It’s just that whenever you smile, or laugh, you look… really happy.”

His boyfriend lets out a small chuckle, as if making Chanyeol flustered is pure amusement to him. He sits up and starts tracing random shapes on Chanyeol’s chest with his finger.

“Well, it’s simple.” Through the dark, he could still see the way Baekhyun’s gaze shifts to his face slowly before a smile graces his features. “I realized some time ago that life is hard.”

“There’s always… a demand, for you to do something. Be somewhere. Be someone.”

Chanyeol moves his position a little to rest his head on his knuckles instead.

“It’s filled with so many fake smiles, so many grins and laughter that hides a deep concern. Someone can be happy with you, but have their minds somewhere else – worrying about money, future, life, or stuck in the past,” Baekhyun says. “I realized it’s stupid. Why not be truly happy when you’re given the chance to? Everything’s tough enough as it is, I don’t want to waste those chances of experiencing pure bliss.”

Baekhyun’s finger comes into soft contact with his face, tracing it over his eyebrows, his nose, his jawline, as he speaks. “When I’m happy, I let myself feel it down to my bones. No underlying meaning, no forced laughter. I’ll just be completely in the moment, and enjoy every second. Just like a child.”

He leans in closer to place a kiss on Chanyeol’s forehead. It’s out of the blue, but his lips leave a trail of stars, beautiful, subtle like the way waves meet the sand on a summer morning.

“Leave the world behind for a moment,” he whispers, the close proximity enough for Chanyeol to smell the sweet scent of his shampoo. “You can be mature and professional later. Forget about all of those when you’re happy.”

“You sound far from a child when you talk like this,” Chanyeol whispers back.

“I know,” he giggles.

He doesn’t know why they’re whispering, but it just feels right. Like there’s a certain peace in the dark that they don’t want to disrupt, a certain part of this world they don’t want to wake up, just so they can relish in the slow minutes they spend together under the twilight.

Closing the gap between them, he places a kiss on Baekhyun’s lips. “You are the best thing that has happened to me in this life, Baekhyun.”

“And so are you.”

“I’ve done far from enough for you to say that.”

“Maybe you don’t realize it, but you are my pillar, Chanyeol. You keep me going when all I want to do is cry in bed.” Slowly, he laces their fingers together and brings them up to his lips. “Don’t worry about what you can do for me. You have plenty of time to do more.”

Chanyeol reaches his hand up to cup Baekhyun’s face, thumb rubbing over his cheekbone before he whispers a soft, “I love you.”

“And so do I.”

He gestures for Baekhyun to lay down again, wrapping him in strong arms and a grateful embrace.

It’s under the fractions of a beautiful moon’s glimmering light that Chanyeol realizes, he has found someone he’s willing to spend forever with.

All hell breaks loose in the days leading up to Chanyeol’s 29^th birthday.

It’s November, the air is turning cold and unwelcoming again, and Chanyeol realizes that the tiny embers he had overlooked amid his contentment is still strong enough to start a vicious forest fire.

His phone is off, dead from not charging it for over 4 days. He doesn’t want to see the notifications or the date that glares back at him, teeth bared and a low growl that tells Chanyeol he’s better off away from the world.

He’s had too much to drink. Crushed beer cans and empty soju bottles litter across the hotel room as he sits on the floor, his hands trembling and pulling at his hair and bawling like a loser because he can’t even go home.

He can’t go anywhere near that house when every step towards it brings him to his knees, screaming out a silent agony. The hellhounds are running around, barking at his petrified self as it presents to him a bloody reminder that his birthday is nothing more than an orchestrated murder.

He covers his ear, closes his eyes, downs pills to sleep. Yet even in his deepest slumber, the ghostly figures follow him closely, clinging onto his legs and dangling from his body like a second layer of skin.

No matter what he does, he can’t shake them off.

“Stop… Please stop.” He begs, getting on his knees and pounding at his head. “Leave me alone, p-please.”

But of course, no one is going to listen.

Everyone’s too busy laughing. Having their fun as they ogle him, dragging his sanity across the rough floor and tearing every last bit of it that he still retains to shreds.

Breathing for air takes up every ounce of energy in his body as he tries to keep his head above water, gasping and wheezing for oxygen before his legs eventually fail him and he chokes on his own tears, slipping into a deep abyss.

It’s a cycle that repeats itself for what feels like eternity, putting him deeper than he’s ever been and torturing him out of his mind.

After what he assumes is a week, his legs take him back.

He stumbles through the doorway, seeking for a familiar presence that would welcome him home and sighs when he remembers he dropped Zzar off at his sister’s house.

Pulling his dead weight over to the living room, he crashes on the couch, mind still drunk from his alcoholic escape. His eyes are heavy from the tears, weighing down like a metal burden. The silence in the house is overwhelming, loud, sounding like the distant cries of dead children in a dark forest.

But then it breaks.

It shatters into concerned gasps, of the sound of someone trying to catch their breath.

Startled, he looks up. There, in the living room, now stood Baekhyun. His coat is messed up, hanging off from his shoulders and his chest heaves up and down quickly, and his eyes are wide, like they’re searching for a warrior who has not returned from war.

“Are you crazy?!” Baekhyun yells, his voice high pitched and his tone laced with worry. “Where the fuck have you been, Chanyeol?!”

“Nowhere,” he murmurs under his breath as a reply.

“Why did you turn your phone off?!”

“Please stop shouting.”

“Then you better start telling me what happened!” Baekhyun stomps in, the panic clearly written all over his beautiful features. “I was stuck here wondering if something bad happened to you and where the hell were you?! I even had to tell your neighbors to contact me if you came home – You’re, just, where the fuck have you been?”

Chanyeol closes his eyes, sighs deeply. “I want to be alone.”

“Then you could have told me!”

“Why are you shouting?”

“Because I’m worried and you scared me to death, Chanyeol!”

“I told you I wanted to be alone. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Is that all you have to say?” Baekhyun laughs, probably because he finds it ridiculous. “You left me hanging for, what, a week? And this is all you have as an explanation?”

He looks up again at Baekhyun, this time unintentionally giving him a strong glare. His head hurts and there’s a dull pain resting in his body; he doesn’t need an unnecessary fight to go down too.

Slowly, he pieces himself together enough to stand up. “I didn’t want anyone to bother me, okay? Why can’t you understand that? My mind- it’s not in a good place right now, Baekhyun. And you screaming at me doesn’t help it at all.”

“You could have told me and I would have understood, Chanyeol. You know I would,” Baekhyun says, his voice exasperated and desperate, as if trying to get Chanyeol to understand such a simple concept was the hardest and most frustrating thing he’s ever done.

“So why can’t you understand me now?” Chanyeol raises his voice, too. Not enough to be a yell, but sharp enough to cut a wound. “Why the hell are we fighting? I’m tired, and I want to be alone.”

There’s a slight change in the way Baekhyun stands, something that tells Chanyeol he must have been surprised, but he doesn’t dwell on it long enough to care. “I just needed you to talk to me. Tell me you need time, that you want to be alone…We’re in a relationship, Chanyeol. I need you to communicate with me, not disappear and leave me thinking something bad happened.”

Chanyeol could tell his eyes are starting to wash over with tears, yet somehow in that moment he couldn’t even find the will in his body to move and hug Baekhyun. It feels physically impossible to do what now seems like such an energy draining move.

So they stood there, two people on the edge of a cliff.

“I told you, I wanted to be alone.”

“A text would have sufficed… A simple text telling me you needed space would have been enough.” His voice starts to crack, a little whimper, and he looks away.

Yet Chanyeol is tired. He’s absolutely drained from all the life he has, so all he says is, “Stop it, Baekhyun.”

“W-Why won’t you talk to me?” he asks, voice strained and heavy.

Chanyeol doesn’t answer. He couldn’t.

The first stray tear rolls down Baekhyun’s cheek, and Chanyeol would be lying if he said a part of him didn’t ache when he sees the way those lips start tugging down into a frown. But the pain is not enough to override his thoughts, it’s not enough to propel his limbs to move forward, to reconcile and kiss away all of those worries.

After a moment of Chanyeol just staring, Baekhyun sniffs, wipes away his tears, and forces on a smile.

“Fine.” Baekhyun runs a hand through his hair before dropping them to the side again with a tired sigh. “Suit yourself then.”

He turns on his heels, his shoulders shaking when he takes in a deep breath, and was about to leave until Chanyeol calls out for him again.

“What is this? You’re breaking up with me?” he asks, and the way he had blurted it out so easily, like he doesn’t care anymore, surprised him – and it’s obvious that it surprised Baekhyun, too.

The smaller male halts his steps, but doesn’t turn around to look at him.

“If that’s what you want, then so be it. Like I said, suit yourself.”

He says nothing else. Just leaves the room in a cold and horrible aftertaste.

He leaves Chanyeol standing in the middle of the living room like an idiot, slowly folding in on himself, broken pieces overlapping and deteriorating until he finds himself needing more of the strong and bitter taste of alcohol on his tongue.

Maybe it would be strong enough to make him forget.

Dragging his almost lifeless body to the kitchen, he swings open the fridge door recklessly, because that’s how much care he has left in his body – none.

But instead of beer cans, he finds homemade side dishes and some kimchi in a Tupperware.

It took him a few days and endless hours of sleeping before he finally finds himself standing at Baekhyun’s front door.

It didn’t hit him straight away after the fight, but when he woke up in the morning, there’s a sharp pain in his chest he could not quite explain – one that makes it hard for him to do anything.

There’s the constant need to check his phone every few minutes with a secret hope hanging from his body that he’d find a text from Baekhyun. Maybe some of the cute emojis he likes to send. But it’s been over 40 hours and there has not been a single notification.

Just like that, a huge presence became absent from his life. A big hole had been dug into his heart, so wide and empty that no amount of sleep or alcohol could fill it in, and winter started looking more dead than ever.

It had irked him quite a lot, like the buzzing of an annoying mosquito in his ear, that there are problems left unresolved with Baekhyun. It was never his intention to hurt him – No, Chanyeol never wanted to do that.

But the taunting had sucked the life out of him that day, drinking every last drop of blood, and now that he’s regained the least bit of himself and stopped waking up in cold sweat, he decides to go before the regret eats him whole.

So, here he is, hands in his pockets, trying to fix things.

Baekhyun’s grandma opens the door for him. She’s a sweet lady, her voice gentle and her eyes bright, just like those of her grandson’s. The wrinkles on her face have not stripped away the youth in her, and she has a very distinct way of building warm conversations over her famous cookies.

However, Chanyeol’s not there for tea and cake that day.

The person he’s come to see meets him by the staircase and only gestures for him to come upstairs.

Once the door closes behind them, the room is blanketed in tense silence and fleeting eye contacts, none wanting to initiate the opening to a conversation they know is unavoidable at this point.

Chanyeol gulps, trying to force the words from the tip of his tongue, but all he finds himself doing is opening his mouth with no sound coming out.

“Are you feeling okay now?” Baekhyun asks, startling the life out of Chanyeol.

He fumbles for a moment, clearing his throat. “Oh, uh, a bit better.”

“Did you eat?”

“Y-Yea. Thank you. For, uhm, the food.”

“My grandma made them for you.”

“I should thank her.”

“Yea, yea, you should.”

It’s awkward and weird, not knowing what to say when he knows his conversations with Baekhyun are supposed to revolve around pointless jokes and on-the-whim deep talks, and he knows he can tell him everything, but something about doing such simple and normal things seem so hard that particular day.

He sees the way Baekhyun nervously rubs his arms, eyes turning downcast as he finds the floor fascinating, and then it occurs to him there are so many things he needs Baekhyun to know – that he’s sorry, that he never meant harm, that he never wants to see him cry.

In the end, after wrestling his thoughts for a minute or so, he says, “I… I’m sorry. I know you must have been scared, and that’s my fault… I never wanted to do that to you, Baekhyun. I’m sorry… Really.”

Baekhyun nods, still fiddling with the hem of his cardigan. “I’m sorry, too. For getting so worked up at you.”

“Your anger was reasonable.”

“And so was your annoyance. It must have been a tough few days,” Baekhyun lifts his head up and smiles. “I’m sorry, too.”

The effect Baekhyun’s smile has on him has not changed one bit. It still unravels a feeling of comfort and security, like a warm blanket being draped over his shoulders. It calms his demons down and chases them away like the last of a deadly winter storm.

And God, how did the thought of breaking up with him even managed to slip its way through his mind that day? It just doesn’t make sense.

“I never meant it when I asked about the breakup…” Chanyeol tells him.

At that, Baekhyun seems to let out a deep breath, like he had been waiting for that exact sentence to present itself. Nodding, he says, “That was scary.”

So, Chanyeol does the only thing he could think of; he opens his arms and invites Baekhyun in for a hug.

And when he steps into his embrace, it’s almost an instant reaction. Air rushes into his lungs and the soft sunlight peeks through the cracks of his broken shell, and as he wraps his arms around Baekhyun tightly, all of his ugly thoughts are washed away, seeping into the ground to be buried.

Everything feels right again.

Baekhyun squeezes his torso before he looks up, placing his chin on Chanyeol’s chest.

“Happy birthday, Chanyeol,” he whispers.

Chanyeol leans down until their foreheads touch and his nose brushes against Baekhyun’s, softly acknowledging the little twinkle in his eyes.

With a shaky breath and a fragile whisper, Chanyeol answers him. “Thank you, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun places an array of beautiful flowers before the stone. Then, he gets something out of his pocket – a picture – and puts it down next to the bouquet.

“I went with Chanyeol to the festival!” he tells Chanyeol’s parents. “It was beautiful, and don’t worry, I promise you he had the time of his life.”

Chanyeol lets out a chuckle. “I really did.”

“See!” he boasts. “I’ll make him happy, I promise.”

Chanyeol tightens his scarf before kneeling down beside Baekhyun.

“Don’t worry, mom. He’s very good at keeping promises, too.”

Baekhyun nudges Chanyeol playfully before pulling the beanie over his head. A cold kiss is placed on his temple – short and quick – before Baekhyun stands up and pats his shoulder.

“I’ll wait in the car. You look like you have something you want to talk about with them,” he says.

“Mhm.”

It never fails to amaze Chanyeol how much Baekhyun had memorized him. His little habits, his likes and dislikes, it’s like Baekhyun had a special place to store all those extra information that everyone else deemed unimportant. Not that Chanyeol’s complaining, though. He, too, has learned to watch Baekhyun and record everything he does, all the way down to his little sleeping habits and cute quirks.

As Baekhyun walks away, Chanyeol plops onto the snow-covered ground.

He remembered how exactly a year ago, things changed in the blink of an eye, in a split second, just overnight, and how he was left not knowing what to do.

There had been no manuals, no guidelines. No manuscripts to tell him how he was supposed to continue living. All he knew was that one day, he woke up and his house had been emptied.

The warm hands of his mother and the disciplined voice of his father is gone, dead, buried 6 feet underground and no one had told him how he was supposed to operate; how he was supposed to grieve, or mourn, or do anything.

For what felt like the longest time, Chanyeol was living behind shadows of a ghost, inside the empty shell of a man he once was, and he thought that that was the only way to be. Because he did not deserve to be jumping around in happiness when his parents had just been snatched away from him.

But Baekhyun, like a breath of fresh air, told him the opposite. He told Chanyeol that happiness should not be followed by guilt, because whatever the hell happened, happened anyway. It’s not changeable.

It’s shitty. And it hurts. And it destroys.

So, yes, the tragedy had left him broken. It ripped away all the joy he once had with no mercy and no second chances.

But Baekhyun taught Chanyeol happiness could still be found. He taught Chanyeol that good things can still happen, and after everything he’s experienced with Baekhyun, he knows one thing for sure.

He leans closer to the stone, dusts off a little snow, and tells his parents, “Mom, dad, that’s Byun Baekhyun… And I will marry him one day.”

It’s sometime in mid-December of 2020 that Chanyeol decides to move.

The warm sunlight bounces off his cheeks in the incredibly cold weather as he trips over broken cobblestones to get back to his house. The two-story building he has called home is situated in a neighborhood currently void of indistinct conversations and children’s laughter that he was so used to. Maybe it’s because everything is below freezing temperature that nobody’s showing their face. Either way, it’s not important to him.

“C’mon, pup, let’s get inside. Your little paws must be freezing cold.”

He tugs at the leash slightly when Zzar decides to take a detour to sniff the dead plants barely emerging from under the inches think snow. Chanyeol looks around once more; there’s nothing else in his vision other than white.

Even though the scenery is at a loss for colors, he still finds that the snow puts a smile on his face. The blizzard that had flown past the city last night left remnants of a winter wonderland behind, coating all rooftops and cars in a mini form of an avalanche. Chanyeol blows out a gust of breathe, watching as the grey smoke shapes ghostly figures that dance before him.

It’s almost Christmas again.

Zzar hops on all 4 into the warmth of their home.

Chanyeol looks around. There are boxes everywhere, brown cardboards all filled to the brim with his stuff and taped neatly. All he needs to do is just hoard them onto a truck and get moving.

He’s been thinking about it some time, about how he wants to venture into new land and gain new opportunities. Not to mention how a famous company had contracted him, offering an extremely good deal in exchange for his skills.

It’s a little sad and daunting to think about how he wouldn’t be seeing his neighbors anymore, or how he won’t hear them laughing over lame jokes at dawn, but he knows there are things he wants to do. New experiences that awaits him. And he doesn’t want to regret not taking such a big leap when given the chance.

But before that, there’s something else he’s been wanting to do for a very, very long time.

“How do you think I look, Zzar?” he asks his pup as he fixes his hair in the mirror once more. A nervousness settles into his gut, and he’s reminded of the times he spent pacing in his room before asking Baekhyun out.

There’s a beautiful bouquet on his bed; the ultimate mix of oranges and whites and soft pinks and strong reds. All of the colors that would normally represent spring, he has them tied in a bouquet now – because he knows just how much Baekhyun loves that season.

He checks his phone once more, to make sure the text message from Baekhyun is still very much there and that his mind did not hallucinate the words instead.

“I hope he’ll be happy,” he tells Zzar before grabbing the bouquet and giving Sir Brown a pat on the head.

The winter heat is comforting against his skin as he walks to the café they first hung out together (also, coincidentally, the same place he had asked Baekhyun out.) There’s a new graffiti on the wall, drawn over the spectacular image of a man stepping on bird poop, covering it in different shades of bright yellow.

The soft chime of a bell greets him as he enters before the scent of freshly baked pastries smother his nose. He sees Baekhyun typing into his phone at one of the tables, just by the window, and he gives Zzar one more look of determination before making his way there.

“Hey.”

Baekhyun looks up, eyes softening into a smile when he realizes it’s Chanyeol. “Hi.”

Chanyeol takes a seat across from Baekhyun. “These are for you,” he says as he places the bouquet on the table.

“Aw, you really didn’t have to. But I must say, the flowers are beautiful.”

“Just like you.”

Baekhyun giggles adorably as he turns away, a pink blush landing on his cheeks. “You’re still telling me that after years.”

“Because nothing about that has changed,” he replies almost immediately.

It’s true. Even though there are faint eye lines showing when he smiles, nothing about it has changed the perfection Baekhyun is in his eyes. He’s just crafted so delicately, hand-made by the Gods to such an excellent and magnificent picture.

He shakes off his thoughts when Baekhyun’s voice comes ringing in his ears again.

“I ordered coffee. Do you want some?”

“No, no. It’s okay. I’m not really in the mood for coffee,” he replies with a smile. “I actually have something I want to tell you.”

“Hm?” Baekhyun leans forward, resting his cheek on his hand.

Even after years, the effect he has on Chanyeol is still incredibly strong, sending little lightnings up his body and making him lose his confidence for a moment.

Clearing his throat, Chanyeol finally finds it in him to say, “Uhm… Congratulations on your wedding.”

The smile on Baekhyun’s face is soft, yet at the same time, refracts so many things he could not put into words. But that’s okay, because Chanyeol still understands his silence.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t attend. I had something really important to do that day.”

The smaller male shakes his head. “It’s okay, really! I’m just happy you want to see me again.”

“I wanted to see you, you know, one last time before I leave.”

Baekhyun’s eyes widen in surprise. He straightens his back. “You’re leaving?”

“Yea,” he laughs awkwardly. “I’m moving to Japan. It’s kind of overdue, too, I mean, I planned on moving there years ago actually.”

“Oh...” Then he nods. “I’m happy for you, Chanyeol! Although I know I’ll miss having you around so much.”

“I’ll miss you too. Lots.”

There’s a moment of silence as the snow starts to fall gently outside. There’s the sound of laughter somewhere from inside the café, and a couple taking pictures across the street, but all Chanyeol could focus on is Baekhyun, trying to memorize all that he is for the last time.

After he finishes engraving Baekhyun’s details into his heart, he pats his hand on his laps and stands up. “Well… I better get going if I don’t want to miss my flight.”

Baekhyun mimics his movements and pulls him in for a hug. Long enough to satisfy Chanyeol and quick enough to not leave him wanting for more.

“Don’t forget to be happy, yea?”

“You, too, Baekhyun. You deserve all the happiness.”

“Go take on the world, Park Chanyeol.”

As he walks away from Baekhyun, his steps are light and there’s a contentment in his heart he could not quite put into words. The feeling is new, strange, foreign, but not in a bad way. It gives him a peculiar kind of happiness and satisfaction, like he had just completed an epic story, won the biggest battles of his life, and wrapped those words up to be told as a fairytale for his next generations.

A smile lands on his lips.

Baekhyun had been put into his life like a plot twist, turning everything around and bringing the good back into it. And although the love and respect he has for the smaller male still burns passionately, he knows some people are meant to be the best chapter in your story – the ones you find yourself thinking about from time to time – not your happily ever after.

And that’s okay. Because after years of knowing Baekhyun, Chanyeol has mastered the art of not asking the universe why things turned out the way they did.