Interim
Title: Interim
Author: Anonymous until 1/30/14
For: aiuyu
Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Word Count: 5,428
Summary: He chases Baekhyun through the millennia
Warnings: multiple character death
Rating: PG-13
One
“You’re off again?” Jongin manages to interject as Chanyeol strides past, swiftly slipping into his coat in one smooth motion and spinning around for a second to nod at Jongin.
“Yeah,” Chanyeol pauses for a moment, hand on the brass doorknob, back leaning against the frosted windowpane of the door. “I’ll give you the papers when I get back back.”
“Sure, whenever is fine.”
“Okay, then I’ll see you in a bit.”
Then with a two-fingered wave at his colleague, a twist of a handle, a push on wood, and the soft groan of old wood and old hinges, Chanyeol slips out of the office and into the building, his emergence marked by the sharp contrast of the sounds of his footsteps from soft muffled carpet to crisp clips on polished marble, bright lights reflecting off of the polished veined stone as he hurries down the stairs.
He’s still chasing that dream, the one where everything’s swathed in a rose hue of love, where his memories are coated with a veneer of happiness, the lives his days began and ended with Baekhyun.
To his co-workers, his habit borders on masochism, this degenerative routine of slipping down into the coffee shop three floors down during his afternoon breaks, pushing the door open with a tinkle of a bell and quickly snatching the last week’s paper off the complementary readings rack with the intention of constructing a shield, a mask, or any sort of conceivable barrier of feigned occupation, waiting for a certain man to appear.
But it’s worth it, because Chanyeol’s sure he’s here today.
He’s waited three centuries for this moment. In the scope of things, another thirty minutes is just another breath.
÷
The first time they meet, it’s on their wedding day.
The ceremonial silks and bangles hang loosely from Chanyeol’s body as she prepares by the water’s edge. Her face looks foreign as she peers at her reflection in the water, sacred patterns adorning her cheeks, inscriptions and patterns whispering of mystical fortunes and luck and prayers for the praise of the deities.
“You are lucky,” her handmaiden sighs as she weaves flowers into the braid of Chanyeol’s hair. “He is a strong chief.”
“How strong?” Chanyeol asks, eyes wide as she fidgeted with her skirts.
“Just look at the size of his tribe,” her handmaiden points to the sprawl of tents just past the bank, tiny makeshift homes decorating the plains for as far as the eye could see. “Only the most powerful rule over so many. He has won many wars to maintain this.”
The image of a brutish warlord instantly pops into Chanyeol’s mind, an imagined grisly muscular man with an angry face, a gruff demeanor, and a scraggly beard to match. “Is he cruel?”
“I do not think so,” Her handmaiden smiles as she picks up a rose, twirling it to check for imperfections. “In fact, I hear he is very kind.” She delicately entwines the flower in Chanyeol’s hair before giggling, leaning in close to whisper in Chanyeol’s ear, “Handsome, too. Most of the girls in the village are jealous of you.”
Her breath catches when she caught her first glimpse of him around the river’s bend. Even in his shorter stature, the strength of his courage was something she could almost feel, the quilt of wolfskin draped over his shoulders and the loop of fangs hanging from his neck speaking of more of the conquests than the songs the old wives had sang of him. He was not much older than Chanyeol herself, and yet his eyes are full of an experienced brand of wisdom, and the scars on his chest bore the trophies from not one, but three close shaves with death.
He stands, proud, unflinching as they were bound for life with wine from an ornamental vase, eyes trained on Chanyeol as she delicately lifts jug and sips. What he lacks in height, he made up in presence. Because she can feel the weight of his gaze, she is nervous and clumsy, her hands shaking as she brings the pottery to her lips, and she let a few drops fall on her silks, red instantly bleeding on white as she reels with surprise. Her heart pounded as she glanced at Baekhyun. But instead of reparation, he offered her a grin and a hidden chuckle behind a hand instead, and Chanyeol’s heart flutters.
They do not speak the same dialect, and so the ways of communication were limited. He interacted little with her the next week, staring blankly at her each morning as she gazed dejectedly at their tent wall. Her already prevalent homesickness felt worse than before, the nighttime having provided ample time for the reality of never returning to her homeland to sink deep within her bones. She huddles herself into a ball in her sheets, screwing her eyes shut as she clung to the memories-the soaring cliffs, the mountain breezes, the vines, the highland goats, her family, each recollection delivering a sharp pang to her heart.
One morning, he awkwardly runs fingers through her hair, an attempt to console her she realizes in hindsight, before shortly giving up, throwing his hand down in frustration. He asks her handmaiden something instead, rapidly speaking in a tongue that tonally sounds courser than her own, his frowns creasing deeper as her handmaiden gives him answer he clearly does not like. He abruptly rises, pushing past the tentflap and striding into the sun.
“Is he angry?” Chanyeol tentatively asks her, peering wearily out of the sheets, guilt beginning to seep into her veins.
“Yes…” Her handmaiden hesitates. “But I don’t think at you.”
He’s back at dusk, a disgruntled expression stamped across his face as he clutches something slung over his back. When he steps into the light, the dripping red from a series of small slashes decorates his right cheekbone-clearly the intricate work carved by an irate, tiny paw. Before Chanyeol could gasp, Baekhyun set the bag on her lap, motioning at her to open it as he took a damp cloth to his face. He mumbles something and her handmaiden quickly translates.
“Be careful,” she cautions. He mumbled something again and she nods. “It’s alive.”
With a bit of excitement, Chanyeol slips the drawstring bag open with ease. When she peers into the bag, she was met with a beady pair of blinking eyes before something small, long, and furry scampers out, running up her arm and stopping on her shoulder. It hisses at Baekhyun, digging its claws lightly into his shoulder as it arched its back. He glared back at it, scrunching his nose at it (cutely, Chanyeol thinks) before rolling his eyes and muttering grumpily.
“It took him all day to catch, so he hopes-no,” her handmaiden corrects herself as Baekhyun sulked. “You better like it.”
“Tell him I love it,” She giggles as she tickles its nose, letting it run up onto her head to perch.
“Ferret,” Baekhyun suddenly says in her language, accent heavy. When Chanyeol looks up, he’s staring straight at her and speaking directly to her for the first time. Something thrummed through her chest as he points again, flicking his finger at the rodent, “It’s…ferret.”
“He’s been trying to learn a few words as well,” her handmaiden giggles. “For you.”
Chanyeol blushes, before bowing and saying a couple of the few words she knew in his tongue.
“Thank you.”
As she warmes up to Baekhyun, and in the time he was not off to fight territorial wars, he teaches her things. He teaches her how to ride a horse across the plains, how to decode the early morning birdsong, how to find her way home just by the light of the celestial patterns. He teaches her how to fire an arrow, arms gently guiding hers in place as he leans against her back, the arch of her back nestling neatly against his chest, and teaches her how to soulfully sing better than the birds. In return, she imparts her knowledge of the fruits and berries of the forest, the hymns of her ancestors scattered across the heaven-ascending mountains, and the way of pleasure after dusk. Without words to guide them, they speak most fluently through body movements and passion is the duet they harmonize best.
When it is discovered that she cannot bear him children, it is he who stands up for her against his advisors. The wisewomen are on the verge of throwing her out, claws digging into her forearms as they physically drag her towards the tribe’s perimeters, out towards the forest infested by ravenous wolves. Like lightening, Baekhyun appears and rescues her, scattering the wisewomen away with his horse as he sweeps her onto his horse. He spits fire that night, seething and yelling at his rag-tag assembly of a tribal court. Her handmaiden muttered translations about his defense, about his praises for Chanyeol as a tribal queen, about how he refuses to take another just for an heir.
It is then that Chanyeol falls in love with Baekhyun for the first time.
Over the many moons they’re together, Chanyeol begins to pick out her favorite things about Baekhyun. Second only to his smile, his laugh was what she loves most, the airy chuckle he gave whenever he was happy. She hears it for the second time on one of their forest treks, when she slips off the bank and into the creek, tumbling straight into the water. He snickers on the riverside, chest shaking as he lamely tries to hide his amusement with a hand. She glares at him, a brewing mixture of indignation and budding pride (she made him laugh, after all) swirling in his chest, before she decides to clamp a hand around his ankle and dragged him in after her. After a minute of surprised spluttering, he breaks out on the surface guffawing, splashing her with river water in retaliation. It becomes an addiction for Chanyeol after that, finding ways to send Baekhyun into mirth. Without her talent of orated jokes, being clumsy, Chanyeol learned, is the quickest way to his humor.
As they spend one of their nights wrapped under their bearskin rugs, the robust scent of oak from the fire dangling in the room as Chanyeol listens to the sound of crickets with one ear and the slow thrum of Baekhyun’s heart with the other, she closes her eyes as Baekhyun secures his arm around her waist. She then settles her head a little deeper into his chest, and thinks languid thoughts about life and destiny. This, she thinks as she lightly cups Baekhyun’s face as he drowses and delivers a light kiss to the edge of his jaw, felt meant to be.
But things were not meant to last, and due to the warring nature of the nomadic nation, life in the tribal times was fleetingly short. In more two years, Baekhyun is fatally wounded in a raid, bleeding to death the moment Chanyeol is brought to his side. He offeres the best smile he can for her, wincing as he raises his head. Fear ran through her body as she hastily begins to apply a salve, spreading a medicinal ointment to his wounds before Junmyeon the wiseman shook his head, decreeing that she’s far too late. She cries silently as she watched Baekhyun’s strength leaves him, and watched to pallor of death begin frost his skin, and as she felt the grip on her begin to weaken.
“I’ll find you again,” she whisperes to Baekhyun again, and again, in his language, broken and stuttered, as he fades. She kisses his hand gently, and a mystical wind begins to swirl and tousle her hair. “No matter the price. In every life, I’ll find you.”
÷
Time doesn’t flow chronologically, and so the next life they meet as schoolboys in the cusp of spring.
Chanyeol is born a boy this time, a gangly mess of male limbs with an optimistic outlook and an unhealthy obsession with ferrets. Before high school begins, his father’s job uproots them from their city life and throws them straight into the country, funneling Chanyeol straight into a new school.
When Chanyeol sits down for class that day, slipping his messenger bag over his head and scooting his chair back, the boy settled in the desk in front whips around instantly, offering Chanyeol a sunny smile.
“Hi,” he says, tapping a pencil rapidly against his desk as he peers up at Chanyeol. “I’m Baekhyun. And damn, you’re tall.”
“Chanyeol,” he greets in response, offering a grin of his own as he slips into his seat. “And, thanks?”
Baekhyun squints at him for a second, scratching his head as he scrutinizes something on Chanyeol’s face, and leaning in as his brow furrows.
“Have I met you before?” Baekhyun cocks his head. “You seem oddly familiar.”
And if Chanyeol was being honest, he felt the same way too. There was something recognizable about Baekhyun’s features, and if Chanyeol was being metaphysical, about his existence. It was as if there were a missing puzzle piece, and Baekhyun was the fit. Something about him stirred an undercurrent of something warm in the pit of Chanyeol’s stomach, a strange budding sort of affection for a stranger he had just met.
“Probably not,” Chanyeol drawls. “I moved here last week.”
“Ah,” Baekhyun nods absently. “Maybe you just have a common face.”
Chanyeol has a strange dream that night, one where he’s racing across golden plains on horseback with Baekhyun by his side, the sun beating across his back and the merry jingle of bangles clinking together ringing in his ears. He wakes up with a strange sense of longing.
They’re fast friends in this life, both chatterboxes who breathe words more than air, partners in prankster crime who can’t seem to sit still for more than a second. They’re a nightmare to their teachers, life of the party to their classmates, and ringleaders among their small band of friends.
There’s always an undercurrent of something nostalgic when it comes to Baekhyun, a reminiscent flutter of amour whenever they’re alone together that originates from a locked section of his mind. The origin of it doesn’t make much sense to Chanyeol, but he lets it simmer in his chest, each day drawing the feeling closer to a boil. There are small things that he always notices, like the way the sun catches Baekhyun’s eyes, the curve of his lips-and his laugh, oh his laugh.
They form a small band with a few other friends in their second year, an unbalanced ensemble with too many singers and not enough instrumentalists. They don’t end up going anywhere professionally, but the Sunday night jam sessions in Baekhyun’s garage are the most memorable nights of Chanyeol’s high school career. From behind the drum set, he manages to fall a bit in love with Baekhyun as he watches him sing, as his crooning voice strangely stirring memories in Chanyeol’s mind that don’t seem to exist.
Chanyeol finds out he’s not alone with those feelings when Baekhyun confesses to him one evening, on the way home as they walk their bikes past an open field. He seemed antsy before they left, head bowed as they started their trek home, but Chanyeol hadn’t though much of it until Baekhyun stopped in his tracks, face pale as he begins to spill a few pieces of his heart.
“I-I feel like we have t-this incredible connection,” he begins to stutter, as he gestures between the two of them. “I can’t explain it. This sounds so cheesy, but it feels like destiny. I think I’ve liked you since the day we met, and I have this weird urge to just always be around you.”
Chanyeol swoops down at that moment, capturing Baekhyun’s lips in a single motion.
“Me too,” Chanyeol murmurs, hugging Baekhyun tightly. “Me too.”
Suddenly a flashback hits him, and Chanyeol reels, clutching his head as a lifetime of memories suddenly floods his psyche and as the weight a promise clangs loudly through his head.
“I found you,” Chanyeol whispers, looking at Baekhyun in astonishment. “I found you.”
“You did?” Baekhyun looks slightly confused, cheeks still pink from the kiss.
“I did,” Chanyeol clutches Baekhyun’s hand as he kisses him again.
Baekhyun doesn’t regain his past memories during this lifetime, even though there are sparks of enlightenment on occasion. Like small flickers of awareness when they go horse riding on one of their first dates, when Chanyeol spills a bit of wine on his lap during their wedding and when Chanyeol falls into the pool of their newly bought home. But Chanyeol doesn’t mind, because they’re able to forge another lifetime together, and in the end, Baekhyun is his.
This life is a much longer life together, and they leave the world on the same day in their old age, surrounded by family and slipping out sometime during their sleep.
÷
They meet again in another lifetime in a ballroom in medieval Europe, eyes catching from across the room as Chanyeol dances the eve of his 17th birthday away. The girl in his arms is pretty and delicate, ornate dress flowing fluidly around her as she expertly dances in pace to the music. And Chanyeol supposes he should spend more time focuses on her-she will most likely be his betrothed in a few years time. Their houses were both under political siege by the state, and a union was set in motion to bring their swords together.
But the one who captures his attention is her brother instead, the young knight huddled in the corner who watches him with hooded eyes. There’s something familiar about his gaze, and the way his lips quirk up into a grin as Chanyeol accidently trods on his partner’s toes.
“What’s his name?” Chanyeol whispers into his partner’s ear, pointing to the man in the corner.
“Baekhyun,” She hesitates slightly before she answers, and Chanyeol’s heart leaps out his chest at the name.
They speak on the balcony later that night, the moon and stars bright as Chanyeol perches himself next to the knight.
“You seem familiar,” Chanyeol twists his head towards Baekhyun, attempting to sound casual as his heart hammers erratically in his chest, inexplicitly building the constructs of amour. He thinks hears the jangle of bangles from somewhere off in the distance, “Have we met before?”
“What sort of wooing tactic is this?” Baekhyun asks as he quirks an eyebrow at Chanyeol, sword clinking against his belt as he turns to face Chanyeol. “Save it for my sister.”
“No, I mean,” Chanyeol raises a hand and instinctively touches Baekhyun’s face. And he’s hit again with the same tidal wave of memories.
Taking Baekhyun is easier in this lifetime, because Chanyeol knows exactly how to woo him. Making Baekhyun his is even less of a want now, and more of a need. He craves his laughter and his presence like a drug, forgoing time with the object of his courtship for time spent with Baekhyun. By the end of the week, he manages to pin Baekhyun to a tree for a kiss (and Baekhyun kisses him back)
But he still had his royal duties. Production of an heir and a legitimate claim to the throne was all his mother would speak about. And Chanyeol understood well that to keep Baekhyun in this lifetime, their relationship would have to be kept a secret. The process of Baekhyun’s sister’s courtship goes smoothly, or as smoothly as it could go with his arm adorned with the gentle hold of his lady-to-be in the day, and the same arm pinning Baekhyun to his silken sheets at night.
By vows, he is linked to Baekhyun’s sister. But in his heart, he is bound to Baekhyun.
Even so, Baekhyun crumbles in this era, misery clouding his eyes during Chanyeol’s formal events when his sister-the new queen-takes Chanyeol’s arm in her own. The dichotomy between Chanyeol’s public relationships and their illicit love affair drives a stake between them, and Baekhyun begins to grow more distant with each hour Chanyeol spends with his sister. In the later years, even when Chanyeol desperately whispers sweet truths of Baekhyun’s exclusive ownership of his heart into his ear, he can see how Baekhyun looks less convinced by the day.
He leaves Chanyeol by the time they’re 25, volunteering himself as a leader in a perilous conquest of the Kingdoms by the Northern Sea. He tells Chanyeol the night before he leaves for the first siege, gasping low murmurs about how he can’t bear to share him just as Chanyeol pushes into him repeatedly, desperately against the headboard. No amount of pleading changes Baekhyun’s mind, and the next morning, his house sigil of a howling dog embellished on the shining armor adorning his back is the last Chanyeol sees of his knight in this life.
He wordlessly watches Baekhyun march to his death from the cliff side, a shield adorned with crest of his family in one hand, and his symbolic queen in the other.
÷
The next life he’s born into, he doesn’t meet Baekhyun until he’s well into his 50s, an old age by the standards of the Dark Ages. He helps bring Baekhyun into the world as a doctor who helps birth him as the mother lies dying. By the fourth iteration, the spout of memories is well oiled, and Chanyeol’s instantly hit by a siege of memories as he holds the latest incarnation of his soul mate.
Unfortunately he also brings Baekhyun into the world on the even of the bubonic plague, and so in a month, he watches Baekhyun slip from it. He weeps that night, cursing God of his cruelty as he begins his journey towards wasting away.
Without Baekhyun, he finds, this life has little purpose.
÷
In the next life, as with most of the subsequent lives, Chanyeol is born with his memories, and finding Baekhyun becomes less of an enlightenment and more of a quest. It becomes a bit of a game to Chanyeol, and with each of the lives he manages to learn a few of the rules. By the seventh life, he gains knowledge on the existence of karma, and how the way he plays in one life dictates a few of the parameters in the next. The number and the degree of the sins he commits makes his life, and the process of finding Baekhyun, more difficult.
He makes the mistake of straying from Baekhyun in one lifetime, taking another to bed in a fit of drunken boredom as his wedding band lay innocuously on the nightstand. As a famous English playwright, he had many people throwing themselves at his feet-taking one was just a matter of saying yes (which became incredibly logical when inebriated). Naturally, this is not something Baekhyun understood, and he chased Chanyeol out of their home with a crude knife, shouting obscenities and swearing to hold a grudge against him (soon to be ex) until the rest of her life.
He went even further. In the next lifetime, Baekhyun hated his guts before he could even say hello, kicking Chanyeol out of his record store without even offering reason.
“Why did I kick him out? …Just because,” Baekhyun had glowered as he brandished a jagged piece of plastic (suspiciously looking like it had been hastily snapped from a CD case) in front of Chanyeol’s terrified expression, while he muttered an explanation to a curious Minseok. “I just don’t like the look of him. Bad vibes.”
After a fair amount of effort in the form of daily, out-of-the way trips to the store (Chanyeol did only live on the other side of the city), and wheedling for dates, Baekhyun finally consents to one (“but just one). He luckily likes the ice cream place Chanyeol takes him to (though maybe it was less of luck, and more of Chanyeol’s centuries-old knowledge that Baekhyun loved vanilla and that one cart had a mean vanilla bean), and somehow they end up hitting it off big time from there.
Baekhyun still manages to have major trust issues throughout their relationship, never quite believing Chanyeol’s claims of being at a place unless he has at least four to five alibis. Baekhyun ends up being so narcotic that they end up splitting in this lifetime, Baekhyun severing of their relationship with a few thrown plates and a more than a few curse words.
This less savory trait of Baekhyun’s doesn’t fade for a few lifetimes, and in each one Chanyeol carries his regrets anew over into that era.
÷
They do manage to fall in love every time they end up meeting, even if in some lives, the chase takes a little longer than Chanyeol would like (they’re reincarnated into a life where they meet as college students, and after a poor first impression involving alcohol and vomiting all over Baekhyun’s dress at a party, Baekhyun immediately pushes Chanyeol into her friendzone. Getting out of that took eight long years, but the rest of their time together were the happiest moments in Chanyeol’s memory).
When Baekhyun remembers, he remembers less than Chanyeol. What he remembers is often more like fragmented feelings rather than concrete memories, a nostalgia for certain things have happened before, or a certain sense about fate. There are a few lives where Baekhyun completely remembers Chanyeol, where he seeks Chanyeol rather than vice versa, and they bring pleasant surprises, like a day in winter when professor Chanyeol opens his door expecting a wayward student, and Baekhyun springs forward kisses him right then and there on his doorstep.
When their lives do intersect, it seems that fate brings them together.
They’re reborn again as a pair of competitive dorky high school superheroes in training, with lame names like Flame Man and Incan Descent.
“Your name is lame and you should feel lame,” Baekhyun groveled. “Also, stop saving the cats I was supposed to save. I haven’t met my quota for this month yet.”
“What the fuck is Incan Descent supposed to mean,” Chanyeol slapped his forehead. “You’re not even Incan. And if you just got here faster, you’d get the cats first.”
“They got it wrong on my superhero license,” Baekhyun sniffed as he touted the cage he had on hand. “There wasn’t supposed to be a space but someone misread it.”
“That’s fucking hilarious,” Chanyeol doubled over in laughter. “And no, I’m not giving you the cat.”
“You know I need the cats to keep my practice warrant!” Baekhyun stomped his foot. It was half out of indignation and half because, Chanyeol could sympathize, spandex shrinks in the dryer.
“Go find a little old lady or something to help cross the street,” Chanyeol snickered. “It’s worth about the same in savior points.”
“It’s the 30th,” Baekhyun wheedled, nearly sticking out his bottom lip. “The month is almost over. Come on man.”
And damn, Chanyeol’s always (for the past few lives, anyway), been a sucker for the pout, and so he rolls his eyes as he opens the crate and lets the cat scamper back in tree, trying to conceal his reddening face as Baekhyun (re)rescues the cat.
Baekhyun’s kind of a dunce with no previous memories in this life, and so he doesn’t really get it until well after they’ve graduated from superhero academy, and Chanyeol kind of has to take a bullet for him and wheeze out a confession before Baekhyun even suspects anything remotely amorous out of Chanyeol. Chanyeol doesn’t die right then, but the next morning in the hospital, he feels like dying of mortification when he recalled his outpouring of love. Of course this is before Baekhyun shuffles into the room, grabs Chanyeol by the hospital gown collar and kisses him right then and there.
(Chanyeol finds out with a pleasant surprise that Baekhyun glows when he gets embarrassed in this life).
Not every life is as fun. The eleventh life Chanyeol finds Baekhyun, they’re photographer and actor and rising-star Baekhyun is brought to him for a photoshoot. Chanyeol almost forgets to breathe when Baekhyun swaggers into the room, camera almost slipping out of his hand as the love of his life literally walks into his life. The weight of impossibility of convincing Baekhyun in that lifetime only grows as Chanyeol takes more photos in the shoot. Because Baekhyun reeks of fame and success and exclusivity right them, makeup and clothes molding him into the male image of perfection as his entourage waits on the side. Chanyeol leaves work dejected that day. The photos are good, but his task is hopeless. That is, until Baekhyun pops up out of nowhere and takes him to a club where they dance the night away (and then some). They hook up the next day, somewhere among Baekhyun’s 1500 thread Egyptian cotton sheets, Chanyeol spluttering that Baekhyun should go out with him as Baekhyun languidly rubs a cold toe up and down Chanyeol’s shin. Without hesitating, Baekhyun says yes. But even then, that relationship is tumultuous, with the aspect of incredible fame and scandal injecting plenty of volatility into their lives. Dating a famous person is never easy, and Chanyeol constantly felt insecure.
But perhaps that life was not as volatile in the next life, Chanyeol’s a Francophile author who hunkers down in Paris, settling into an apartment. He finds Baekhyun half a year into his lease, a freelance actor come Parisian tour guide, leaning against the balcony next door, letting the smoke from his cigarette swirl up into the dark sky. Superficially, Chanyeol manages to bond with Baekhyun over a mutual feeling of stagnation in their lives, as failing artists in their respective genres. Of course, Chanyeol knows there’s other reasons why Baekhyun was so quick to let him into his home, literally, and proceed to let him bang him in the shower. Loneliness was probably one of them-Baekhyun never liked being alone in any lifetime. Chanyeol’s ability to rattle off Baekhyun’s favorite films had probably been another positive point of impression. And that transcendent sense of familiarity had probably helped. The rest of their relationship is messy and raw, a manifestation of sloppy slew of emotions characterized by lust, drugs, and hormones. Surprisingly, they somehow-barely-make it to the end together, but only with a badge of 57 violent breakups and 5 near-death experiences among other exciting situations slung on their belts.
÷
They’ve had exciting lives together, existences and professions involving espionage and political power. There are lives where they flirt only briefly, taken away from each other due to some sort of unfortunate circumstance like death, or social constructs. Fame seems to color a certain percentage of their time together, and usually they have to bury their relationship deep into the ground, creating stress on both sides. Love under the spotlight was difficult, and no matter the lifetime, Baekhyun always gave up trying.
It’s the boring lives that Chanyeol cherishes, the ones where they’re able to live their lives out in peace and the biggest conflicts they have to deal with are the petty fights that they get into over the smallest things. The one where they’re beach bums, shacking it up in a coastal hut and surfing the waves until the sun sets in the west is one of his favorites. As is the one where he’s a struggling guitarist who meets his jazz singer at a bar, and they become a small-time duo who tour the local clubs in their city. The one where they’re just two guys at 9-to-5 jobs, who meet under remarkably ordinary circumstances, who date in a remarkably ordinary fashion, and whose post get-together most exciting moments end up being things like watching Sunday night football.
It’s in those lives where he loses himself for a bit, forgetting the larger scope of destiny and living in the moment. And it’s those lives that he clings too, dreading the end when he does manage to remember.
÷
There are quite a few eras where they are not born to be lovers.
There is a lifetime among many when Chanyeol glimpses Baekhyun only once, from across the train tracks in Manchester. He nearly drops his newspaper when he spots the familiar figure perched on the side of the loading deck-a man tucked into a bowler hat and a bow tie, briefcase secured in the palm of his hand as he consults a golden pocket watch. By the time Chanyeol’s able to push on his spectacles and leap from his seat, his soulmate is gone with the tired groan of iron wheels, the plume of dark smoke dancing through the station as his destiny travels far, far away.
There are also lifetimes where Chanyeol cannot touch Baekhyun, certain spans of years where their destined paths intersect under forbidden conditions. Like the era where he is a peasant boy trying to make it in the capital city, and he finds Baekhyun as the highest class indentured prostitute, her services exclusive to the king. Or the life where he finds Baekhyun at the end of the man’s years, stumbling into a candy shop a day after elementary school, only to be greeted by his love in the form of a hunched old man, his smile is just as brilliant as he pulls out sweets by the dozen for Chanyeol. Or the lifetime where they’re born from the same parents, twins in genes but not looks, troublesome and telepathic as they wrecked havoc as an united sibling force. In those times, they manage to love without lust, and find ways to twine their lives together in platonic ways.
But it’s not as bad as the lifetimes where he never runs into Baekhyun at all, where he waits out the days until his death, fervently hoping to catch so much as a glimpse.
There are lifetimes where Baekhyun doesn’t remember Chanyeol the slightest. And they’re not so bad, because Chanyeol still manages to woo Baekhyun, time after time.
There are probably a few where Chanyeol can’t remember Baekhyun either.
But he can’t recall any of those.
÷
The lives Chanyeol likes the least are the ones where they’re thrown into the flames of war. There are two of these, lives where they meet in the military, lives where romance has little place and lives that are doomed to end in bloodshed and pain.
The first time, their relationship is limited to quick fucks behind the barracks, misfortune condemning them to meet only after they’ve been drafted, and the stress of actual battle and social stigma corners their romance to desperate heated moments in secluded places. They’re boys with nothing to lose in this life, children without a purpose or a home and swept into a winds of war shifted by high political powers.
There’s a certain anxiety when Chanyeol spots Baekhyun in the dining hall for the first time, his hair rumpled and mousy and the bags under his eyes speaking of the general exhaustion of constant battle. It’s not a surprise-70% of their nation’s able-bodied men had been deployed-but still Chanyeol had held hopes that Baekhyun had managed to evade the draft, or better yet, skipped this lifetime entirely.
Baekhyun doesn’t recognize him instantly, and Chanyeol reconciles this by supposing at that at least Baekhyun won’t suffer heartbreak when Chanyeol inevitably dies in battle. He forces himself to be content with just staying by Baekhyun’s side, quelling his urges to touch Baekhyun in less platonic ways on and off the battlefield.
It’s after Baekhyun’s knocked in the head, impact to the ground caused by the force from an explosion, that his memories return. And when Chanyeol visits him in the dingy hospital ward, Baekhyun orders him to draw the curtains before grabbing him by the collar and kissing him deeply.
They know instinctively that their last night together will be the last in this lifetime, when they receive orders of their unit’s assignment. They will be part of the assault in attempt to reclaim the beach, part of a tactic in which suicidal tidal wave of men will be thrown at the shores, the goal of the plan to gain ground simply by overwhelming the enemy. And perhaps they sleep easier than most of the other men, because they know they have many more futures. But death is never a painless thing, and a dull sense of dread beats Chanyeol to the bones.
It could be years or centuries before they meet again, and maybe that’s why Baekhyun kisses him so sweetly that night, backing him slowly against the wall as he unzips Chanyeol’s pants. He does things to Chanyeol that send intense tremors of pleasure coursing through his body, whispering love and promises into his ears until dawn breaks.
They are not saved by a miracle. Chanyeol falls as soon as the door is lowered, bullets riddling his chest as he does his best to stay upright to protect Baekhyun. Soon, control of his limbs fails him and he falls out of the tank and into the shallows, the salt water burning his wounds as red seeps out of his chest like ink. As the coursing pain overtakes his psyche and he begins to ebb out of consciousness, Baekhyun plummets next to him, the tip of his ear gone and the back of his jacket soaked in crimson. The sounds of battle begin to fade away as Chanyeol’s eyes flutter to a close, the vice around his failing heart painfully squeezes tighter and tighter as his body begins to shut down, and the last thing he feels before he leaves is Baekhyun’s shaking fingers twined with his.
÷
The second time their fates take them to war, they’re not lucky enough to be born on the same side of combat.
The gun is level in his hands as he narrows his eyes at the figure on the ground, his index finger thumbing the worn metal of the trigger as he shoulders his gun. The target is bound, kneeling in the dirt with his head bowed down low, a loosely-tied dirty rag masking his identity.
There was no right to war, and so Chanyeol took care not to learn the identities nor crimes of his victims. That humanized them, and made his job more difficult. He was an executioner, picked because he has a straight shot with an iron heart. The man in front of his was no more to him than a statistic, the third out of four similar jobs he had been assigned. There was no emotional sentiment tied towards the man, no hate for the enemy nor guilt in being the one tasked to end his life. For Chanyeol, the life of this man was an exchange for income and safety, an unfortunate guy fighting on the wrong side of the war who was Chanyeol’s guarantee of a hearth and home for just another day.
But the eastern wind blows stronger that day, rushing past Chanyeol, kicking up his jacket and bits of dust from the ground. It swirls around the man, loosening the rag until it slipped to the floor, revealing the familiar face of a man roughly Chanyeol’s age, his eyes downcast as his lips stirred prayers.
He is the last person Chanyeol wanted to be kneeled there.
Recognition hits Chanyeol like a blunt stone, the fear that slams his body as soon as the man raises his eyes, his piercing stare devoid of all of that familiar love and saturated instead with a seething patriotic brand of hate instead. The healthy look he had during their lives during peacetimes is nonexistent, the luster in his hair, the glow of his skin, the crescents of his eyes were replaced by a matted mane, the pallid sheen of famine and stress, and a hard look from certain things seen.
His laugh is bitter and cold, and he spits out a dark, congealed mass of blood.
“Baek…Baekhyun,” Chanyeol whispers in astonishment. His heart hurts when his eyes traced the clotting slash chasing Baekhyun’s left cheek, the ooze of blood, grim, and pus creating a messy mosaic across the side of his face.
“Park,” a hard voice from his commander crackles into his receiver. “Shoot.”
By way of hard training and military loyalty, Chanyeol’s finger automatically puts pressure on the trigger, index testing the strain of the spring against his hold. Baekhyun continues to stare at him, gaze unfazed as a grim grin adorned his face.
“Get on with it,” Baekhyun croaks, shivering as he lowered his head. He laughs bitterly, with a sort of hopeless humor as he shook his head. “You always draw things out unnecessarily.”
Out of all the lives Baekhyun recognizes him, Chanyeol thought bitterly that it had to be this one. Intense trepidation is making him sick to his stomach and his voice wavers as he croaks and apology, “I’m sorry.”
“If you were actually sorry, you’d give me this favor and end it already.”
“Hey, can we meet in a more peaceful life next time,” Chanyeol chokes back a tear, fingers trembling as he tried to keep the gun steady.
“Park, shoot. This is a command.”
“That would be nice,” Baekhyun snickers tiredly, bangs swinging low over his face. “If this doesn’t kill me instantly, I’m going to give you hell in the next life for it. I don’t like dying in pain.”
“I am giving you ten seconds, Park-”
And out of corner of his eye, he spots Kris lifting his own rifle, the butt aimed straight at Baekhyun’s head.
“I’ll try my best.”
“-Shoot, now.”
The crack of the shot sounded deafening in Chanyeol’s ears, and suddenly the world began to spin in slow motion, the astonishment in Baekhyun’s face slowly eclipsing his smile as he watched crimson bloom from the left side of his chest. He fell forward, collapsing in an ungainly heap as he crumpled, the dust and blood mixture forming an oozing macabre mud.
There was a scream that erupts somewhere in the room, that Chanyeol really wishes would stop, the piercing yell ringing loudly in his ears and making it difficult to even think as he watched Baekhyun convulse against the ground, his face contorting in anguish as he went into shock. It was only after Baekhyun stops moving, figure slumped lifeless against the ground, that Chanyeol finally feels the fresh rawness eroding his throat, his screams unyielding until paramedic Kyungsoo managed to incapacitate him with a sedative.
He follows Baekhyun three days later. Morphine is the only thing that manages to quell his pain, and he locks himself into his room and suffocates himself out of this life and into the next.
÷
The double sins of suicide and murder have repercussions that run deeper than Chanyeol imagined. He spends the next few lives wading helplessly for Baekhyun, scouring the world in search for a single soul. The eras he enters are unfortunately chronological, and the world grows exponentially bigger each time he’s reborn.
But for a total of five lifetimes-three centuries-there’s not a trace of Baekhyun, and slowly Chanyeol begins to give up (and forget).
He accomplishes lifetimes of work without Baekhyun, shuttling refugees from a war torn country, translating ancient texts for modern academia, becoming an international pop sensation. He solves a millennium problem, and brings a company from rags to riches before burning to a ground once again. But it meant nothing in the face of things, consolation prizes in the failure of the main goal he was trying to achieve. He works harder than before not so much for altruistic reasons, but more for the sake of finding distractions to take his mind off Baekhyun to stop himself from going crazy, the task of finding him becoming more difficult by the day. It’s at the end of his third life that he realizes he had taken fate for granted, and without it, the weight of impossibility began to crush Chanyeol and the prospect of losing Baekhyun forever seemed more eminent by the day.
That was, until last month in this life, when he passed the café below his workplace, catching a familiar bit of laughter floating in the wind. His heart had jumped out of his chest.
The last few visits had been unsuccessful, but last night he had dreamed of golden plains, of open fields, of silver armor, of snapshots of fifty lifetimes.
Of a face he hadn’t seen in eternities.
He breathes in deeply to calm his nerves, filling himself with the rich scent of roasted coffee beans. There were a lot of things in this place that spoke of Baekhyun. The oak floors were one, the dog logo that starkly resembled his house sigil for his knighthood days were another, the unusual abundance of vanilla on the menu was another.
And then, like out of a dream, “your latte,” a voice, warm, tuneful and familiar floats around the fraying edges of paper and drifts into his ears. A pair of slender fingers appears at the top of the crease between the news and international section, quickly drawing the paper down to reveal a face untouched by age, with gaze warmer than flames.
“Hello, again,” a deep chuckle escapes Chanyeol’s lips. Then there’s a pause, and a crinkle as the paper is folded and tossed in an obscure corner. “It’s been such a long time,” Chanyeol murmurs, voice shaking with a slew of emotions. “Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun smiles, putting the sun to shame. His laugh is a melody to Chanyeol’s ears, and a first time in a long time, Chanyeol feels so alive again.
“You finally found me.”
A/N:
This is based on both Ke$ha’s Past Lives song and Tongari’s 25 lives webcomic. But thanks for the prompts aiuyu! They were chill.
One
Author: Anonymous until 1/30/14
For: aiuyu
Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Word Count: 5,428
Summary: He chases Baekhyun through the millennia
Warnings: multiple character death
Rating: PG-13
One
“You’re off again?” Jongin manages to interject as Chanyeol strides past, swiftly slipping into his coat in one smooth motion and spinning around for a second to nod at Jongin.
“Yeah,” Chanyeol pauses for a moment, hand on the brass doorknob, back leaning against the frosted windowpane of the door. “I’ll give you the papers when I get back back.”
“Sure, whenever is fine.”
“Okay, then I’ll see you in a bit.”
Then with a two-fingered wave at his colleague, a twist of a handle, a push on wood, and the soft groan of old wood and old hinges, Chanyeol slips out of the office and into the building, his emergence marked by the sharp contrast of the sounds of his footsteps from soft muffled carpet to crisp clips on polished marble, bright lights reflecting off of the polished veined stone as he hurries down the stairs.
He’s still chasing that dream, the one where everything’s swathed in a rose hue of love, where his memories are coated with a veneer of happiness, the lives his days began and ended with Baekhyun.
To his co-workers, his habit borders on masochism, this degenerative routine of slipping down into the coffee shop three floors down during his afternoon breaks, pushing the door open with a tinkle of a bell and quickly snatching the last week’s paper off the complementary readings rack with the intention of constructing a shield, a mask, or any sort of conceivable barrier of feigned occupation, waiting for a certain man to appear.
But it’s worth it, because Chanyeol’s sure he’s here today.
He’s waited three centuries for this moment. In the scope of things, another thirty minutes is just another breath.
÷
The first time they meet, it’s on their wedding day.
The ceremonial silks and bangles hang loosely from Chanyeol’s body as she prepares by the water’s edge. Her face looks foreign as she peers at her reflection in the water, sacred patterns adorning her cheeks, inscriptions and patterns whispering of mystical fortunes and luck and prayers for the praise of the deities.
“You are lucky,” her handmaiden sighs as she weaves flowers into the braid of Chanyeol’s hair. “He is a strong chief.”
“How strong?” Chanyeol asks, eyes wide as she fidgeted with her skirts.
“Just look at the size of his tribe,” her handmaiden points to the sprawl of tents just past the bank, tiny makeshift homes decorating the plains for as far as the eye could see. “Only the most powerful rule over so many. He has won many wars to maintain this.”
The image of a brutish warlord instantly pops into Chanyeol’s mind, an imagined grisly muscular man with an angry face, a gruff demeanor, and a scraggly beard to match. “Is he cruel?”
“I do not think so,” Her handmaiden smiles as she picks up a rose, twirling it to check for imperfections. “In fact, I hear he is very kind.” She delicately entwines the flower in Chanyeol’s hair before giggling, leaning in close to whisper in Chanyeol’s ear, “Handsome, too. Most of the girls in the village are jealous of you.”
Her breath catches when she caught her first glimpse of him around the river’s bend. Even in his shorter stature, the strength of his courage was something she could almost feel, the quilt of wolfskin draped over his shoulders and the loop of fangs hanging from his neck speaking of more of the conquests than the songs the old wives had sang of him. He was not much older than Chanyeol herself, and yet his eyes are full of an experienced brand of wisdom, and the scars on his chest bore the trophies from not one, but three close shaves with death.
He stands, proud, unflinching as they were bound for life with wine from an ornamental vase, eyes trained on Chanyeol as she delicately lifts jug and sips. What he lacks in height, he made up in presence. Because she can feel the weight of his gaze, she is nervous and clumsy, her hands shaking as she brings the pottery to her lips, and she let a few drops fall on her silks, red instantly bleeding on white as she reels with surprise. Her heart pounded as she glanced at Baekhyun. But instead of reparation, he offered her a grin and a hidden chuckle behind a hand instead, and Chanyeol’s heart flutters.
They do not speak the same dialect, and so the ways of communication were limited. He interacted little with her the next week, staring blankly at her each morning as she gazed dejectedly at their tent wall. Her already prevalent homesickness felt worse than before, the nighttime having provided ample time for the reality of never returning to her homeland to sink deep within her bones. She huddles herself into a ball in her sheets, screwing her eyes shut as she clung to the memories-the soaring cliffs, the mountain breezes, the vines, the highland goats, her family, each recollection delivering a sharp pang to her heart.
One morning, he awkwardly runs fingers through her hair, an attempt to console her she realizes in hindsight, before shortly giving up, throwing his hand down in frustration. He asks her handmaiden something instead, rapidly speaking in a tongue that tonally sounds courser than her own, his frowns creasing deeper as her handmaiden gives him answer he clearly does not like. He abruptly rises, pushing past the tentflap and striding into the sun.
“Is he angry?” Chanyeol tentatively asks her, peering wearily out of the sheets, guilt beginning to seep into her veins.
“Yes…” Her handmaiden hesitates. “But I don’t think at you.”
He’s back at dusk, a disgruntled expression stamped across his face as he clutches something slung over his back. When he steps into the light, the dripping red from a series of small slashes decorates his right cheekbone-clearly the intricate work carved by an irate, tiny paw. Before Chanyeol could gasp, Baekhyun set the bag on her lap, motioning at her to open it as he took a damp cloth to his face. He mumbles something and her handmaiden quickly translates.
“Be careful,” she cautions. He mumbled something again and she nods. “It’s alive.”
With a bit of excitement, Chanyeol slips the drawstring bag open with ease. When she peers into the bag, she was met with a beady pair of blinking eyes before something small, long, and furry scampers out, running up her arm and stopping on her shoulder. It hisses at Baekhyun, digging its claws lightly into his shoulder as it arched its back. He glared back at it, scrunching his nose at it (cutely, Chanyeol thinks) before rolling his eyes and muttering grumpily.
“It took him all day to catch, so he hopes-no,” her handmaiden corrects herself as Baekhyun sulked. “You better like it.”
“Tell him I love it,” She giggles as she tickles its nose, letting it run up onto her head to perch.
“Ferret,” Baekhyun suddenly says in her language, accent heavy. When Chanyeol looks up, he’s staring straight at her and speaking directly to her for the first time. Something thrummed through her chest as he points again, flicking his finger at the rodent, “It’s…ferret.”
“He’s been trying to learn a few words as well,” her handmaiden giggles. “For you.”
Chanyeol blushes, before bowing and saying a couple of the few words she knew in his tongue.
“Thank you.”
As she warmes up to Baekhyun, and in the time he was not off to fight territorial wars, he teaches her things. He teaches her how to ride a horse across the plains, how to decode the early morning birdsong, how to find her way home just by the light of the celestial patterns. He teaches her how to fire an arrow, arms gently guiding hers in place as he leans against her back, the arch of her back nestling neatly against his chest, and teaches her how to soulfully sing better than the birds. In return, she imparts her knowledge of the fruits and berries of the forest, the hymns of her ancestors scattered across the heaven-ascending mountains, and the way of pleasure after dusk. Without words to guide them, they speak most fluently through body movements and passion is the duet they harmonize best.
When it is discovered that she cannot bear him children, it is he who stands up for her against his advisors. The wisewomen are on the verge of throwing her out, claws digging into her forearms as they physically drag her towards the tribe’s perimeters, out towards the forest infested by ravenous wolves. Like lightening, Baekhyun appears and rescues her, scattering the wisewomen away with his horse as he sweeps her onto his horse. He spits fire that night, seething and yelling at his rag-tag assembly of a tribal court. Her handmaiden muttered translations about his defense, about his praises for Chanyeol as a tribal queen, about how he refuses to take another just for an heir.
It is then that Chanyeol falls in love with Baekhyun for the first time.
Over the many moons they’re together, Chanyeol begins to pick out her favorite things about Baekhyun. Second only to his smile, his laugh was what she loves most, the airy chuckle he gave whenever he was happy. She hears it for the second time on one of their forest treks, when she slips off the bank and into the creek, tumbling straight into the water. He snickers on the riverside, chest shaking as he lamely tries to hide his amusement with a hand. She glares at him, a brewing mixture of indignation and budding pride (she made him laugh, after all) swirling in his chest, before she decides to clamp a hand around his ankle and dragged him in after her. After a minute of surprised spluttering, he breaks out on the surface guffawing, splashing her with river water in retaliation. It becomes an addiction for Chanyeol after that, finding ways to send Baekhyun into mirth. Without her talent of orated jokes, being clumsy, Chanyeol learned, is the quickest way to his humor.
As they spend one of their nights wrapped under their bearskin rugs, the robust scent of oak from the fire dangling in the room as Chanyeol listens to the sound of crickets with one ear and the slow thrum of Baekhyun’s heart with the other, she closes her eyes as Baekhyun secures his arm around her waist. She then settles her head a little deeper into his chest, and thinks languid thoughts about life and destiny. This, she thinks as she lightly cups Baekhyun’s face as he drowses and delivers a light kiss to the edge of his jaw, felt meant to be.
But things were not meant to last, and due to the warring nature of the nomadic nation, life in the tribal times was fleetingly short. In more two years, Baekhyun is fatally wounded in a raid, bleeding to death the moment Chanyeol is brought to his side. He offeres the best smile he can for her, wincing as he raises his head. Fear ran through her body as she hastily begins to apply a salve, spreading a medicinal ointment to his wounds before Junmyeon the wiseman shook his head, decreeing that she’s far too late. She cries silently as she watched Baekhyun’s strength leaves him, and watched to pallor of death begin frost his skin, and as she felt the grip on her begin to weaken.
“I’ll find you again,” she whisperes to Baekhyun again, and again, in his language, broken and stuttered, as he fades. She kisses his hand gently, and a mystical wind begins to swirl and tousle her hair. “No matter the price. In every life, I’ll find you.”
÷
Time doesn’t flow chronologically, and so the next life they meet as schoolboys in the cusp of spring.
Chanyeol is born a boy this time, a gangly mess of male limbs with an optimistic outlook and an unhealthy obsession with ferrets. Before high school begins, his father’s job uproots them from their city life and throws them straight into the country, funneling Chanyeol straight into a new school.
When Chanyeol sits down for class that day, slipping his messenger bag over his head and scooting his chair back, the boy settled in the desk in front whips around instantly, offering Chanyeol a sunny smile.
“Hi,” he says, tapping a pencil rapidly against his desk as he peers up at Chanyeol. “I’m Baekhyun. And damn, you’re tall.”
“Chanyeol,” he greets in response, offering a grin of his own as he slips into his seat. “And, thanks?”
Baekhyun squints at him for a second, scratching his head as he scrutinizes something on Chanyeol’s face, and leaning in as his brow furrows.
“Have I met you before?” Baekhyun cocks his head. “You seem oddly familiar.”
And if Chanyeol was being honest, he felt the same way too. There was something recognizable about Baekhyun’s features, and if Chanyeol was being metaphysical, about his existence. It was as if there were a missing puzzle piece, and Baekhyun was the fit. Something about him stirred an undercurrent of something warm in the pit of Chanyeol’s stomach, a strange budding sort of affection for a stranger he had just met.
“Probably not,” Chanyeol drawls. “I moved here last week.”
“Ah,” Baekhyun nods absently. “Maybe you just have a common face.”
Chanyeol has a strange dream that night, one where he’s racing across golden plains on horseback with Baekhyun by his side, the sun beating across his back and the merry jingle of bangles clinking together ringing in his ears. He wakes up with a strange sense of longing.
They’re fast friends in this life, both chatterboxes who breathe words more than air, partners in prankster crime who can’t seem to sit still for more than a second. They’re a nightmare to their teachers, life of the party to their classmates, and ringleaders among their small band of friends.
There’s always an undercurrent of something nostalgic when it comes to Baekhyun, a reminiscent flutter of amour whenever they’re alone together that originates from a locked section of his mind. The origin of it doesn’t make much sense to Chanyeol, but he lets it simmer in his chest, each day drawing the feeling closer to a boil. There are small things that he always notices, like the way the sun catches Baekhyun’s eyes, the curve of his lips-and his laugh, oh his laugh.
They form a small band with a few other friends in their second year, an unbalanced ensemble with too many singers and not enough instrumentalists. They don’t end up going anywhere professionally, but the Sunday night jam sessions in Baekhyun’s garage are the most memorable nights of Chanyeol’s high school career. From behind the drum set, he manages to fall a bit in love with Baekhyun as he watches him sing, as his crooning voice strangely stirring memories in Chanyeol’s mind that don’t seem to exist.
Chanyeol finds out he’s not alone with those feelings when Baekhyun confesses to him one evening, on the way home as they walk their bikes past an open field. He seemed antsy before they left, head bowed as they started their trek home, but Chanyeol hadn’t though much of it until Baekhyun stopped in his tracks, face pale as he begins to spill a few pieces of his heart.
“I-I feel like we have t-this incredible connection,” he begins to stutter, as he gestures between the two of them. “I can’t explain it. This sounds so cheesy, but it feels like destiny. I think I’ve liked you since the day we met, and I have this weird urge to just always be around you.”
Chanyeol swoops down at that moment, capturing Baekhyun’s lips in a single motion.
“Me too,” Chanyeol murmurs, hugging Baekhyun tightly. “Me too.”
Suddenly a flashback hits him, and Chanyeol reels, clutching his head as a lifetime of memories suddenly floods his psyche and as the weight a promise clangs loudly through his head.
“I found you,” Chanyeol whispers, looking at Baekhyun in astonishment. “I found you.”
“You did?” Baekhyun looks slightly confused, cheeks still pink from the kiss.
“I did,” Chanyeol clutches Baekhyun’s hand as he kisses him again.
Baekhyun doesn’t regain his past memories during this lifetime, even though there are sparks of enlightenment on occasion. Like small flickers of awareness when they go horse riding on one of their first dates, when Chanyeol spills a bit of wine on his lap during their wedding and when Chanyeol falls into the pool of their newly bought home. But Chanyeol doesn’t mind, because they’re able to forge another lifetime together, and in the end, Baekhyun is his.
This life is a much longer life together, and they leave the world on the same day in their old age, surrounded by family and slipping out sometime during their sleep.
÷
They meet again in another lifetime in a ballroom in medieval Europe, eyes catching from across the room as Chanyeol dances the eve of his 17th birthday away. The girl in his arms is pretty and delicate, ornate dress flowing fluidly around her as she expertly dances in pace to the music. And Chanyeol supposes he should spend more time focuses on her-she will most likely be his betrothed in a few years time. Their houses were both under political siege by the state, and a union was set in motion to bring their swords together.
But the one who captures his attention is her brother instead, the young knight huddled in the corner who watches him with hooded eyes. There’s something familiar about his gaze, and the way his lips quirk up into a grin as Chanyeol accidently trods on his partner’s toes.
“What’s his name?” Chanyeol whispers into his partner’s ear, pointing to the man in the corner.
“Baekhyun,” She hesitates slightly before she answers, and Chanyeol’s heart leaps out his chest at the name.
They speak on the balcony later that night, the moon and stars bright as Chanyeol perches himself next to the knight.
“You seem familiar,” Chanyeol twists his head towards Baekhyun, attempting to sound casual as his heart hammers erratically in his chest, inexplicitly building the constructs of amour. He thinks hears the jangle of bangles from somewhere off in the distance, “Have we met before?”
“What sort of wooing tactic is this?” Baekhyun asks as he quirks an eyebrow at Chanyeol, sword clinking against his belt as he turns to face Chanyeol. “Save it for my sister.”
“No, I mean,” Chanyeol raises a hand and instinctively touches Baekhyun’s face. And he’s hit again with the same tidal wave of memories.
Taking Baekhyun is easier in this lifetime, because Chanyeol knows exactly how to woo him. Making Baekhyun his is even less of a want now, and more of a need. He craves his laughter and his presence like a drug, forgoing time with the object of his courtship for time spent with Baekhyun. By the end of the week, he manages to pin Baekhyun to a tree for a kiss (and Baekhyun kisses him back)
But he still had his royal duties. Production of an heir and a legitimate claim to the throne was all his mother would speak about. And Chanyeol understood well that to keep Baekhyun in this lifetime, their relationship would have to be kept a secret. The process of Baekhyun’s sister’s courtship goes smoothly, or as smoothly as it could go with his arm adorned with the gentle hold of his lady-to-be in the day, and the same arm pinning Baekhyun to his silken sheets at night.
By vows, he is linked to Baekhyun’s sister. But in his heart, he is bound to Baekhyun.
Even so, Baekhyun crumbles in this era, misery clouding his eyes during Chanyeol’s formal events when his sister-the new queen-takes Chanyeol’s arm in her own. The dichotomy between Chanyeol’s public relationships and their illicit love affair drives a stake between them, and Baekhyun begins to grow more distant with each hour Chanyeol spends with his sister. In the later years, even when Chanyeol desperately whispers sweet truths of Baekhyun’s exclusive ownership of his heart into his ear, he can see how Baekhyun looks less convinced by the day.
He leaves Chanyeol by the time they’re 25, volunteering himself as a leader in a perilous conquest of the Kingdoms by the Northern Sea. He tells Chanyeol the night before he leaves for the first siege, gasping low murmurs about how he can’t bear to share him just as Chanyeol pushes into him repeatedly, desperately against the headboard. No amount of pleading changes Baekhyun’s mind, and the next morning, his house sigil of a howling dog embellished on the shining armor adorning his back is the last Chanyeol sees of his knight in this life.
He wordlessly watches Baekhyun march to his death from the cliff side, a shield adorned with crest of his family in one hand, and his symbolic queen in the other.
÷
The next life he’s born into, he doesn’t meet Baekhyun until he’s well into his 50s, an old age by the standards of the Dark Ages. He helps bring Baekhyun into the world as a doctor who helps birth him as the mother lies dying. By the fourth iteration, the spout of memories is well oiled, and Chanyeol’s instantly hit by a siege of memories as he holds the latest incarnation of his soul mate.
Unfortunately he also brings Baekhyun into the world on the even of the bubonic plague, and so in a month, he watches Baekhyun slip from it. He weeps that night, cursing God of his cruelty as he begins his journey towards wasting away.
Without Baekhyun, he finds, this life has little purpose.
÷
In the next life, as with most of the subsequent lives, Chanyeol is born with his memories, and finding Baekhyun becomes less of an enlightenment and more of a quest. It becomes a bit of a game to Chanyeol, and with each of the lives he manages to learn a few of the rules. By the seventh life, he gains knowledge on the existence of karma, and how the way he plays in one life dictates a few of the parameters in the next. The number and the degree of the sins he commits makes his life, and the process of finding Baekhyun, more difficult.
He makes the mistake of straying from Baekhyun in one lifetime, taking another to bed in a fit of drunken boredom as his wedding band lay innocuously on the nightstand. As a famous English playwright, he had many people throwing themselves at his feet-taking one was just a matter of saying yes (which became incredibly logical when inebriated). Naturally, this is not something Baekhyun understood, and he chased Chanyeol out of their home with a crude knife, shouting obscenities and swearing to hold a grudge against him (soon to be ex) until the rest of her life.
He went even further. In the next lifetime, Baekhyun hated his guts before he could even say hello, kicking Chanyeol out of his record store without even offering reason.
“Why did I kick him out? …Just because,” Baekhyun had glowered as he brandished a jagged piece of plastic (suspiciously looking like it had been hastily snapped from a CD case) in front of Chanyeol’s terrified expression, while he muttered an explanation to a curious Minseok. “I just don’t like the look of him. Bad vibes.”
After a fair amount of effort in the form of daily, out-of-the way trips to the store (Chanyeol did only live on the other side of the city), and wheedling for dates, Baekhyun finally consents to one (“but just one). He luckily likes the ice cream place Chanyeol takes him to (though maybe it was less of luck, and more of Chanyeol’s centuries-old knowledge that Baekhyun loved vanilla and that one cart had a mean vanilla bean), and somehow they end up hitting it off big time from there.
Baekhyun still manages to have major trust issues throughout their relationship, never quite believing Chanyeol’s claims of being at a place unless he has at least four to five alibis. Baekhyun ends up being so narcotic that they end up splitting in this lifetime, Baekhyun severing of their relationship with a few thrown plates and a more than a few curse words.
This less savory trait of Baekhyun’s doesn’t fade for a few lifetimes, and in each one Chanyeol carries his regrets anew over into that era.
÷
They do manage to fall in love every time they end up meeting, even if in some lives, the chase takes a little longer than Chanyeol would like (they’re reincarnated into a life where they meet as college students, and after a poor first impression involving alcohol and vomiting all over Baekhyun’s dress at a party, Baekhyun immediately pushes Chanyeol into her friendzone. Getting out of that took eight long years, but the rest of their time together were the happiest moments in Chanyeol’s memory).
When Baekhyun remembers, he remembers less than Chanyeol. What he remembers is often more like fragmented feelings rather than concrete memories, a nostalgia for certain things have happened before, or a certain sense about fate. There are a few lives where Baekhyun completely remembers Chanyeol, where he seeks Chanyeol rather than vice versa, and they bring pleasant surprises, like a day in winter when professor Chanyeol opens his door expecting a wayward student, and Baekhyun springs forward kisses him right then and there on his doorstep.
When their lives do intersect, it seems that fate brings them together.
They’re reborn again as a pair of competitive dorky high school superheroes in training, with lame names like Flame Man and Incan Descent.
“Your name is lame and you should feel lame,” Baekhyun groveled. “Also, stop saving the cats I was supposed to save. I haven’t met my quota for this month yet.”
“What the fuck is Incan Descent supposed to mean,” Chanyeol slapped his forehead. “You’re not even Incan. And if you just got here faster, you’d get the cats first.”
“They got it wrong on my superhero license,” Baekhyun sniffed as he touted the cage he had on hand. “There wasn’t supposed to be a space but someone misread it.”
“That’s fucking hilarious,” Chanyeol doubled over in laughter. “And no, I’m not giving you the cat.”
“You know I need the cats to keep my practice warrant!” Baekhyun stomped his foot. It was half out of indignation and half because, Chanyeol could sympathize, spandex shrinks in the dryer.
“Go find a little old lady or something to help cross the street,” Chanyeol snickered. “It’s worth about the same in savior points.”
“It’s the 30th,” Baekhyun wheedled, nearly sticking out his bottom lip. “The month is almost over. Come on man.”
And damn, Chanyeol’s always (for the past few lives, anyway), been a sucker for the pout, and so he rolls his eyes as he opens the crate and lets the cat scamper back in tree, trying to conceal his reddening face as Baekhyun (re)rescues the cat.
Baekhyun’s kind of a dunce with no previous memories in this life, and so he doesn’t really get it until well after they’ve graduated from superhero academy, and Chanyeol kind of has to take a bullet for him and wheeze out a confession before Baekhyun even suspects anything remotely amorous out of Chanyeol. Chanyeol doesn’t die right then, but the next morning in the hospital, he feels like dying of mortification when he recalled his outpouring of love. Of course this is before Baekhyun shuffles into the room, grabs Chanyeol by the hospital gown collar and kisses him right then and there.
(Chanyeol finds out with a pleasant surprise that Baekhyun glows when he gets embarrassed in this life).
Not every life is as fun. The eleventh life Chanyeol finds Baekhyun, they’re photographer and actor and rising-star Baekhyun is brought to him for a photoshoot. Chanyeol almost forgets to breathe when Baekhyun swaggers into the room, camera almost slipping out of his hand as the love of his life literally walks into his life. The weight of impossibility of convincing Baekhyun in that lifetime only grows as Chanyeol takes more photos in the shoot. Because Baekhyun reeks of fame and success and exclusivity right them, makeup and clothes molding him into the male image of perfection as his entourage waits on the side. Chanyeol leaves work dejected that day. The photos are good, but his task is hopeless. That is, until Baekhyun pops up out of nowhere and takes him to a club where they dance the night away (and then some). They hook up the next day, somewhere among Baekhyun’s 1500 thread Egyptian cotton sheets, Chanyeol spluttering that Baekhyun should go out with him as Baekhyun languidly rubs a cold toe up and down Chanyeol’s shin. Without hesitating, Baekhyun says yes. But even then, that relationship is tumultuous, with the aspect of incredible fame and scandal injecting plenty of volatility into their lives. Dating a famous person is never easy, and Chanyeol constantly felt insecure.
But perhaps that life was not as volatile in the next life, Chanyeol’s a Francophile author who hunkers down in Paris, settling into an apartment. He finds Baekhyun half a year into his lease, a freelance actor come Parisian tour guide, leaning against the balcony next door, letting the smoke from his cigarette swirl up into the dark sky. Superficially, Chanyeol manages to bond with Baekhyun over a mutual feeling of stagnation in their lives, as failing artists in their respective genres. Of course, Chanyeol knows there’s other reasons why Baekhyun was so quick to let him into his home, literally, and proceed to let him bang him in the shower. Loneliness was probably one of them-Baekhyun never liked being alone in any lifetime. Chanyeol’s ability to rattle off Baekhyun’s favorite films had probably been another positive point of impression. And that transcendent sense of familiarity had probably helped. The rest of their relationship is messy and raw, a manifestation of sloppy slew of emotions characterized by lust, drugs, and hormones. Surprisingly, they somehow-barely-make it to the end together, but only with a badge of 57 violent breakups and 5 near-death experiences among other exciting situations slung on their belts.
÷
They’ve had exciting lives together, existences and professions involving espionage and political power. There are lives where they flirt only briefly, taken away from each other due to some sort of unfortunate circumstance like death, or social constructs. Fame seems to color a certain percentage of their time together, and usually they have to bury their relationship deep into the ground, creating stress on both sides. Love under the spotlight was difficult, and no matter the lifetime, Baekhyun always gave up trying.
It’s the boring lives that Chanyeol cherishes, the ones where they’re able to live their lives out in peace and the biggest conflicts they have to deal with are the petty fights that they get into over the smallest things. The one where they’re beach bums, shacking it up in a coastal hut and surfing the waves until the sun sets in the west is one of his favorites. As is the one where he’s a struggling guitarist who meets his jazz singer at a bar, and they become a small-time duo who tour the local clubs in their city. The one where they’re just two guys at 9-to-5 jobs, who meet under remarkably ordinary circumstances, who date in a remarkably ordinary fashion, and whose post get-together most exciting moments end up being things like watching Sunday night football.
It’s in those lives where he loses himself for a bit, forgetting the larger scope of destiny and living in the moment. And it’s those lives that he clings too, dreading the end when he does manage to remember.
÷
There are quite a few eras where they are not born to be lovers.
There is a lifetime among many when Chanyeol glimpses Baekhyun only once, from across the train tracks in Manchester. He nearly drops his newspaper when he spots the familiar figure perched on the side of the loading deck-a man tucked into a bowler hat and a bow tie, briefcase secured in the palm of his hand as he consults a golden pocket watch. By the time Chanyeol’s able to push on his spectacles and leap from his seat, his soulmate is gone with the tired groan of iron wheels, the plume of dark smoke dancing through the station as his destiny travels far, far away.
There are also lifetimes where Chanyeol cannot touch Baekhyun, certain spans of years where their destined paths intersect under forbidden conditions. Like the era where he is a peasant boy trying to make it in the capital city, and he finds Baekhyun as the highest class indentured prostitute, her services exclusive to the king. Or the life where he finds Baekhyun at the end of the man’s years, stumbling into a candy shop a day after elementary school, only to be greeted by his love in the form of a hunched old man, his smile is just as brilliant as he pulls out sweets by the dozen for Chanyeol. Or the lifetime where they’re born from the same parents, twins in genes but not looks, troublesome and telepathic as they wrecked havoc as an united sibling force. In those times, they manage to love without lust, and find ways to twine their lives together in platonic ways.
But it’s not as bad as the lifetimes where he never runs into Baekhyun at all, where he waits out the days until his death, fervently hoping to catch so much as a glimpse.
There are lifetimes where Baekhyun doesn’t remember Chanyeol the slightest. And they’re not so bad, because Chanyeol still manages to woo Baekhyun, time after time.
There are probably a few where Chanyeol can’t remember Baekhyun either.
But he can’t recall any of those.
÷
The lives Chanyeol likes the least are the ones where they’re thrown into the flames of war. There are two of these, lives where they meet in the military, lives where romance has little place and lives that are doomed to end in bloodshed and pain.
The first time, their relationship is limited to quick fucks behind the barracks, misfortune condemning them to meet only after they’ve been drafted, and the stress of actual battle and social stigma corners their romance to desperate heated moments in secluded places. They’re boys with nothing to lose in this life, children without a purpose or a home and swept into a winds of war shifted by high political powers.
There’s a certain anxiety when Chanyeol spots Baekhyun in the dining hall for the first time, his hair rumpled and mousy and the bags under his eyes speaking of the general exhaustion of constant battle. It’s not a surprise-70% of their nation’s able-bodied men had been deployed-but still Chanyeol had held hopes that Baekhyun had managed to evade the draft, or better yet, skipped this lifetime entirely.
Baekhyun doesn’t recognize him instantly, and Chanyeol reconciles this by supposing at that at least Baekhyun won’t suffer heartbreak when Chanyeol inevitably dies in battle. He forces himself to be content with just staying by Baekhyun’s side, quelling his urges to touch Baekhyun in less platonic ways on and off the battlefield.
It’s after Baekhyun’s knocked in the head, impact to the ground caused by the force from an explosion, that his memories return. And when Chanyeol visits him in the dingy hospital ward, Baekhyun orders him to draw the curtains before grabbing him by the collar and kissing him deeply.
They know instinctively that their last night together will be the last in this lifetime, when they receive orders of their unit’s assignment. They will be part of the assault in attempt to reclaim the beach, part of a tactic in which suicidal tidal wave of men will be thrown at the shores, the goal of the plan to gain ground simply by overwhelming the enemy. And perhaps they sleep easier than most of the other men, because they know they have many more futures. But death is never a painless thing, and a dull sense of dread beats Chanyeol to the bones.
It could be years or centuries before they meet again, and maybe that’s why Baekhyun kisses him so sweetly that night, backing him slowly against the wall as he unzips Chanyeol’s pants. He does things to Chanyeol that send intense tremors of pleasure coursing through his body, whispering love and promises into his ears until dawn breaks.
They are not saved by a miracle. Chanyeol falls as soon as the door is lowered, bullets riddling his chest as he does his best to stay upright to protect Baekhyun. Soon, control of his limbs fails him and he falls out of the tank and into the shallows, the salt water burning his wounds as red seeps out of his chest like ink. As the coursing pain overtakes his psyche and he begins to ebb out of consciousness, Baekhyun plummets next to him, the tip of his ear gone and the back of his jacket soaked in crimson. The sounds of battle begin to fade away as Chanyeol’s eyes flutter to a close, the vice around his failing heart painfully squeezes tighter and tighter as his body begins to shut down, and the last thing he feels before he leaves is Baekhyun’s shaking fingers twined with his.
÷
The second time their fates take them to war, they’re not lucky enough to be born on the same side of combat.
The gun is level in his hands as he narrows his eyes at the figure on the ground, his index finger thumbing the worn metal of the trigger as he shoulders his gun. The target is bound, kneeling in the dirt with his head bowed down low, a loosely-tied dirty rag masking his identity.
There was no right to war, and so Chanyeol took care not to learn the identities nor crimes of his victims. That humanized them, and made his job more difficult. He was an executioner, picked because he has a straight shot with an iron heart. The man in front of his was no more to him than a statistic, the third out of four similar jobs he had been assigned. There was no emotional sentiment tied towards the man, no hate for the enemy nor guilt in being the one tasked to end his life. For Chanyeol, the life of this man was an exchange for income and safety, an unfortunate guy fighting on the wrong side of the war who was Chanyeol’s guarantee of a hearth and home for just another day.
But the eastern wind blows stronger that day, rushing past Chanyeol, kicking up his jacket and bits of dust from the ground. It swirls around the man, loosening the rag until it slipped to the floor, revealing the familiar face of a man roughly Chanyeol’s age, his eyes downcast as his lips stirred prayers.
He is the last person Chanyeol wanted to be kneeled there.
Recognition hits Chanyeol like a blunt stone, the fear that slams his body as soon as the man raises his eyes, his piercing stare devoid of all of that familiar love and saturated instead with a seething patriotic brand of hate instead. The healthy look he had during their lives during peacetimes is nonexistent, the luster in his hair, the glow of his skin, the crescents of his eyes were replaced by a matted mane, the pallid sheen of famine and stress, and a hard look from certain things seen.
His laugh is bitter and cold, and he spits out a dark, congealed mass of blood.
“Baek…Baekhyun,” Chanyeol whispers in astonishment. His heart hurts when his eyes traced the clotting slash chasing Baekhyun’s left cheek, the ooze of blood, grim, and pus creating a messy mosaic across the side of his face.
“Park,” a hard voice from his commander crackles into his receiver. “Shoot.”
By way of hard training and military loyalty, Chanyeol’s finger automatically puts pressure on the trigger, index testing the strain of the spring against his hold. Baekhyun continues to stare at him, gaze unfazed as a grim grin adorned his face.
“Get on with it,” Baekhyun croaks, shivering as he lowered his head. He laughs bitterly, with a sort of hopeless humor as he shook his head. “You always draw things out unnecessarily.”
Out of all the lives Baekhyun recognizes him, Chanyeol thought bitterly that it had to be this one. Intense trepidation is making him sick to his stomach and his voice wavers as he croaks and apology, “I’m sorry.”
“If you were actually sorry, you’d give me this favor and end it already.”
“Hey, can we meet in a more peaceful life next time,” Chanyeol chokes back a tear, fingers trembling as he tried to keep the gun steady.
“Park, shoot. This is a command.”
“That would be nice,” Baekhyun snickers tiredly, bangs swinging low over his face. “If this doesn’t kill me instantly, I’m going to give you hell in the next life for it. I don’t like dying in pain.”
“I am giving you ten seconds, Park-”
And out of corner of his eye, he spots Kris lifting his own rifle, the butt aimed straight at Baekhyun’s head.
“I’ll try my best.”
“-Shoot, now.”
The crack of the shot sounded deafening in Chanyeol’s ears, and suddenly the world began to spin in slow motion, the astonishment in Baekhyun’s face slowly eclipsing his smile as he watched crimson bloom from the left side of his chest. He fell forward, collapsing in an ungainly heap as he crumpled, the dust and blood mixture forming an oozing macabre mud.
There was a scream that erupts somewhere in the room, that Chanyeol really wishes would stop, the piercing yell ringing loudly in his ears and making it difficult to even think as he watched Baekhyun convulse against the ground, his face contorting in anguish as he went into shock. It was only after Baekhyun stops moving, figure slumped lifeless against the ground, that Chanyeol finally feels the fresh rawness eroding his throat, his screams unyielding until paramedic Kyungsoo managed to incapacitate him with a sedative.
He follows Baekhyun three days later. Morphine is the only thing that manages to quell his pain, and he locks himself into his room and suffocates himself out of this life and into the next.
÷
The double sins of suicide and murder have repercussions that run deeper than Chanyeol imagined. He spends the next few lives wading helplessly for Baekhyun, scouring the world in search for a single soul. The eras he enters are unfortunately chronological, and the world grows exponentially bigger each time he’s reborn.
But for a total of five lifetimes-three centuries-there’s not a trace of Baekhyun, and slowly Chanyeol begins to give up (and forget).
He accomplishes lifetimes of work without Baekhyun, shuttling refugees from a war torn country, translating ancient texts for modern academia, becoming an international pop sensation. He solves a millennium problem, and brings a company from rags to riches before burning to a ground once again. But it meant nothing in the face of things, consolation prizes in the failure of the main goal he was trying to achieve. He works harder than before not so much for altruistic reasons, but more for the sake of finding distractions to take his mind off Baekhyun to stop himself from going crazy, the task of finding him becoming more difficult by the day. It’s at the end of his third life that he realizes he had taken fate for granted, and without it, the weight of impossibility began to crush Chanyeol and the prospect of losing Baekhyun forever seemed more eminent by the day.
That was, until last month in this life, when he passed the café below his workplace, catching a familiar bit of laughter floating in the wind. His heart had jumped out of his chest.
The last few visits had been unsuccessful, but last night he had dreamed of golden plains, of open fields, of silver armor, of snapshots of fifty lifetimes.
Of a face he hadn’t seen in eternities.
He breathes in deeply to calm his nerves, filling himself with the rich scent of roasted coffee beans. There were a lot of things in this place that spoke of Baekhyun. The oak floors were one, the dog logo that starkly resembled his house sigil for his knighthood days were another, the unusual abundance of vanilla on the menu was another.
And then, like out of a dream, “your latte,” a voice, warm, tuneful and familiar floats around the fraying edges of paper and drifts into his ears. A pair of slender fingers appears at the top of the crease between the news and international section, quickly drawing the paper down to reveal a face untouched by age, with gaze warmer than flames.
“Hello, again,” a deep chuckle escapes Chanyeol’s lips. Then there’s a pause, and a crinkle as the paper is folded and tossed in an obscure corner. “It’s been such a long time,” Chanyeol murmurs, voice shaking with a slew of emotions. “Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun smiles, putting the sun to shame. His laugh is a melody to Chanyeol’s ears, and a first time in a long time, Chanyeol feels so alive again.
“You finally found me.”
A/N:
This is based on both Ke$ha’s Past Lives song and Tongari’s 25 lives webcomic. But thanks for the prompts aiuyu! They were chill.
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