The Honest Heart (I'll Follow You to the End of the World)
Author: ANONYMOUS
Recipient: luharies
Title: The Honest Heart (I'll Follow You to the End of the World)
Word Counts: 3,534
Side Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Sehun, super minor Kai/Baekhyun
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Character death/ disease / potential trigger warning? Not sure.
Disclaimer:The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Baekhyun is a fairy and Chanyeol is his Peter Pan.
Author's Note: Thank you so much to the mods of this fic exchange for being so patient with me! I had so much to do, and I didn't expect all these deadliens to happen at once for school, so I got backed up, but the mods were extremely awesome! I don't think I followed the prompt all too well, but I tried... It didn't come out exactly like I wanted it to, but it got the gist of it? I hope at least some of you like it!
FLIGHT 01
The first time he meets him, Baekhyun is only seven years old and sitting with a children’s book on his lap. It’s a borrowed book from the small library that the orphanage has managed to put together. He’s sipping his apple juice and sitting quietly by himself in the library, away from prying eyes. It’s a safe haven for children like him, children who will never be adopted, children who will never be loved, children, he thinks, who will never be remembered.
It’s not that Baekhyun is a very pessimistic person, or maybe he is, but he won’t ever admit to it. It’s just that the likelihood that he’ll be adopted is so small and all those years of trying to look good for people just so that they can spare him a single glance and hopefully decide he’ll be their perfect child has damaged his sensitive heart. He finds it so much easier to hold no expectations or hope, because all he’ll feel are more scars carving themselves into the black char he calls a heart when he’s let down, again.
He’s only seven years old, and he’s finished with this life. He’s tired, exhausted, and edging on shattered. He doesn’t belong here, not in this world, but here he is, flipping the pages of a book that others would only consider fiction, but to him is a tale of history, marked in the dark black ink scattered across colorful drawings in the old worn book. It’s a book that reminds him of his biological parents, the ones that gave him up for this world in the hopes that he’d have a better life, to give him opportunities he could never have if he were to live with them in their tattered world.
He’s lived only seven years, but he’s already lost the child-like innocence and has settled with a broken childhood. Baekhyun knows what he is, and he knows he’s different. That’s why he doesn’t ask for more. He isn’t special in the way that every person has unique characteristics that make them shine, no, Baekhyun is cursed. He’s carrying the burden of a bloodline of species that has been shoved aside in the ever evolving society and forgotten, only to be recreated in fantasy novels as creatures that grant wishes with wands and fly around without a care in the world.
Baekhyun is a fairy, wings, pixie dust, and short stature. He has them all.
He dreams of flying, higher than the rest. Soaring into the sky and fighting with the birds. He knows he’s a fairy, it doesn’t matter what anyone says. His love for flying, jumping off rooftops, and imagining the clear blue sky just within his reach says it all. He is a fairy, and no amount of “Baekhyun, stop it. You need to stop this insanity!” when he’s teetering at the edge of the rooftop is going to stop him from believing it.
Baekhyun has wings. He can feel them sprouting, ever so small on his back, waiting for him to mature so that he can spread them and disappear into the waiting blue sky.
They’re there. Invisible, untouchable, and weightless, but they’re there. He knows.
Baekhyun is a fairy, and no one likes him.
FLIGHT 01.2
So when the kid who just came into the orphanage the other day decides to noisily sit down next to him, knocking over a few books on the shelf and accidentally nudging Baekhyun in the ribs with his elbow as he finally settles down, Baekhyun is two thirds surprised and one third peeved. In all six years that he’s been here, no one has bothered to befriend him, and he has returned the favor by ignoring their existence. It’s a silent agreement because in every group, there is always one outsider, and he had been picked out of the random children’s lottery to be that weirdo that sits in the back and occasionally gets bullied. Yet here is this kid, giving him one of the toothiest smiles he’s ever seen and knocking shoulders with him as if they were best friends.
“How was last night?” The strange kid asks, and Baekhyun tilts his head to the right, confused with the oddly simple question and what he could possibly be referring to.
“Last night?” He repeats after him.
“Yeah, what’d you dream about last night?” This awkward boy is grinning at him and twitching an eyebrow up and down at him as if hinting toward a secret only they knew.
“Nothing.”
“What? No! That’s boring! I had this awesome dream where some pirates were trying to shoot me down with cannons and there were these mermaids that were vicious, but I was trying to save one of them or something. It was so cool! You should have seen it!” He speaks with an enthusiasm Baekhyun could never find in himself, and although it’s only been a minute into their conversation, Baekhyun can already feel a smile tugging at his own lips.
“Really?” He asks.
“Seriously!”
And suddenly they’re close friends sharing stories from their imagination and creating fictional worlds that involve just the two of them and a bunch of mythical creatures.
Four days of friendship with this boy, this Chanyeol, or Yeollie Pan, as he likes to be called, and it’s like they’ve known each other forever. Baekhyun has finally found someone he feels comfortable with in this human world.
But it’s only four days of friendship and nothing more because the day after that, Chanyeol is adopted and Baekhyun isn’t even given the chance to say bye to him.
The children’s book he borrowed from the library is gone with Chanyeol. Peter Pan has left him alone, but Baekhyun takes it all in, releases a sigh, and fills the emptiness with hope for another meeting with a dopey eyed Dumbo that smiled like it was his first day on Earth.
Baekhyun is a fairy, and he’s left a feather in the pocket of his light to guide him to that meeting place far in the future when Baekhyun can go find his Peter Pan again.
FLIGHT 02
It’s been 12 years since then, and Baekhyun is out of the orphanage. As unwanted as ever before and with as many friends as he could possibly have in a place that hated him more than his parents did to leave him here. He is 19, renting out a small room for $400 monthly, and eating slices of bread daily to save money. School is his priority and he’s drowning in loans, breaking down every now and then, so tempted to take that flying leap off the highest building and fly away into another world where bills and deadlines aren’t chasing after him on a daily basis.
He finds a second job to help him through the extra bills this month, serving haughty old couples as they enter the Italian dining hall, treating him more like a slave than a human being. He endures the snide comments at his shitty life, and ignores the feeling of death that hugs him from behind as he loses his touch with his heart when he realizes not many people have one. They just like to think they do.
He’s serving a rich family of four, the two kids squawking loudly and ignoring their awfully mannered parents in favor of pulling at each other’s hair and kicking food to the floor. He can feel his patience running thin, and he suddenly remembers that assignment that’s due the next day that he forgot to write up before he got to work. He’s sweating bullets, losing his mind after being slammed with shitty tables that call his name out as if they were ringing a bell for their slave. Today is a bad day and Baekhyun can’t help but think that every day is.
“Baekhyun. You have another table. Table G6 is yours.” The host runs up to him, tosses him a smirk, raises his eyebrows and adds, “Those dudes are hot. Too bad they’re together.”
“G6. Got it.” Baekhyun doesn’t even bothering replying or making conversation. He’s too busy and he doesn’t care what the customer looks like as long as they tip him well. That, and he doesn’t give a shit about anything the host says except for what tables are his.
Baekhyun walks over to the table, more like a quick scurry over, his small stature and form rushing over and stumbling on his feet a little to give a quick bow and ask for drinks. “Hello. Welcome to Bambino! My name is Baekhyun and I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you two anything to drink?”
Sitting before him are two beautiful men. One with bronze hair, shining in the artificial lighting as if he were meant to be a recently shined medal waving under the lights, his ears too big on his head, and his smile reaching from ear to ear, the man looks up at Baekhyun and Baekhyun can’t help losing his breath. The other is platinum blonde, a bored look in his eyes as he scans the menu, just as gorgeous, with every movement looking like the action of a Greek god.
“Hi! I’ll have water please! Oh, oh! I also have a few questions, if you don’t mind. I know you might be busy, so I won’t mind waiting a bit.” The brown haired handsome being sitting to Baekhyun’s left says, all polite and wonderful. It’s the first time Baekhyun has been so mesmerized by someone before.
“I want whatever house red wine you have. Thanks.” The blonde one doesn’t even bother looking at Baekhyun to place his order, but Baekhyun doesn’t mind. He’s too busy studying every feature on the brown-haired man’s face. He looks so familiar, but then, Baekhyun doesn’t even have friends so that can’t be possible.
“Sehun, you’re as rude as ever.” The brown haired man comments, as he smirks at the man before him.
“Chanyeol, you’re nagging me as always.”
Chanyeol.
He’s Chanyeol.
FLIGHT 03
Another three years has passed since the coincidental meeting at the restaurant, Chanyeol, a sophisticated and friendly business man, taking his date out. Baekhyun was the sad waiter that shut his mouth and treated them like any other customer.
They came, ate, and left, leaving a tip too much for their relatively small tab.
Chanyeol wouldn’t remember him anyway.
Since then, he hasn’t seen them and he’s left his job, opting for a place where he can really tinker with machines. His favorite thing to do. He’s a computer engineer at a small company, and he’s content with the life he has.
It’s normal, and normal is best for someone like him.
Everything in life is coincidental, and one day, Baekhyun meets Jongin.
They’re on relatively good terms at work. Jongin is in the next department and needed help with his computer. They sometimes eat lunch together, and Baekhyun likes his smile. It’s nice. It shines a little and his laugh is always hearty, but it doesn’t reach from ear to ear like he’d like. Then again, he’s probably caught up on a past love that doesn’t even exist anymore.
“You should come hang out with my friends this Saturday after work. We bought a bunch of beer and getting together at my friend’s place. It’s going to be super chill.” Normally, Baekhyun rejects all invitations like these. They’re annoying, but Jongin is the closest thing he has to a friend. Someone that talks to him without asking him for anything besides his company.
“Sure.”
It’s at the gathering that Baekhyun catches another glimpse of familiar brown hair.
“Hi.” Baekhyun’s voice is small, soft and light, carried away by the wind.
“Hi! Welcome to my place!” Chanyeol’s voice is booming, and his smile reaches from ear to ear. His eyes are twinkling, and Baekhyun feels free. From what, he doesn’t know himself, but it feels like he’s just been thrown years back to that time when Chanyeol was his best friend for a few days.
Back when Chanyeol had sprinkled him with magic that had freed him from the clutches of reality, and Baekhyun had in turn given Chanyeol the key to flying away.
“I work with Jongin, and uhhh… I just came to say hi and meet all his friends I guess.” Baekhyun is shy.
“Well Jongin’s coworkers are his friends, and his friends are my friends, so welcome!” Chanyeol is beaming at him, waving his long noodle arms around while gesturing wildly, as friendly as he can be.
“Shut up Chanyeol.” A blonde haired man walks by, making snide comments as he slithers on.
“Don’t be scary like that Sehun!” It’s the same young man he’d seen Chanyeol with years before.
“Well come on in! Don’t just stand there! Here’s some beer! Come chat with me!” And all of Chanyeol’s friends are staring as Chanyeol pats the seat next to him, waiting for Baekhyun to sit by him.
Baekhyun is a fairy, and Chanyeol is helping him fly.
FLIGHT 04
They’ve become good friends, Chanyeol always filling in any blank spaces between them with words that paint canvases already full of color. Baekhyun has opened up his heart, and his apartment. A place too small for someone now well off like Chanyeol, but cozy enough that Chanyeol runs in, bundles into the blankets and whines for Baekhyun to look at him as he talks.
Two years of knowing each other and they’re good friends. Baekhyun listens to Chanyeol, and Chanyeol talks to fill the emptiness in Baekhyun’s heart.
“Chanyeol, I’m looking at you. Stop whining.”
“I don’t see you looking at me! Your eyes aren’t staring deep into my soul! They aren’t reflecting the depth of my heartfelt eyeballs!” Chanyeol is rolling on the floor complaining as Baekhyun sighs and kicks at the bundle.
“Look. I’m sitting still. I’m looking at you. At the mess you’re making on my floor.”
“Always so mean! So cold! Don’t stare too hard if you’re going to turn me into ice and destroy my heart!” Chanyeol is kicking his long legs out and dragging Baekhyun forward on his chair.
“Shouldn’t you go see Sehun? Isn’t today your date night with him?” Baekhyun asks.
“Oh yeah! I forgot! I’ll see you later Baek!” And Chanyeol is up and out the door in less than two seconds flat.
Baekhyun is a fairy and Chanyeol has just ripped out one of his feathers.
FLIGHT 05
Baekhyun is 25, having been friends with Chanyeol for three years and being there for the tall lanky guy more than any of his other friends. They’re always together, but Baekhyun isn’t Chanyeol’s date or his best friend.
Chanyeol has a date that he loves and admires in every way. His Wendy, in the form of Oh Sehun. The blonde gorgeous man that throws dirty glares his way as much as possible. Chanyeol has a best friend, Kim Jongin, who Baekhyun likes as friend too. The guy is overly affectionate toward Baekhyun, much more than when they used to only spend their lunch time together.
He protects Baekhyun from the other Lost Boys of the group when Chanyeol is away, and he’s the first to call out for Baekhyun when anything happens. Kim Jongin is perfect, but Baekhyun’s eyes are always looking for his Peter Pan, because Baekhyun is a fairy, and his heart can only hold one person ever. He’s been this way, in love with the memories of a certain someone since he was seven.
So when Chanyeol is diagnosed with Spinocerebellar degeneration, Baekhyun is there, smiling at him and helping him through his day while Chanyeol cries that he’s lost everything.
Chanyeol hasn’t lost him.
FLIGHT 06
Sehun left him six months earlier, unable to handle caring for Chanyeol and having to stay in one place, when all he really wanted to do was travel the world with his loved one. His disease is a lot to handle, and Chanyeol’s speech has significantly slowed. Chanyeol understands and lets him go because love is about letting go sometimes. He’s heard that line in dramas plenty of times, and for the first time he believes it.
It’s time everyone else moves on with their lives, because he just isn’t going to move on from this place in the hospital anymore. The disease is progressing at a rapid rate, and soon he won’t be able to move at all, he’s losing to himself, trapped in this cage within himself.
Jongin visits him sometimes, but his heart misses Sehun
“Hey there buddy. I brought some flowers you hate. I figured it might make you sick enough to move. What do you think?” Baekhyun’s waving a bundle of lilies in his face and smiling at him like always.
“Yo…u… S-s-s…uuu..ck.” Chanyeol’s replies are slow, and sometimes the interns at the hospital treat him like a four year old, but his brain functions just fine. His body just can’t follow, and this irritates Baekhyun more than it bothers Chanyeol. Baekhyun is the only one that treats him like a normal 26 year old.
“You’re welcome. As always. Alright man, you ready for another walk in the park? I know you hate those, but the garden is waiting for you to spit on it. Now come on.” Baekhyun gently lifts Chanyeol’s body out of the bed and on to the waiting wheelchair. Chanyeol’s head bends down and Baekhyun lifts his chin back up, smiling as he begins telling him about his day.
Baekhyun is a fairy, and Chanyeol begins to see the light feathers surrounding him.
FLIGHT 07
They say Chanyeol only has about three months left. It won’t be long before his body gives up on him, but time is nothing to Baekhyun. They have forever together as long as Chanyeol doesn’t mind Baekhyun following him wherever he goes. Baekhyun isn’t sad, and he assures Chanyeol daily that he shouldn’t be either as he talks to him from the chair beside the bed. Chanyeol hasn’t been able to talk for a month now, but he tries his hardest to write words and reply to Baekhyun, his only visitor now.
His adoptive parents are still in New York, too busy to fly back for their ill son, and he doesn’t care. He still loves them for taking care of him as a child, and now that he’s old enough, he lets go of everyone around him. Baekhyun stays though, because Chanyeol can let him go however many times he wants. Baekhyun will still stay.
Something pangs in Chanyeol’s heart, and he feels a tear fall from his right eye as he studies Baekhyun’s tired face from his bed. Chanyeol has loved a few times in his short life and his longest had been his most comfortable relationship, nothing too complicated with Sehun, but here in these past few months and thinking about all the time they’ve spent together, Chanyeol breaks a little more inside.
If Chanyeol could have seen passed his Wendy, he would have noticed little Tinkerbell, following him with every quiet step and showering him with everything he’s ever wanted. He can’t say the words, but he’ll carve them into his heart.
FINAL FLIGHT
Baekhyun holds Chanyeol’s hand and he knows. The words were never exchanged, but he knows. He knows that Tinkerbell has finally been noticed, and he can now fly without wings. He’s free. He is finally free, and no reality can stop him now. They exchange the meanings with little sparkles in their eyes, and Baekhyun showers Chanyeol with the pixie dust he has, his tears covering Chanyeol’s face as he hurriedly wipes them away.
Chanyeol has taken his pixie dust and flown off to Neverland before him. Chanyeol has left little more than a note with three letters on it, “ILY” and flown to the next land over.
Baekhyun is a fairy. He can fly into the bright blue sky whenever he wants to. He’s free to fly. There’s no one holding him back, and his beloved waits for him on the other side. He’s going to stay forever young like Chanyeol, never aging, and always smiling. People move on, but Baekhyun won’t. He’s a fairy because he chose to be. He isn’t cursed anymore.
He can choose to be whatever he wants to be, and Baekhyun is a fairy. He loves to fly, and he can. They can tell him he’s obsessed and crazy, but as long as he has Chanyeol, he’s free.
He walks out onto the rooftop and looks up at the sky that connects him to Chanyeol.
It’s his time to fly.
AFTER FLIGHT
“Hey Baek!” Chanyeol is smiling at him and waving him over, his exaggerated gestures unchanging.
“Hey Yeollie Pan.” Baekhyun smiles back at him.
Baekhyun turns Chanyeol around and grabs the feather of light he’d left in Chanyeol’s pocket years back. Here they are, meeting again, on white clouds and above the open sea. Images of pirate ships and mermaids just below them.
Here is the meeting place Baekhyun had waited for so long to happen.
This is the place they can dream up anything and be together.
Recipient: luharies
Title: The Honest Heart (I'll Follow You to the End of the World)
Word Counts: 3,534
Side Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Sehun, super minor Kai/Baekhyun
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Character death/ disease / potential trigger warning? Not sure.
Disclaimer:The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Baekhyun is a fairy and Chanyeol is his Peter Pan.
Author's Note: Thank you so much to the mods of this fic exchange for being so patient with me! I had so much to do, and I didn't expect all these deadliens to happen at once for school, so I got backed up, but the mods were extremely awesome! I don't think I followed the prompt all too well, but I tried... It didn't come out exactly like I wanted it to, but it got the gist of it? I hope at least some of you like it!
FLIGHT 01
The first time he meets him, Baekhyun is only seven years old and sitting with a children’s book on his lap. It’s a borrowed book from the small library that the orphanage has managed to put together. He’s sipping his apple juice and sitting quietly by himself in the library, away from prying eyes. It’s a safe haven for children like him, children who will never be adopted, children who will never be loved, children, he thinks, who will never be remembered.
It’s not that Baekhyun is a very pessimistic person, or maybe he is, but he won’t ever admit to it. It’s just that the likelihood that he’ll be adopted is so small and all those years of trying to look good for people just so that they can spare him a single glance and hopefully decide he’ll be their perfect child has damaged his sensitive heart. He finds it so much easier to hold no expectations or hope, because all he’ll feel are more scars carving themselves into the black char he calls a heart when he’s let down, again.
He’s only seven years old, and he’s finished with this life. He’s tired, exhausted, and edging on shattered. He doesn’t belong here, not in this world, but here he is, flipping the pages of a book that others would only consider fiction, but to him is a tale of history, marked in the dark black ink scattered across colorful drawings in the old worn book. It’s a book that reminds him of his biological parents, the ones that gave him up for this world in the hopes that he’d have a better life, to give him opportunities he could never have if he were to live with them in their tattered world.
He’s lived only seven years, but he’s already lost the child-like innocence and has settled with a broken childhood. Baekhyun knows what he is, and he knows he’s different. That’s why he doesn’t ask for more. He isn’t special in the way that every person has unique characteristics that make them shine, no, Baekhyun is cursed. He’s carrying the burden of a bloodline of species that has been shoved aside in the ever evolving society and forgotten, only to be recreated in fantasy novels as creatures that grant wishes with wands and fly around without a care in the world.
Baekhyun is a fairy, wings, pixie dust, and short stature. He has them all.
He dreams of flying, higher than the rest. Soaring into the sky and fighting with the birds. He knows he’s a fairy, it doesn’t matter what anyone says. His love for flying, jumping off rooftops, and imagining the clear blue sky just within his reach says it all. He is a fairy, and no amount of “Baekhyun, stop it. You need to stop this insanity!” when he’s teetering at the edge of the rooftop is going to stop him from believing it.
Baekhyun has wings. He can feel them sprouting, ever so small on his back, waiting for him to mature so that he can spread them and disappear into the waiting blue sky.
They’re there. Invisible, untouchable, and weightless, but they’re there. He knows.
Baekhyun is a fairy, and no one likes him.
FLIGHT 01.2
So when the kid who just came into the orphanage the other day decides to noisily sit down next to him, knocking over a few books on the shelf and accidentally nudging Baekhyun in the ribs with his elbow as he finally settles down, Baekhyun is two thirds surprised and one third peeved. In all six years that he’s been here, no one has bothered to befriend him, and he has returned the favor by ignoring their existence. It’s a silent agreement because in every group, there is always one outsider, and he had been picked out of the random children’s lottery to be that weirdo that sits in the back and occasionally gets bullied. Yet here is this kid, giving him one of the toothiest smiles he’s ever seen and knocking shoulders with him as if they were best friends.
“How was last night?” The strange kid asks, and Baekhyun tilts his head to the right, confused with the oddly simple question and what he could possibly be referring to.
“Last night?” He repeats after him.
“Yeah, what’d you dream about last night?” This awkward boy is grinning at him and twitching an eyebrow up and down at him as if hinting toward a secret only they knew.
“Nothing.”
“What? No! That’s boring! I had this awesome dream where some pirates were trying to shoot me down with cannons and there were these mermaids that were vicious, but I was trying to save one of them or something. It was so cool! You should have seen it!” He speaks with an enthusiasm Baekhyun could never find in himself, and although it’s only been a minute into their conversation, Baekhyun can already feel a smile tugging at his own lips.
“Really?” He asks.
“Seriously!”
And suddenly they’re close friends sharing stories from their imagination and creating fictional worlds that involve just the two of them and a bunch of mythical creatures.
Four days of friendship with this boy, this Chanyeol, or Yeollie Pan, as he likes to be called, and it’s like they’ve known each other forever. Baekhyun has finally found someone he feels comfortable with in this human world.
But it’s only four days of friendship and nothing more because the day after that, Chanyeol is adopted and Baekhyun isn’t even given the chance to say bye to him.
The children’s book he borrowed from the library is gone with Chanyeol. Peter Pan has left him alone, but Baekhyun takes it all in, releases a sigh, and fills the emptiness with hope for another meeting with a dopey eyed Dumbo that smiled like it was his first day on Earth.
Baekhyun is a fairy, and he’s left a feather in the pocket of his light to guide him to that meeting place far in the future when Baekhyun can go find his Peter Pan again.
FLIGHT 02
It’s been 12 years since then, and Baekhyun is out of the orphanage. As unwanted as ever before and with as many friends as he could possibly have in a place that hated him more than his parents did to leave him here. He is 19, renting out a small room for $400 monthly, and eating slices of bread daily to save money. School is his priority and he’s drowning in loans, breaking down every now and then, so tempted to take that flying leap off the highest building and fly away into another world where bills and deadlines aren’t chasing after him on a daily basis.
He finds a second job to help him through the extra bills this month, serving haughty old couples as they enter the Italian dining hall, treating him more like a slave than a human being. He endures the snide comments at his shitty life, and ignores the feeling of death that hugs him from behind as he loses his touch with his heart when he realizes not many people have one. They just like to think they do.
He’s serving a rich family of four, the two kids squawking loudly and ignoring their awfully mannered parents in favor of pulling at each other’s hair and kicking food to the floor. He can feel his patience running thin, and he suddenly remembers that assignment that’s due the next day that he forgot to write up before he got to work. He’s sweating bullets, losing his mind after being slammed with shitty tables that call his name out as if they were ringing a bell for their slave. Today is a bad day and Baekhyun can’t help but think that every day is.
“Baekhyun. You have another table. Table G6 is yours.” The host runs up to him, tosses him a smirk, raises his eyebrows and adds, “Those dudes are hot. Too bad they’re together.”
“G6. Got it.” Baekhyun doesn’t even bothering replying or making conversation. He’s too busy and he doesn’t care what the customer looks like as long as they tip him well. That, and he doesn’t give a shit about anything the host says except for what tables are his.
Baekhyun walks over to the table, more like a quick scurry over, his small stature and form rushing over and stumbling on his feet a little to give a quick bow and ask for drinks. “Hello. Welcome to Bambino! My name is Baekhyun and I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get you two anything to drink?”
Sitting before him are two beautiful men. One with bronze hair, shining in the artificial lighting as if he were meant to be a recently shined medal waving under the lights, his ears too big on his head, and his smile reaching from ear to ear, the man looks up at Baekhyun and Baekhyun can’t help losing his breath. The other is platinum blonde, a bored look in his eyes as he scans the menu, just as gorgeous, with every movement looking like the action of a Greek god.
“Hi! I’ll have water please! Oh, oh! I also have a few questions, if you don’t mind. I know you might be busy, so I won’t mind waiting a bit.” The brown haired handsome being sitting to Baekhyun’s left says, all polite and wonderful. It’s the first time Baekhyun has been so mesmerized by someone before.
“I want whatever house red wine you have. Thanks.” The blonde one doesn’t even bother looking at Baekhyun to place his order, but Baekhyun doesn’t mind. He’s too busy studying every feature on the brown-haired man’s face. He looks so familiar, but then, Baekhyun doesn’t even have friends so that can’t be possible.
“Sehun, you’re as rude as ever.” The brown haired man comments, as he smirks at the man before him.
“Chanyeol, you’re nagging me as always.”
Chanyeol.
He’s Chanyeol.
FLIGHT 03
Another three years has passed since the coincidental meeting at the restaurant, Chanyeol, a sophisticated and friendly business man, taking his date out. Baekhyun was the sad waiter that shut his mouth and treated them like any other customer.
They came, ate, and left, leaving a tip too much for their relatively small tab.
Chanyeol wouldn’t remember him anyway.
Since then, he hasn’t seen them and he’s left his job, opting for a place where he can really tinker with machines. His favorite thing to do. He’s a computer engineer at a small company, and he’s content with the life he has.
It’s normal, and normal is best for someone like him.
Everything in life is coincidental, and one day, Baekhyun meets Jongin.
They’re on relatively good terms at work. Jongin is in the next department and needed help with his computer. They sometimes eat lunch together, and Baekhyun likes his smile. It’s nice. It shines a little and his laugh is always hearty, but it doesn’t reach from ear to ear like he’d like. Then again, he’s probably caught up on a past love that doesn’t even exist anymore.
“You should come hang out with my friends this Saturday after work. We bought a bunch of beer and getting together at my friend’s place. It’s going to be super chill.” Normally, Baekhyun rejects all invitations like these. They’re annoying, but Jongin is the closest thing he has to a friend. Someone that talks to him without asking him for anything besides his company.
“Sure.”
It’s at the gathering that Baekhyun catches another glimpse of familiar brown hair.
“Hi.” Baekhyun’s voice is small, soft and light, carried away by the wind.
“Hi! Welcome to my place!” Chanyeol’s voice is booming, and his smile reaches from ear to ear. His eyes are twinkling, and Baekhyun feels free. From what, he doesn’t know himself, but it feels like he’s just been thrown years back to that time when Chanyeol was his best friend for a few days.
Back when Chanyeol had sprinkled him with magic that had freed him from the clutches of reality, and Baekhyun had in turn given Chanyeol the key to flying away.
“I work with Jongin, and uhhh… I just came to say hi and meet all his friends I guess.” Baekhyun is shy.
“Well Jongin’s coworkers are his friends, and his friends are my friends, so welcome!” Chanyeol is beaming at him, waving his long noodle arms around while gesturing wildly, as friendly as he can be.
“Shut up Chanyeol.” A blonde haired man walks by, making snide comments as he slithers on.
“Don’t be scary like that Sehun!” It’s the same young man he’d seen Chanyeol with years before.
“Well come on in! Don’t just stand there! Here’s some beer! Come chat with me!” And all of Chanyeol’s friends are staring as Chanyeol pats the seat next to him, waiting for Baekhyun to sit by him.
Baekhyun is a fairy, and Chanyeol is helping him fly.
FLIGHT 04
They’ve become good friends, Chanyeol always filling in any blank spaces between them with words that paint canvases already full of color. Baekhyun has opened up his heart, and his apartment. A place too small for someone now well off like Chanyeol, but cozy enough that Chanyeol runs in, bundles into the blankets and whines for Baekhyun to look at him as he talks.
Two years of knowing each other and they’re good friends. Baekhyun listens to Chanyeol, and Chanyeol talks to fill the emptiness in Baekhyun’s heart.
“Chanyeol, I’m looking at you. Stop whining.”
“I don’t see you looking at me! Your eyes aren’t staring deep into my soul! They aren’t reflecting the depth of my heartfelt eyeballs!” Chanyeol is rolling on the floor complaining as Baekhyun sighs and kicks at the bundle.
“Look. I’m sitting still. I’m looking at you. At the mess you’re making on my floor.”
“Always so mean! So cold! Don’t stare too hard if you’re going to turn me into ice and destroy my heart!” Chanyeol is kicking his long legs out and dragging Baekhyun forward on his chair.
“Shouldn’t you go see Sehun? Isn’t today your date night with him?” Baekhyun asks.
“Oh yeah! I forgot! I’ll see you later Baek!” And Chanyeol is up and out the door in less than two seconds flat.
Baekhyun is a fairy and Chanyeol has just ripped out one of his feathers.
FLIGHT 05
Baekhyun is 25, having been friends with Chanyeol for three years and being there for the tall lanky guy more than any of his other friends. They’re always together, but Baekhyun isn’t Chanyeol’s date or his best friend.
Chanyeol has a date that he loves and admires in every way. His Wendy, in the form of Oh Sehun. The blonde gorgeous man that throws dirty glares his way as much as possible. Chanyeol has a best friend, Kim Jongin, who Baekhyun likes as friend too. The guy is overly affectionate toward Baekhyun, much more than when they used to only spend their lunch time together.
He protects Baekhyun from the other Lost Boys of the group when Chanyeol is away, and he’s the first to call out for Baekhyun when anything happens. Kim Jongin is perfect, but Baekhyun’s eyes are always looking for his Peter Pan, because Baekhyun is a fairy, and his heart can only hold one person ever. He’s been this way, in love with the memories of a certain someone since he was seven.
So when Chanyeol is diagnosed with Spinocerebellar degeneration, Baekhyun is there, smiling at him and helping him through his day while Chanyeol cries that he’s lost everything.
Chanyeol hasn’t lost him.
FLIGHT 06
Sehun left him six months earlier, unable to handle caring for Chanyeol and having to stay in one place, when all he really wanted to do was travel the world with his loved one. His disease is a lot to handle, and Chanyeol’s speech has significantly slowed. Chanyeol understands and lets him go because love is about letting go sometimes. He’s heard that line in dramas plenty of times, and for the first time he believes it.
It’s time everyone else moves on with their lives, because he just isn’t going to move on from this place in the hospital anymore. The disease is progressing at a rapid rate, and soon he won’t be able to move at all, he’s losing to himself, trapped in this cage within himself.
Jongin visits him sometimes, but his heart misses Sehun
“Hey there buddy. I brought some flowers you hate. I figured it might make you sick enough to move. What do you think?” Baekhyun’s waving a bundle of lilies in his face and smiling at him like always.
“Yo…u… S-s-s…uuu..ck.” Chanyeol’s replies are slow, and sometimes the interns at the hospital treat him like a four year old, but his brain functions just fine. His body just can’t follow, and this irritates Baekhyun more than it bothers Chanyeol. Baekhyun is the only one that treats him like a normal 26 year old.
“You’re welcome. As always. Alright man, you ready for another walk in the park? I know you hate those, but the garden is waiting for you to spit on it. Now come on.” Baekhyun gently lifts Chanyeol’s body out of the bed and on to the waiting wheelchair. Chanyeol’s head bends down and Baekhyun lifts his chin back up, smiling as he begins telling him about his day.
Baekhyun is a fairy, and Chanyeol begins to see the light feathers surrounding him.
FLIGHT 07
They say Chanyeol only has about three months left. It won’t be long before his body gives up on him, but time is nothing to Baekhyun. They have forever together as long as Chanyeol doesn’t mind Baekhyun following him wherever he goes. Baekhyun isn’t sad, and he assures Chanyeol daily that he shouldn’t be either as he talks to him from the chair beside the bed. Chanyeol hasn’t been able to talk for a month now, but he tries his hardest to write words and reply to Baekhyun, his only visitor now.
His adoptive parents are still in New York, too busy to fly back for their ill son, and he doesn’t care. He still loves them for taking care of him as a child, and now that he’s old enough, he lets go of everyone around him. Baekhyun stays though, because Chanyeol can let him go however many times he wants. Baekhyun will still stay.
Something pangs in Chanyeol’s heart, and he feels a tear fall from his right eye as he studies Baekhyun’s tired face from his bed. Chanyeol has loved a few times in his short life and his longest had been his most comfortable relationship, nothing too complicated with Sehun, but here in these past few months and thinking about all the time they’ve spent together, Chanyeol breaks a little more inside.
If Chanyeol could have seen passed his Wendy, he would have noticed little Tinkerbell, following him with every quiet step and showering him with everything he’s ever wanted. He can’t say the words, but he’ll carve them into his heart.
FINAL FLIGHT
Baekhyun holds Chanyeol’s hand and he knows. The words were never exchanged, but he knows. He knows that Tinkerbell has finally been noticed, and he can now fly without wings. He’s free. He is finally free, and no reality can stop him now. They exchange the meanings with little sparkles in their eyes, and Baekhyun showers Chanyeol with the pixie dust he has, his tears covering Chanyeol’s face as he hurriedly wipes them away.
Chanyeol has taken his pixie dust and flown off to Neverland before him. Chanyeol has left little more than a note with three letters on it, “ILY” and flown to the next land over.
Baekhyun is a fairy. He can fly into the bright blue sky whenever he wants to. He’s free to fly. There’s no one holding him back, and his beloved waits for him on the other side. He’s going to stay forever young like Chanyeol, never aging, and always smiling. People move on, but Baekhyun won’t. He’s a fairy because he chose to be. He isn’t cursed anymore.
He can choose to be whatever he wants to be, and Baekhyun is a fairy. He loves to fly, and he can. They can tell him he’s obsessed and crazy, but as long as he has Chanyeol, he’s free.
He walks out onto the rooftop and looks up at the sky that connects him to Chanyeol.
It’s his time to fly.
AFTER FLIGHT
“Hey Baek!” Chanyeol is smiling at him and waving him over, his exaggerated gestures unchanging.
“Hey Yeollie Pan.” Baekhyun smiles back at him.
Baekhyun turns Chanyeol around and grabs the feather of light he’d left in Chanyeol’s pocket years back. Here they are, meeting again, on white clouds and above the open sea. Images of pirate ships and mermaids just below them.
Here is the meeting place Baekhyun had waited for so long to happen.
This is the place they can dream up anything and be together.