Chapter Text
The town is about thirty years passed being considered old. It's one of those towns where every home is associated with a certain family name, and will continue to be for generations and generations. There are gravel driveways and too many trees and crumbling roads that wrap around the mountains like spiral staircases. Closer to the center of town, the trees dissipate a bit. There's more room for things, like the general store that sells everything from milk and eggs to flowers to gasoline. In the heart of town there's also a school that teaches every grade because only about two hundred children live in the town and a book store that exclusively sells books from the previous decade and prior. The last building before the road continues on towards a dead end is a restaurant. The restaurant has been run by the Do family for about as long as the town has existed. It's also burned down twice.
The first time it burned, it was all anyone talked about. In a town where the gossip is normally centered around how someone got pregnant or someone left, an entire restaurant burning down is the headlining event for a while. It took a few weeks to rebuild the first time, back in the eighties. The second time around, only two years ago, it burned again. Everyone got out with little injuries, except for the son who ended up with bad burns on his face and down his left side. When he was airlifted to the nearest hospital, everyone was sure he would take it as an opportunity to leave. A month later, though, he was back in the restaurant taking orders, flesh pink and sore still. The Do family needed all the hands they could get to bring in money to pay for damages and hospital bills.
By far, though, the biggest gossip of the town has always been the Byun family. There’s only one road that leads into town, a left after a forgotten exit off the highway where most people only go right when they reach the fork in the road. Ten miles down that street and fifteen miles before the town is a bed and breakfast that was once run by the Byun family. That is, it was before the mother took off with another woman, leaving her husband and two young sons behind to run the slowly dying inn by themselves. Three years later, the father passed away. Really it was an illness that took him, but the townsfolk swear it was from a broken heart. The two brothers tried their best at keeping the bed and breakfast running, but eventually the eldest left for the city too. His eyes were set on a degree in law from a major university. Left on his own, the youngest son keeps it going. He’s a cheerful man going by the name of Baekhyun. Baekhyun is completely content with his quiet life in the empty, forgotten bed and breakfast.
The house has four rooms. One of the rooms in the back of the house, the smallest, is Baekhyun's. It's decorated nicely and kept very clean along with the rest of the house. Inside he has a twin-sized bed with white sheets that match the ones in the rooms he rents out. There are pictures of him and his family, back from when they were all together, on the walls. A radio sits on the dresser alongside a TV that he hasn't turned on in a very long time. The window sits open almost constantly, blowing a breeze across the piano that rests against the wall.
Two of the guest rooms are identical; queen sized beds with an abundance of pillows. There's a bathroom across the hall from the rooms with two sinks and a shower separate from the tub. Each room comes with a radio and a TV, though there aren't many channels so far away from any towers. There's internet access, but Baekhyun keeps it turned off until guests come. He hasn't used it in five years.
The last guest room is technically the attic, but it looks nothing like one. There's a king-sized bed and a full bathroom that’s connected to the room. The walls are painted a beautiful shade of lilac and a long window stretches across almost the entirety of the far one. Of course, all one can really see out of the window is trees. It doesn't make it any less beautiful, though.
Baekhyun turns the rooms once a week, alternating which one he dusts and washes the sheets in depending on the day. It's one of the few things that keeps him busy as he spends each day alone. On occasion, he runs to the store in town, praying that no one shows up while he is away. He'll pick up groceries to last him a while, and some flowers to place on the bedside tables of each room. Yixing down at the general store always sends him home with beautiful arrangements of hydrangea and fern leaves and baby's breath. They complement the decor so well, and Yixing never gets tired of making the usual arrangement.
Baekhyun is twenty-six and sitting in the garden amongst trees long dead from the wisteria clung to them when he sees the first car in half a decade. A station wagon pulls into the rocky driveway from the road, and it takes everything within Baekhyun not to jump up to his feet and run to the car. The poor vehicle looks like it might combust at any moment, rattling and chugging and honestly making Baekhyun a bit nervous. He makes his way to the porch to wait for the stranger instead.
The wagon shuts off with a noise that sounds an awful lot like it just heaved its last bit of life and a man steps out. He's tall, taller than the car by a good amount, and pulls no bags out of his car before starting up the driveway. Seemingly friendly, he offers Baekhyun a closed-lipped smile and a wave when he notices him on the porch swing.
"Here to stay?" Baekhyun asks politely when the man reaches him, offering a bright smile that he hopes is just the right amount of charming. He takes a long look at the stranger, noticing his strikingly boyish features for someone that can't be younger than twenty-three. Chocolate hair is rustled on top of his head and he is dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a hoodie. Baekhyun hasn't met many people from the city, but he can tell with one glance that this man came from there.
The man adjusts a pair of large headphones around his neck. "Stay?" He inquires as he looks up at the white paneled house. The "Byun's Bed and Breakfast" sign sways in the wind. His mouth forms a perfect O.
"Or maybe you need help with something?" Baekhyun giggles behind his hand.
The guest looks back at his car, pointing at it with his thumb, before looking at Baekhyun with pink cheeks and ears and letting out this breathless sort of laugh. It's just at the halfway point between beautiful and stunning. "My car– The interstate– Can you point me in the direction of where I can get some gas?"
He's cute, Baekhyun thinks, with his bashful demeanor and young features. He stands up off the swing, walks into the orange light of the setting sun, "Could you give me the time?"
"Oh, yeah. Sure!"
Baekhyun waits in silence as the man just kind of stares at him. "Um..." he starts and tries not to laugh again.
"Time!" the man exclaims, and pulls a cellphone out of his pocket, nearly dropping it in the process. "Right. It's six-thirty."
"The general store is about fifteen miles straight down this road," Baekhyun informs him. "Unfortunately," he begins, right as the man was getting ready to thank him and take off. "It's not open on Sundays."
"Not even the pumps?" He asks in a horribly pitiful voice, lower lip jutting out just the tiniest bit and bringing Baekhyun's attention to it.
His eyes shift from lingering on his lip and back to the tall man's eyes. "We don't do much around here on Sundays. Call us old fashioned," he laughs. "Somewhere to be?"
The man nods but shrugs at the same time, looking very confused. He turns and stares at his car for a while, and Baekhyun stares at the way the sky is a beautifully soft pink along the horizon. It's the same color as the inner portion of the hydrangea petals he loves so dearly. Fingers rake through his hair as he mumbles to himself.
"How much for a night?" The man asks, and he sounds so stressed that Baekhyun couldn't possibly bring himself to charge him. So he waves him off and gestures for the man to follow him inside, just happy to have someone to talk to.
The man looks around the house with this sort of awe in his eyes as if he has never seen anything other than tiny studio apartments. He scans over the wooden dining table, slender fingers ghosting over the varnish. They trace over picture frames and trinkets and everything he can get his hands on. At the desk in the office that Baekhyun brings him to, he stares at the family pictures for the business through the generations and the maps of the town. Baekhyun comes up behind him with a contract and a pen.
"This one is from 2001 before they put in the highway," he points to the first map. "This one is 2002. That's when our town went a bit downhill."
He looks at it longingly, the first one that is, before he notices the other man staring at him and looks away, trying to lighten up. Baekhyun sits back at the desk and pulls out another chair for his guest to sit in.
"I just need to fill out your contract," he starts. "I won't charge you for anything tonight unless there's damages, so it's just a precautionary measure. Okay?"
The man nods energetically.
"So– Name?"
"Chanyeol," he answers too fast. "Chanyeol Park."
"Chanyeol..." Baekhyun repeats, rolling the syllables through his brain and deciding he liked the way they came out of his mouth. "As you could probably decipher from the sign out front, my surname is Byun, but please just call me Baekhyun. Phone number?"
The pattern continued, Baekhyun asking for little details and Chanyeol spitting them back in earnest. Chanyeol's signature at the bottom of the sheet was rushed, looking more like scribbles than anything else. Baekhyun smiled at it. Then they sat in the office for a bit longer while Chanyeol asked about the pictures on the wall in a timid tone, and Baekhyun reveled in the fact that he was no longer alone– at least for a night.
"So you've never left this town?" Chanyeol asks, voice an octave higher in disbelief while he stands at the kitchen counter. Baekhyun had offered to make him dinner and he gladly accepted, alerting Baekhyun that he hadn't eaten since he left that morning.
"Nope, I like it here."
"Haven't you ever thought about it, though?"
"Not really," Baekhyun admits. It's true, too. When he was little he thought about it, but then the city took away his mother. Following her departure, it took his brother. Suddenly, the city didn't seem all that appealing to him. He always thought of himself as the only one to look after the house in his father's memory, so there was little desire to go anywhere else.
Over dinner Baekhyun learned a lot about Chanyeol. The more he spoke, the less clumsy his words and actions became. Every bite seemed to loosen him up more and more, to the point of him speaking practically nonstop and Baekhyun only having a few moments to throw in delighted chuckles. Baekhyun learned that he just graduated with his Master's from a fancy school in New York, majoring in some type of musical thing that Baekhyun didn't understand. A few of his friends were heading south for a while to celebrate, and somehow he ended up going north. It happened by accident and he didn't mind much because it was a beautiful drive. Then he started to run low on gas and his car was making weird noises so he took the first exit he saw, ending up at the Byun's Bed and Breakfast. Chanyeol talks about his dog that he misses, and his sister back home. He talks a lot, but Baekhyun likes the sound of his voice throughout the kitchen. It's different from the radio he listens to on occasion, low and smooth rather than broken up by static.
"In the morning," Baekhyun says while placing two plates of thin slices of pie down at opposite ends of the table. "I'll drive you into town so you can bring back some gas. There are a few things I need too." He looks at his wilting flowers, catches the petals on his fingertips, and decides it's time to pay Yixing a visit anyways.
Chanyeol eats, thanking Baekhyun after nearly every bite. He tells him he loves the food, loves the inn, loves that he got lost. "Where did you learn to cook?"
"Everyone knows how to cook in small towns."
He nods like he understands. "I have spent the last two years of my life in a tiny apartment with three other guys and we lived off of pizza and instant ramen."
Baekhyun laughs, a pretty, light little sound. "City life sounds tragic."
"Mostly just college life."
Baekhyun never got to go, couldn't even dream of it. It would have been leaving home, anyways. His brother went. That's why he never came back.
A fork gets dropped on the floor, followed by Chanyeol rushing to pick it up as he stutters out something about a piano. He's too excited, standing up and rushing his plate to the sink where he sort of half-rinses it and then scurries back through the dining room and into the living area. Baekhyun follows in confusion. He takes his plate with him though and leans with his hip against the doorway, a playful smirk on his lips once he understands. Chanyeol hovers above an upright piano that he must have glanced at from his place at the table. "Do you play?" He eagerly asks. "Can I play?"
"I know how," Baekhyun answers vaguely while shoving his fork in his mouth, and then nods in approval for Chanyeol to go ahead and play.
Chanyeol all but slams himself down on the bench. He presses two whole keys before he stops abruptly, stands up, and looks at Baekhyun with very guilty eyes. "It's out of tune," he mumbles, like it’s his fault.
Baekhyun chuckles, continues eating after a brief shrug.
"You could have warned me," the other pouts.
"There's another one in my room. You can play it if you'd like. I keep that one tuned."
Chanyeol raises a finger in question of what direction to go in order to find Baekhyun's room, and the latter nods his head to get Chanyeol to follow him to the second door passed the kitchen. When he opens the door, the window lets air in that blows the sheer curtains around the piano and the moon casts a surreal glow around it. Chanyeol walks to this one much slower, runs his fingertips over the sleek, dark stain of the wood. He presses a key, revels in the beautiful sound it produces, especially in comparison to the piano in the living room. Without even sitting down or turning on a light Chanyeol begins to play. Baekhyun watches from his place by the door. He plays a song that Baekhyun knows fairly well. It's quite the sight, quite the sound.
He was five years old when his mother first sat him down at that piano and took his hands in hers. She curled his fingers into a fist aside from one and pushed his finger into the keys, guiding his hand to play a small tune. "Look at you," she told him. "A real virtuoso." Baekhyun taught himself how to play after that, though he hasn't actually touched the piano other than to tune it since his mother left. It's a painful reminder, only making him angry in place of where it used to calm him.
Chanyeol’s playing is choppy, and not in a good, intended way. It's like the playing of someone who has only just started learning.
"Pretty," Chanyeol says as if making a decision. "Will you play?"
Baekhyun shakes his head, "I don't particularly feel like playing tonight."
"Please?"
"Look," Baekhyun starts, turning his hands palm up and stretching them out towards Chanyeol. "My fingers are broken." Aside from a Band-Aid wrapped around his left pinky, the fingers were fine.
Chanyeol smiled pitifully at Baekhyun’s hands and then met his eyes, realizing and understanding that he wouldn't be hearing the inn owner play any time soon.
"Should I show you your room?"
It takes about three minutes for Chanyeol to jog out to his car and come back with a backpack with frayed straps and a guitar case covered in stickers from places around the world. Baekhyun looks at the stickers in wonder. How could Chanyeol have been to so many places while Baekhyun has hardly even left the house? He follows Baekhyun up the staircase and then around to a second staircase that was clearly not in the original house design. The wood was different, lighter. Baekhyun takes him to the big suite. He had just turned it over that same morning.
"It's so big," Chanyeol mutters. "Are you sure you want me in this one?"
"I cleaned this one recently, so it's the least stuffy."
Chanyeol sets his backpack down beside the bed and then sets the case down on the bed, already undoing the clasps. "Thanks again," he says without looking at Baekhyun, tone returning to that same bashful quietness as when he’d first arrived.
Baekhyun smiles. "If you need anything, just let me know. Goodnight."
He closes the door and begins back down the stairs, happy when he can hear the faint sound of guitar chords through the walls.