"we are good"; "很好"; 3/4
★
“Feed me.”
Yifan blinks his eyes wide as Chanyeol sullenly pushes past him at the door, saunters into the living room and flops onto the black couch. He carries with him a black plastic bag which he has thrown carelessly onto the coffee table. With astonishment, Yifan watches him pick the remote up and start channel surfing.
It’s as if the past forty-two days of his absence have never occurred. A gap now hinges between the present and the memory of his last meeting with Chanyeol. “Wha-“ Yifan begins but Chanyeol interrupts him. “I’m hungry,” he pouts and Yifan ceases all questioning.
Chanyeol is back.
It’s already 9 p.m. and Yifan is already done with dinner. He walks to the living room and points at the black plastic bag. “Didn’t you already buy something to eat?” Two can play that game, Yifan figures. But then Chanyeol looks at him all weird before he picks up the plastic bag and empties it out in a flourish.
There’s his wallet, a brand new one, and a passport. That’s all.
The realization stuns Yifan. Chanyeol has left home.
“I told him,” Chanyeol says plainly, as if he were reporting the time to Yifan, “he doesn’t like it. But that’s alright. I’m graduating in two months, I’ll get a job then and you have a new job as well. We’ll do ok. It will be fine.” But Chanyeol doesn’t sound like he’d be fine. He sounds like the empty echo of a bottomless well, as if endless reiterations would cause beliefs to become facts.
And it’s only now that Yifan catches on. “You plotted this,” he mumbles in a daze, “All this time. For me to quit my job, for you to finish your studies.” Belatedly, he recalls an episode when he once called Chanyeol scheming. He knows Chanyeol wants to protect him but he doesn’t appreciate it very much right now.
“I waited,” Chanyeol corrects him firmly, “we waited.”
For a long while, there’s only the sound of the television showing a variety show, perhaps, the laughter is loud and empty to Yifan’s ears. “Go home,” he finally rasps out and Chanyeol lowers his head. A crack surfaces from his within and propagates so quickly, he can’t stop himself from falling apart. His entire world is caving in upon Yifan’s words.
“I can’t." Chanyeol can no longer hide the despair in his voice.
But Yifan is already grasping his hand and pulling him up from the couch. He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t ask for Chanyeol to become someone like him. An orphan. Chanyeol has a family, something Yifan has always craved for. When he was small, the craving was an obsession and he wanted it so badly, sometimes he felt like he could taste it. It tasted like metal, like blood.
And Chanyeol doesn’t want it. The thought that he might be responsible for this is unbearable. He is furious, with Chanyeol, with himself. There is a wild urge to destroy something.
“Go back to your father,” he grits out, dragging Chanyeol to the door, grasp angry and burning on his arm, but Chanyeol offers no resistance when Yifan shoves him out, allowing himself to be manipulated like a broken doll.
“D-don’t,” Chanyeol whispers brokenly when Yifan closes the door in his face.
A minute later, the doorbell rings. Yifan leans on the door but ignores the ringing. After half an hour of this, Lu Han is eventually smoked out of his room, although he has been trying to keep out of Yifan’s private matters. “Can I open the door?” he asks meekly. Blankly, Yifan stares at him but his mind has wandered off and Lu Han retreats back into his room when he fails to get a response. He’s still worried but he’s unsure if he should interfere. Reaching for his phone, he calls Jongin.
When the ringing stops, Yifan opens the door, fully expecting Chanyeol to be there. And he’s there, crumpled on the floor by the side of the door, head between folded knees, back curled in a bizarre angle as if someone has taken him by the ends and snapped him into two from within. There’s nowhere else Chanyeol can go, Yifan knows it. But he thinks Chanyeol needs to be punished. Yifan asks no questions, he doubts he has any words left in him. But when he nears, Chanyeol starts unwinding. His breakdown is eerily serene.
“He didn’t reject us, didn’t reject you. I was the one he rejected. He still doesn’t know about us, I never told him. All I said, all I said was that I liked boys. He said it was wrong. He said I shamed him. He said it was because my mum died and no one was around to teach me how to be good. He said it was my fault. He said it was her fault. He said she loved me too much. He said she shouldn’t have given birth to me if she was going to die so early.” Chanyeol’s eyes are dull when he lifts his head, there isn’t even the shimmer of tears. All the brilliant lights have been extinguished. His voice is strangely clear and stoic when he repeats those cruel words that shock Yifan. That’s when he sees the faint imprint of a hand on the left side of Chanyeol’s face and reads what he has deliberately left out of the story. Gently, he lays his own hand over the red mark and feels the tremors reverberate in Chanyeol, aftershocks of being rejected by his closest kin.
“I didn’t run away, I didn’t want to leave. I begged. I begged so hard but he pushed me out of the door.” Just like how you pushed me out.
“I did everything he wanted me to. I became everything he wanted me to. I hoped he would love me like how my mum did.”
“I have been a good son my whole life. But I’m not good anymore.”
“He doesn’t want me. You don’t want me either.”
In a flash, Yifan pulls him into his arms, hands shaking with frantic attempts to offer consolation and apologies. Chanyeol doesn’t push him off but neither does he reciprocate. Numbly, he continues his incessant mumbling, words muffled against Yifan’s shirt. But Yifan hears him perfectly well, as if it were a piercing scream instead of a soft whisper. “He said I’m not his son if I’m gay. He said I’m not his son if I’m gay.”
★
Chanyeol doesn’t get out of bed for a long while. He is whole and healthy on the surface but then, a lot of people break on the inside, too. They bleed where you cannot see, they hurt in a place so secret, you’ll probably never find it your whole life. But Yifan knows. Every day, he wakes up beside Chanyeol, strokes his hair quietly and whispers a soft, ‘I’m going to work, are you going to be ok?’ to him. Chanyeol always nods and Yifan takes that as a ‘yes’. Although they both know he is not ok. But there is little to do. The world doesn’t stop spinning because of a broken heart, no matter how unfair it seems. Life goes on.
There is no reason why Chanyeol shouldn’t get up and get on with life. There is no reason why it should be this hard. But it is. He struggles to find the will to get out of bed for everything. He struggles but gives up soon after. It’s much nicer to just give up and lie there. It is so easy. Living is too difficult. Bathing, food, school, they no longer seem necessary. The bed covers will keep him safe. Nothing else exists outside this warm cocoon. He never counts the days. He no longer cares.
But one cold night, when the lights are out and Chanyeol has already curled himself into a tight ball, thinking he has repelled all, he hears Yifan say, “I’m sorry.” The word slices through all his layers of defenses.
After some time, he cautiously pokes his head out from the covers but Yifan has his eyes closed. Chanyeol cannot tell what’s in his eyes but when he looks down, he sees the corner of his blanket caught in Yifan’s grasp, fingers tangled up in cotton instead of Chanyeol’s hand. Still, they remain linked even in sleep. Chanyeol feels his heart throb and everything starts hurting at the same time when he recollects a promise he once made. It seems like a century ago.
I will give you a home.
★
Life cannot be sustained with just love. Yifan has learnt that life can be very ugly. But he doesn’t want Chanyeol to know this. So when he opens his eyes the next morning and sees Chanyeol sitting at the edge of the bed beside him, wearing a clean pair of jeans and t-shirt, looking like he just came out of the shower, he wants to say, ‘don’t go, stay’. Chanyeol silences him with a smile, however. It ends up in one of those funny lip shapes Yifan is so fond of, except this time, it’s cracked around the corners, like the ends of his mouth can’t decide to go up or down and they are caught in the middle. But it has been so long since Yifan last saw Chanyeol smile. He lifts a hand and traces the curve of Chanyeol’s lips. This is what he wanted to protect but ended up destroying.
“You look good in my shirt,” Yifan compliments, which completely sidetracks what has happened over the past three weeks and is a big fat lie. His white V-neck tee is too big for Chanyeol who has lost too much weight. At least this means the waistband of his jeans is well covered up with the shirt’s hem. Chanyeol has given up on a belt, he rolled the waistband several times so that it’d sit on his hips. The legs are too short now though. But beggars cannot be choosers. “Are you wearing my underwear too?” Yifan teases.
Still an ass, Chanyeol thinks, but it’s better than asking ‘are you ok?’ when the startlingly obvious answer is no. And it will remain so for a long time. Chanyeol is not sure how long, but he hopes it’ll pass soon enough. He doesn’t like being sad.
His smile widens in reply. “Are you going to school?” asks Yifan. Chanyeol nods, still not saying a word. Pulling him down into his arms, Yifan lets Chanyeol lay against him, his bones feel so fragile. He isn’t aware that his grip on Chanyeol has grown stronger.
“I-“ Chanyeol’s voice is raspy from disuse and he has to cough to clear his throat. “I want this to be good.”
It’s Yifan’s turn to keep his silence. He begins stroking Chanyeol’s hair, giving in to his habit of running his fingers through those soft brown locks, soothing Chanyeol as if he were a kid. But Chanyeol isn’t a child. He’s already twenty-two years old. When Yifan was twenty-two years old, he was already supporting himself with three part-time jobs, surviving on less than five hours of sleep everyday. Removing Yifan’s hand, Chanyeol frees himself from Yifan’s hold and says quietly, “I’m not a kid anymore.”
An indulgent smile hangs on Yifan’s face. “I just don’t want you to grow up so fast.”
“Everyone has to grow up someday.” Despite the display of bravery, Chanyeol suddenly feels lost. He still isn’t ready for the world but it’s no longer a choice, is it? He is a kid who has been forced to age overnight, new skin hanging on him like a loose identity. Lowering his head, Chanyeol fingers the hem of Yifan’s shirt. “I don’t have anything left.” The shirt on his back doesn’t even belong to him. Although Chanyeol doesn’t think he has ever really owned anything at all his entire life.
He is afraid.
But Yifan takes his hand then, and he tells him without words that this, this is what you have.
Wind filters through the window’s gap. Yifan neglected to check that the windows had been shut tight last night. No wonder it was so cold. Looking out the window, Chanyeol thinks he sees a hint of pink.
“It’s almost spring.”
★
When the furious pink of the cherry blossoms begins coloring Seoul, Chanyeol graduates from college. He doesn’t attend his graduation. The certificate is passed to him by Jongin. It feels deceptively light in his hands when his whole future seems to weigh on it.
Lu Han takes the addition of Chanyeol to the household rather well. In fact, Chanyeol isn’t really sure because all Lu Han has asked is, “Do you like washing dishes?” Chanyeol is rather taken aback to learn that dishes don’t just wash themselves. The ones in his old home seemed to do exactly that. So Yifan teaches him how to be independent around the house and Chanyeol learns without complaints although his frustration is easily detected in his upturned mouth. He learns that the washing machine works best if he gives it a kick or two in the ass, and when he thinks no one is looking, that’s what he does instead of fiddling with the buttons like Yifan. Actually, Lu Han is looking on but he keeps his silence because that’s exactly what he does, too. Sneaks need to keep a lookout for each other.
Since he left home, Chanyeol hasn’t bought a lot of things. He continues wearing Yifan’s ill-fitting clothes and refuses all his attempts to bring him out shopping. But there are things he needs and one cannot afford dignity when there isn't a single Won to his name. A blue toothbrush, a change of underwear, grey slippers - necessities. They all seem to cost so much now that Chanyeol can no longer use his credit cards. (He keeps them still, in the pockets of his new wallet. It’s so empty anyway.)
His cheeks burn when Yifan tell him it’s alright in the supermarket. “I will pay you back,” Chanyeol insists. He doesn’t want to live off Yifan.
“Let me take care of you for now,” Yifan says, ruffling Chanyeol’s hair, causing floppy bangs to fall into guarded eyes. “As repayment, just wheel me around in the park for some sunshine when I’m eighty. Bring the Bichon Frisé along, we’ll get one when we grow old.”
Chanyeol blinks at Yifan who just smiles and messes up his adorable mushroom hair even more. The idea of growing old together is wonderful.
However, “I’m going to be seventy-eight when you’re eighty,” Chanshroom frowns, “what if I have arthritis? What if the dog shits and I break my back while I’m bending down to pick up its poop? And you can’t even help me up ‘cos your knees would already have blown.”
Yifan stares at Chanyeol, fingers still caught in his hair. “My knees…” He looks down at his knees then. Just checking they are still perfect.
“Setting. You’re the one who said you’d be in a wheelchair.”
Yifan resumes mauling his cute little mushroom with a pondering look on his face; Chanyeol ducks and draws away. This is clearly a matter deserving of serious contemplation. “Then we’ll get Jongin and Lu Han to wheel us around.”
That was already a month ago. Tonight, Chanyeol removes a black suit from Yifan’s wardrobe. The legs of the pants are a little too wide to be fashionable but it’s the only suit that fits. All of Yifan’s newer suits are meant to hang on broader shoulders. He asks Yifan to iron it for him because he’s worried he’d burn it. In the end, it’s Lu Han who irons the suit for him. He unfolds the iron table, setting the iron to high steam, and as he presses and smoothes out each and every wrinkle, the chatty housewife dispenses bad advice to Chanyeol, telling him what to say and do. “Say you might not know much but you’re always willing to learn. Speak slowly and formally. Look smart but stupid.”
“Look smart but stupid?” Chanyeol and Yifan are sitting on the couch, watching little Lulu fuss over the suit.
“Look like you’re smart enough to do whatever they tell you to but stupid enough not to ask.” Lu Han says importantly and squirts more starch onto the suit.
Chanyeol attempts to appear smart and stupid at the same time. “You are a natural at the ‘stupid’,” Lu Han comments objectively and Chanyeol pouts angrily at him, “but it’s going to take more than a night for you to get the ‘smart’ right.’
“Just be yourself,” Yifan interrupts when he sees Chanyeol worry his lower lip. His smile is soft and assuring as he tugs Chanyeol’s lip free with light pressure from a thumb. But Lu Han isn’t done yet.
“And whatever you do, don’t smile.”
Chanyeol flashes Lu Han his trademark Cheshire grin then. His teeth are so white and lovely. All fifteen of them, Yifan counts. Chanyeol tilts his head so Yifan can spot the upper tooth in the corner that he missed out. Sixteen.
“Yes, like this,” Lu Han nods and flattens a stubborn crease with malice, “never do this. You look mad and... mad.” There’s just no better word.
Yifan laughs as Chanyeol throws a cushion at Lu Han and hides behind him when Lulu lifts the iron menacingly. They end up taking turns spritzing each other with starch.
The next day, Chanyeol asks to borrow some money from him. This is the first time he has held his hand out. Usually, Yifan has to press money into Chanyeol’s hands. “Eat more, buy things you like,” he’d say, and at the same time, Yifan would eat less and stop buying things.
Yifan is not laughing anymore when Chanyeol flags the cab down. He doesn’t laugh when Chanyeol turns and gives him that weird smile again, trying his best to appear brave when his uncertainty is scribbled all over his face, looking scared in a suit that obviously wasn’t made with him in mind.
Still a child, Yifan thinks wistfully. But Yifan will always think of Chanyeol as a child.
He doesn’t speak because he thinks he might say ‘you don’t have to’ again when Chanyeol is clearly adamant that he does this right. He doesn’t run his hand through Chanyeol’s hair either, because it has been gelled up neatly to reveal his forehead. He does none of this.
Instead, Yifan hands a good luck charm to him, withdraws his protective wings and lets Chanyeol step away from him, out into the world.
It’s time for Chanyeol to grow up.
★
“They asked me when I planned to get married,” explains Chanyeol that night, pinpointing the exact moment when he failed his first interview. They are having a dinner of ginseng chicken soup in the living room. Lu Han is sitting on the floor because the giants are monopolizing the couch again.
“What did you say?” Yifan asks and ladles up some samgyetang for Chanyeol, who scowls his thanks. Lu Han asks Yifan sweetly for a bowl of soup too.
“Today, I decided that I’d get married at thirty.” In fact, Chanyeol at first stared wide-eyed and terrified at the panel of interviewers. For a moment, he was sure it was a trick question and that they knew his secret, that his identity had been tattooed on his forehead, the ink still bleeding on skin, letting everyone judge him freely. But this couldn't be true. His own father had not been able to tell in the years they'd spent under the same roof. It was just his fear talking. So when the interviewers repeated the question, he swallowed and replied, “T-Thirty.” They nodded and proceeded to the next question, which he fumbled with like a ticking time bomb in his hands.
It was a politically correct answer. But Chanyeol felt like he had never been more wrong his entire life.
“So, we’re getting married at thirty?” Yifan asks with a blank face. But it only lasts a second because Chanyeol has been reduced to a stammering mess. “I. You. Haven’t. I. Proposed,” he sputters, horrified at the lack of romance in the timeline of their relationship and Yifan chuckles, fingers playing with the ends of Chanyeol’s hair, the gel already washed out.
Lu Han announces his presence by coughing solemnly. “I will excuse your flagrant disregard for me as a human being deserving of respect and grace.” With some extravagant eyebrow acrobatics, Chanyeol shows Lu Han exactly how much he disagrees with his statement. Just the part that starts with ‘human’ and ends with ‘grace’, actually.
“It’s only your first interview. You have many more to come.” Yifan passes a bowl of chicken soup to Lu Han and catches the sneaky one stealing the drumstick from Chanyeol’s bowl. Smiling, Yifan lets him take Chanyeol’s drumstick and just replaces it with another one from the pot. Lu Han blinks because the sad truth is, a chicken only has two legs. So he tries to place the stolen drumstick into Yifan’s bowl. But Yifan declines. He still hasn’t gotten out of the habit of indulging his gege. Some things never change.
Lu Han stares at Yifan, his brother, closer to him than how the thickest of blood could bind kin together. Then he looks at Chanyeol, sad-faced & wobbly chin. Quietly, Lu Han puts his drumstick into Chanyeol’s bowl. This is how the Chinese show their love, by giving you the best part of the dish, what they would have wanted for themselves. If Yifan accepts Chanyeol, Lu Han will take him under his wing too.
“More interviews?” The sobbing Chanyeol bites into his drumsticks. They taste so good.
From then on, Chanyeol attends one or two interviews per week. During good times (or bad, depending if you’re Chanyeol), he has three on his schedule. Chanyeol hates interviews. Yes, he wants a job, badly too. But he didn't know it entailed answering the same questions over and over again and he doesn't have an inkling how ‘What would you like to be in 5 years time?’ would have a direct connection with his work capability. And that one time, he almost replied, ‘Your boss’ to an ass of an interviewer.
Bored with the ever-identical process, his speech changes from panicked and saturated with speech fillers to being rehearsed and steady. The interviewers like that, he realizes. They've stopped lifting their eyebrows like how they usually do when he is being too lively. During one of his practice sessions with Lu Han, he even gets complimented by the obnoxiously picky shortie. “You. You look smart and stupid. How.”
Replying with a question, Chanyeol asks little Lulu why Jongin has taken to showing up at their place, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, to watch EPL matches with him. One time, he even stayed the night after a crucial derby match between Manchester United and Manchester City that Lu Han had been so excited for. Chanyeol discovered them the next morning, Lu Han fast asleep and curled up on Jongin on the couch, a tiny scowl still caught on his face, confused even in sleep as to how the hell his club - the one he pledged fierce, undying and wholly blind allegiance to for the rest of his life - could have lost to Man City, quite arguably their worst nemesis (they have many). Oh Lord, the pain. Lu Han would have preferred losing to frigging Liverpool. He had been as furious as Sir Alex Ferguson and he'd paced the living room just like how Ferguson had paced the sideline screaming at his players, giving them his infamous hairdryer treatment while he chewed gum (man, the ruddy Scot sure chews a lot of gum). Jongin had been very amused. His Lu Han was so adorable.
Lu Han’s reply is in Chinese. Chanyeol thinks he catches something like dan and teng. He wonders what that means and makes a note to ask Yifan.
★
Summer settles on them in a whirlwind of biting heat and gritty dust. Indeed, it has been both biting and gritting on Chanyeol who began work a month ago. Sometimes he thinks being an adult means wearing a mask and hooking his mouth into a smile when what he really wants to do is to deliver a sucker punch to the Marketing Director who exceeded their budget for the quarter (again, it seems). He now works as a Planning Officer for a large local company, helping it manage the annual budget. Honestly, it isn’t Samsung or LG but eh, Chanyeol doesn’t really care. All he needs is, well, as harsh as it sounds, money. Not everyone has a dream like Yifan. It would be nice to have one, he thinks. But dinner would be better. He just got his first paycheck.
This night, when Yifan returns home that evening, it is to a bowl of kimchi ramyun, watered down until it’s absolutely tasteless. It sits by itself on the coffee table, lonely without even an egg in it for company. This is the first time Chanyeol has cooked. This is the first time Yifan has come home to a homemade dinner.
“Welcome home,” Chanyeol greets Yifan and hands him an envelope even before he could ask. Yifan gives Chanyeol a questioning look when he finds the wad of cash inside.
“Everyone contributes to the family,” Chanyeol replies simply.
Family.
Yifan can still remember that winter when Lu Han and he sat in the yard of the orphanage. The memory is as cold as the flecks of snow on their thin mian ao. The weeping willow was bent over them, branches as bare as their room. Lu Han asked him what he wanted if he could have anything in the world. One of the many ‘what if’ questions they sometimes asked because they lacked so much in life and were so often hungry. Before Yifan could answer, someone called Lu Han away. The ten year old Yifan answered anyway, although no one was there to listen. Staring at the new scabs on his hands - still fresh from a fight a few days ago - but feeling the pain emerge from another gaping hole in him, Yifan whispered, “I want a family.” The winter breeze swept by then, dispersing his yearning so that it settled like frost onto the roof and seeped into the sewer by the time the morning sun rose, just as unwanted.
“Eat.” Chanyeol holds Yifan by the wrist, pulling him to sit beside him on the couch. But Yifan doesn’t eat. Instead he places his hand over Chanyeol’s, the touch feels incredibly warm. Someone wants to hold his hand. The mere thought of this sends something bubbling up and Yifan swallows hard to push it down. Crying gets one nowhere, he knows this, yeah, Yifan would know. But it’s still difficult anyway. Their grip is strengthened with a clutch of Chanyeol’s fingers when he feels Yifan shaking. The slight quavering would have been indiscernible if they hadn’t been touching. Yifan pulls his eyes away from their laced fingers and peers into Chanyeol’s eyes, the ends thinning when he eases into a soft smile.
For you, they seem to say. This dream has no strings attached to it; it’s given freely to him as a promise.
As impossible as it seems, Yifan summarizes all his feelings, the fulfillment of his one true dream into two words. It’s as if someone pried opened his mouth, reached into his heart and sifted around for something as valuable to offer back to Chanyeol. But all he has are these two words and somehow, they seem right.
“Thank you.”
Chanyeol bends forward and presses his lips full on Yifan’s mouth. He kisses with his eyes open so Yifan could see the adoration in them and understand that he never needs to thank Chanyeol for what he does for him. They drift close only when Yifan slides his tongue into Chanyeol’s mouth, deepening the kiss. It is soft and warm until Chanyeol makes a low sound at the back of his throat and the kiss goes wild.
Yifan presses Chanyeol against the back of the couch and draws his tongue into his mouth, sucking on it until he reciprocates with sweeps on the inside of Yifan’s mouth. Neither of them are breathing smoothly anymore and Chanyeol shudders when Yifan finally releases his mouth only to gasp when he starts licking up the slope of his jaw and tongues his lobe. Hands slide down Chanyeol’s chest and pull his work shirt free, a palm resting on the front of his pants, rubbing him urgently and Chanyeol can’t help it, he gasps and arches into the touch. He has never been touched like this. When Yifan starts unbuckling his belt, Chanyeol stills him with a hand on his forearm, suddenly a little scared. Yifan’s pupils are dilated already, Chanyeol can tell even in the dying light of the sun and he is shocked at how hard Yifan is panting, how hard Yifan himself is, pressing tightly against himself. But Yifan nods, not moving to break Chanyeol’s grasp on him.
“Run,” he whispers, not quite trusting himself when his body is shaking with the need to absorb Chanyeol and consume him into his being. Although he is still locking Chanyeol down with his body, taut with desire, tension strumming his nerves.
But, “No,” Chanyeol mumbles, lips brushing against Yifan’s when he speaks.
“I want you,” Yifan explains harshly, as though he thinks Chanyeol still doesn’t realize what he’s in for. In reply, Chanyeol releases his hold on Yifan. “Can we at least do it on the bed?” he asks meekly, unsure if he’s spoiling it for Yifan but they’re still in the living room and Lu Han exists, he might come home anytime.
Yifan would have laughed but he really isn’t in the fucking mood. Instead, he grabs Chanyeol by the waist and pulls him up. He kisses him and backs him blindly until they’re stumbling into his room and onto the bed. This time, Chanyeol lets Yifan remove his shirt and belt, although he has to squeeze his eyes shut when his pants are unzipped and pulled down along with his boxers. It’s only when he feels his leg being lifted up that Chanyeol opens his eyes, only to meet Yifan’s gaze head on when he opens his mouth and takes Chanyeol’s cock in. Gasping and blinking in disbelief, Chanyeol tries to push Yifan’s head away but Yifan has hooked his leg over his shoulder and his grip is firm as he laps at the tip of Chanyeol’s cock, tongue curling around the head and slipping into the slit. He sticks the tip of his tongue into Chanyeol’s slit, increasing the pressure and flicking his tongue until Chanyeol is thrashing and gasping, heel digging into Yifan’s back, but still unable to pull away from the heat of his mouth. When he feels the squirt of pre-cum against his tongue, Yifan takes half of Chanyeol’s cock in and begins sucking him in earnest while he rubs his balls and strokes his perineum, big hands roving freely all over his lower body. Chanyeol stops struggling because he can no longer find the strength to protest. All he can do is to part his lips and pant, body going pliant and submissive, giving Yifan access to do whatever he wants to him. Withdrawing until only the head is in his mouth, Yifan sucks hard while his tongue presses right into the slit with unrelenting pressure and Chanyeol starts screaming.
Yifan pulls more of his cock in, tongue tracing the vein before wrapping tightly against the underside of his cock, pausing each time he feels the gag reflex. He ignores all of Chanyeol’s gasps begging him to stop, he can’t take it anymore. When he’s comfortable enough, Yifan takes the whole cock in, letting it slide down his throat, feeling Chanyeol’s leg on his back jerk weakly in reaction. “No…” Chanyeol pants and shakes his head mindlessly. This is more pleasure than he can endure. He attempts to push Yifan’s head away again but then Yifan swallows experimentally, massaging Chanyeol’s length with his throat muscles, and Chanyeol chokes on his gasps, his hands sinking into Yifan’s hair, holding him to his cock instead.
When Yifan hollows his cheeks, the back of his throat squeezing the head of Chanyeol’s cock, tongue still rubbing persistently along the entire hard length, he hears the gush of his exhale. The suction is so intense that Chanyeol’s eyes start to water, he loses focus of everything else except the hot mouth sucking on his cock. In a daze, Chanyeol lowers his head and sees Yifan’s head between his legs, lips red and tight around the base of his cock, his own hips moving to an unconscious rhythm, fucking Yifan’s mouth. The sight of it is really too much for him take then.
With his palm lying on the flat of Chanyeol’s stomach, Yifan feels his muscles tighten and he releases Chanyeol’s cock with a loud pop, moving down to run his tongue over the sensitive perineum instead. With every lick, he incites a spasm from Chanyeol who’s ejaculating, eyes wide and blinking up at the ceiling, as he throws his head back and keens.
After Chanyeol rides out his orgasm, Yifan licks a slow heated path over his cock, up his navel and across his chest before he slides his mouth over Chanyeol’s lips, so that he is now panting into Yifan’s mouth instead. Yfan continues licking Chanyeol’s mouth with swipes of his tongue. “How do like your own taste?” he asks wickedly. And Chanyeol flushes. He flushes even deeper when he realizes he is wholly naked while Yifan is still fully clothed, lying on top of him with elbows propped at the sides.
“Take off your clothes.” Chanyeol’s complaint sounds raspy, his chest still heaving a little in the aftermath of his orgasm.
“Sure.” Yifan’s voice is deep, so deep it sounds like a growl instead. Chanyeol has never heard Yifan’s voice like this. It leaves him dry-mouthed in anticipation. But he starts backing away, unsure what else Yifan has in store for him. This is too intense for his first. Yifan grabs his hips, however, and pulls him back under him.
“Where do you think you’re going? We haven’t even started.”
★
The next morning, when Chanyeol wakes up, Yifan has already opened his eyes. “You monster,” he shivers, pulling the blankets up to his chin. Yifan grins very devilishly.
When Chanyeol leaves his room, wincing more than a little when he walks, he sees Lu Han in the living room eating a breakfast of choco pie. Lu Han pauses mid-bite when he spots Chanyeol but soon resumes eating.
“What?” Chanyeol asks defensively. Lu Han ignores him, choosing to open another packet of choco pie instead.
“What!” His voice is much louder this time and Lu Han finally gives him his attention. Then with an ‘oh!’, Lu Han removes something from his ears and shows them to Chanyeol. Orange ear plugs.
“Sorry, still had these in my ears,” he explains, “had trouble sleeping last night because…” Trailing off, Lu Han leers at Chanyeol.
Chanyeol would like to die. He would like to die very much. Apocalypse? 2012? Right-fucking-now, please.
Lu Han ignores his death wish, however. Taking a huge bite out of his choco pie, he asks coolly, “So, did it hurt the first time?”
★
A week later, the two words become, “Stop cooking.”
“Why!?” Chanyeol protests, scrubbing at a blackened pot and watching Lu Han run to the toilet. Again. Poor little deer. Who totally deserves it. “Ok, maybe there’s something wrong with that piece of pork. That butcher did have a porky look about him, I’ll go to another-“
“No, it’s not about Lu Han,” Yifan cuts him off flatly, “it’s the fact that your cooking tastes like-“ The sound of the toilet flushing interrupts him then. “-yeah, that.”
Sometimes, Yifan catches Chanyeol still looking sad when he thinks Yifan isn’t around to see. It still haunts him, the fear of rejection. When they are out in public, Yifan can tell that Chanyeol is measuring the distance between them in his head, cautiously shifting away an inch or two so that the space that stands within would declare them as friends instead. Because some people read between the lines but they live within these blanks. Yifan is alright with this, as long as Chanyeol is comfortable, and he is extra puppyish when they are home, although Yifan isn’t sure if it’s compensation or just Puppyeol asking for more hug-times. He does seem to like linking their arms together a lot, even if they aren’t doing anything more than reading books and watching tv on the couch.
When Chanyeol is sad, he would sit and stare at the blank blue walls, his eyes detached and faraway. Yifan knows then, his heart is away, visiting the past, not too many days ago. But this is the process of healing. It sounds preposterous to Chanyeol now but one day, he will get better. Time steals a lot of things - youth, love, memories - but it dulls pain, too. It acts according to the law of equilibrium. Once upon a time, you hurt so bad you thought you’d never make it. But you did. We all did.
★
Chanyeol stops cooking but not because he no longer wants to accidentally poison Lu Han, but because he has no more time to spare. As he gets more and more acquainted with his job, his duties only get heavier, sometimes forcing him to work until early morning in the office. But the idea of quitting never makes its way into his mind. It’s hard not having anything. Like so many people out there, he learns that he would rather have something than nothing at all. He learns to fear, learns to adapt to circumstances instead of getting out of them, learns that maturing is not difficult if he lets go. Recklessness becomes something Chanyeol rarely dabbles in. Something dies slowly in him while he learns to survive. It happens with acceptance.
He gets along well with his colleagues; when they ask if he has a girlfriend, he just replies he’s going to get married at thirty. No one suspects a thing. It’s ok, he pacifies himself from time to time, it’s going to be alright. And things are really alright, he realizes. Might have to break up at twenty-nine though.
Weekdays usually pass by in a clusterfuck of where-the-hell-did-time-go. There is really just one weekday, interspersed by brief periods of sleep. This is how I’m going to grow old, Chanyeol thinks glumly, all my good looks squandered on number crunching. He starts living for the weekends instead. Jongin is dropping by more and more frequently, until one time, Yifan asks if he would like to stay as well. Jokingly, with a flicker of a smile, Jongin says that he’s going to steal Lu Han away instead. Chanyeol frowns at this, “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?” The infuriating smile pulls itself into a taunting grin.
“Little Lulu is ours.” A possessive arm finds its way around Lu Han and he looks up gaping at Chanyeol standing before him as if shielding him from harm, when it’s really just Jongin, dangerous only when his sleep is interrupted. Jongin, who has said he would like to take care of Lu Han. Whether he likes it or not, Lu Han is part of the family. Yifan stands behind and watches all this. He thinks this is the moment Lu Han really lets Chanyeol into his guarded heart and this time, it isn't because of Yifan.
Lu Han isn’t rich. None of them are. He now works as a clerk in a tiny company that needs someone to translate documents. The pay increment is meager, so it isn't often that he has something good to give, but whenever he does, he now looks to Chanyeol first instead of Yifan. That’s alright with Yifan though.
Come spring, they celebrate the Lunar New Year together with jiaozi due to Lu Han’s insistence. “It symbolizes prosperity because they are in the shape of gold ingots. Very important,” he informs Chanyeol and instructs him to throw the dumplings into the boiling broth while he sits and stares at his nails. Oh, the importance of being idle.
Yifan walks into the kitchen to get a drink and dumps in some rice cakes for extra good fortune. Scowling, Lu Han nags at Chanyeol to scoop out them out after Yifan leaves. “But why?” He thought Lu Han would be pleased with the idea of extra prosperity. “Do I look Cantonese to you?” Lu Han demands.
Chanyeol has no idea what a Cantonese is supposed to look like but he decides ‘no’ is more likely to grant him longevity right now. “But why are we having kimchi dumplings instead of pork dumplings?” asks Chanyeol, stirring the pot’s contents and watching the dumplings swirl. Some of them have their skin broken already and the chicken broth is turning red very fast. He hopes it isn't very noticeable. Yeah, right, red broth is totally common.
If your soup is Korean.
“Buy one get one free,” replies Lu Han disinterestedly. His nails are getting long but he can only cut them after the New Year now.
When they are seated around the coffee table in the living room, for some reason, Jongin is also there. Chanyeol looks at Lu Han, Yifan looks at Lu Han, Jongin looks at Lu Han, Lu Han looks at the pot of red dumpling soup. As a way of explaning his presence, Lu Han ladles up the ugly soup and serves a bowl to Jongin first. ”Guo men shi ke,” he insists to Yifan in Chinese, however.
Jongin peers at Chanyeol who just shrugs because he’s used to their secret Chinese conversations already. ‘Get used to it if you plan to stay, buddy,’ he advises with expressive eyes. Jongin bobs his head in understanding.
Yifan just grins at Lu Han and suggests that they stream chun wan on his laptop while they eat.
The rice is served in porcelain bowls decorated with peonies instead of metal ones and he holds red wooden chopsticks in his hand instead of stainless steel chopsticks. Chanyeol cups his bowl of rice with both hands, feeling the heat spread onto his skin and looking at the smiling faces around him (he ignores Jongin’s confused one). His new family. Tuan yuan, Yifan has told him this is what the dinner is about. Chanyeol believes he has truly come full circle. He still misses his father but when Yifan places a hand over his and smiles knowingly, Chanyeol doesn’t find it too hard to tug the ends of his lips up.
It has been a year and they have already accommodated each other’s quirks and are even becoming fond of them. (Chanyeol loves watching Lu Han shave. He didn't think the adorable little deer would need to engage in such manly acts. Stubble is for real men like Chanyeol.) But two weeks later, Lu Han announces that he’s moving out.
He breaks the news at dinner, over some tteokbokki still steaming in its container. “Jongin’s parents knew a long time ago, about him. Uh, Jongin says we should find a place of our own…” Actually, Lu Han wants it as well but he decides to use Jongin to soften the impact. It doesn’t help much. Chanyeol gets up and stalks away, unsure why he’s angry but feeling it all the same. To be honest, he’s jealous. Why isn’t his own family as accepting? Why doesn’t Lu Han want this?
But he knows Lu Han yearns for his own family, too. No matter how big Chanyeol’s heart is, Lu Han is not his special someone. He loves him in a different way. Sometimes Chanyeol catches Lu Han looking at Yifan and him with desire written all over his face, although his smiles are always glad when their eyes meet over Yifan’s shoulder.
“Is he going to be ok?” Lu Han asks Yifan worriedly, watching Chanyeol stalk back to his room.
“He’s just attached to you.” Yifan gives Lu Han an assuring smile.
“Are you going to be ok?” The concerned question takes Yifan by surprise. He stops jabbing the rice cake with the stick.
“Why wouldn’t-“ But then he thinks of all the mornings Lu Han has had to pull him out of bed, all the cups of Nescafé Lu Han has made for him when he has to work late, all the care he has received from Lu Han, buried under snide remarks. All these years, Yifan thinks he’s been taking care of Lu Han, when really, it has been the two of them looking out for each other, the two of them against the whole world. When things seemed impossible back then, it was Lu Han patting his back and telling him they were going to be fine. He was so scared himself. Perhaps Yifan has been taking him for granted.
His reply becomes measured. “Probably not,” he says slowly, “but we will be fine.” When he looks up, he sees the tears sparkling in Lu Han’s gentle eyes. It shouldn’t be happening. They are people whose tears have long dried up. But no one can really handle farewells with ease. You can’t separate flesh from bones and expect a man not to bleed.
Especially not Chanyeol. He sulks and pouts and says more than a few mean things. But when Lu Han is about to leave, he conveniently forgets all his misgivings and rushes forward to pull him into a fierce hug. “Lulu…” Chanyeol bleats, crouching down until his chin rests on Lu Han’s shoulders. His hyung feels so small in his arms.
Lu Han soothes him with light pats on his curled back. “Take care of him,” he instructs (unnecessarily, to be honest. But he can’t help it. Chanyeol is his baby) Yifan who smiles and nods.
“I will come over frequently to play with you,” Chanyeol says tearfully. Lu Han makes him promise. But.
“Please don’t,” gasps Jongin, standing at the door with Lu Han’s luggage. The gross tender look on his face fades into mortification.
In the end, Yifan and Jongin have to tear Chanyeol and Lu Han apart. “You are so cruel,” Chanyeol dry-sobs after Jongin pulls Lu Han away.
His little Lulu is gone.
And the timing is wrong but Chanyeol remembers something Lu Han said a long time ago, memory spurred by his departure. “Yifan… what does dan teng mean?”
★
At the first traffic light, Jongin sees Lu Han still craning his neck, trying for a glimpse of Yifan and Chanyeol. He sighs. “Why don’t you move back instead?”
Lu Han swivels around so fast, his neck cricks. “What?” he asks incredulously, one hand massaging his neck.
“You can’t bear to leave them, obviously.” Shrugging, Jongin turns away from Lu Han and squints against the sunlight filtering into the car instead. Something hits him on the back of his head. Jongin looks down and sees the map of Seoul lying on his lap. Beside him, Lu Han folds his arms and says, with as much snide as he can muster from his soul. “Yet I’m sitting here beside you. What do you think, Your Ass-jesty?”
Jongin barks a laugh. Hannie is so cute. He leans forward and presses a kiss on Lu Han’s forehead, smiling really sweetly as if he wants to please him.
“What are you doing!” Jongin gets shoved away by a blushing Lu Han. He looks angry and embarrassed at the same time. Really cute. Undeterred, Jongin closes in again and nuzzles Lu Han’s neck.
“I’m going to. Eat. You. Up.”
★
Chanyeol and Yifan visit so often, Jongin threatens them with rent. Lu Han gets a cream-colored sofa bed instead.
★
They start searching for a new place too. Yifan is excited about it. He doesn’t say much but that day, when he comes home announcing his promotion to a book buyer, he brings a couple of flyers with him and insists on showing Chanyeol each and every floor plan. Beaming, Chanyeol agrees with every comment he makes. Exasperated, Yifan reminds Chanyeol that it’s going to be his home, too. But home to Chanyeol is anywhere Yifan is.
Despite his boss’s grumbling, Chanyeol manages to take a day off work and they hop from one apartment to another, looking for the perfect place. But there’s no perfect apartment to be found that day. They spend a lot of timing visiting empty houses but none of them pleases Yifan. Chanyeol wonders what a perfect home looks like.
But this day, he knows they have found the perfect place. To Chanyeol, it’s just another apartment, still white paint and smooth tiled floor. Yifan runs his hands over the walls, however, imagining shelves tightly lined with books. When the real estate agent turns his back, Yifan mumbles to Chanyeol, asking him to enquire for the price. It’s different when Chanyeol does the asking, he isn't a foreigner, and he does it with careful nonchalance in his voice but is still shocked by the deposit money they will have to cough up for it. The price doesn’t disturb Yifan and Chanyeol realizes that he has been saving up for this. They argue it down anyway, pretending to walk away a few times as if they were at the market, shopping for a pair of pants. It works just as well. They get a discount and agree to meet again to hand over the deposit and sign the lease.
The second Chanyeol steps out of the apartment and the door closes behind them, he starts. “I don’t have enough money for this.” His hands are tucked into the pockets of his jeans, the familiar glower sitting on his face, the slant of his shoulders telling Yifan to ‘go away’. Chanyeol has been saving up since he started work, but it has only been less than a year. The argument is getting old - Yifan wanting to pay for more than his share, Chanyeol refusing it.
“I have it.” But this isn’t news to Chanyeol. He tilts his head up challengingly, only to wither when Yifan pulls his right hand from the pocket and envelopes it with both hands. It is a silent plea. “I want this,” he says simply and Chanyeol caves in. He cannot say no to Yifan.
They arrange to sign the lease on a Saturday so Chanyeol won’t need to take a day off and suffer the brunt of his boss’s incessant nagging. “Bring the seal,” Yifan reminds him before they leave and Chanyeol goes digging into the cabinet in Yifan’s bedroom. They still share a room although Lu Han’s room is now empty. It’s used only when Jongin and Lu Han come visiting. “Seal, seal, seal,” he chants while throwing things out from the cupboard. In the end, the frustrated Chanyeol swipes everything out with a roar and two small notebooks come flying out. Except they are not notebooks.
Curious, Chanyeol picks up the red passport and flips it open. He shouldn’t have. The second he reads the name, intense foreboding shoots up his spine and tingles in the scalp, numbing his senses.
Li Jiaheng
It’s Yifan, darker and younger in the passport photo than he is now. A child. But the sharp brows are the same. Chanyeol’s mind draws a blank when he turns the pages and there’s just one stamp in there. It was a flight from China to Canada. Something drops out from the passport when he’s about to place it down. It’s folded tight and small, the way letters might wrap up secrets.
“The navy one says Wu Fan.” Startled, Chanyeol drops the passport. Guilty conscience makes his hand tremble a little when he retrieves it from the floor. Yifan doesn’t appear angry, however, when he walks into the room and kneels down beside Chanyeol, taking the letter from him. His face is the still surface of a lake in a windless night.
“And this,” he mumbles, fingering the sharp edges of the folded letter, “is a letter from my mother. Dated a month ago.”
This day, they sign no lease.
★
Technically, it’s half a lie. Yifan’s dad has passed away, he doesn’t know the stranger, doesn’t know when he went on and has never thought to ask. But his mother is still alive. When he was twelve, she came searching for her son, snow resting on the top of her shoulders. It happened in winter, too. Maybe that’s why all of Yifan’s childhood memories are cold.
“We are leaving here,” she said. Yifa- Jiaheng wanted to go, although he didn’t know who this woman was. They said he belonged to her now. She held a certificate and that flimsy piece of paper declared him hers. He had a mother now, he was going to be loved. A child with a mother is cherished like treasure. That was how the lullaby they taught in school went, they taught him that when he was even younger. So young that he didn’t know what a mother was and that everyone in class had one except him. The other line went, A child without a mother is like a weed. Jiaheng had been a weed but now, he was going to be treasured. He was so sure.
Lu Han had cried until he choked between gasps for air and he pulled on the hem of Jiaheng’s shirt as his mother dragged him away. Tears streamed down his face and he was screaming, “Don’t go! Don’t go!” Jiaheng stared helplessly at that little face, the one he had come to love so much, now twisted red with agony. When they took him away, Jiaheng shouted, “Xiaolu!” He could only call out his name because he didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t want to say he’d stay.
His mother was unable to have a child anymore, he discovered during one of the muted conversations she had with the man. Jiahe- Wu Fan was staying in his house in Canada now. They renamed him because they didn’t want to be reminded. It was true that his mother had always thought of him as a reminder of a past she hated but he didn’t know it back then when she had sent him to Beijing all the way from Guangzhou, too small to collect memories. He liked the man and he thought the man liked him, too. But one day, his mother got pregnant and he wasn’t their son anymore. He was just her son. Wu Fan had been a treasure for all of four months but he transformed into Jiaheng again. And Jiaheng was a weed. No one wanted a weed. He was taller than his peers, he read more than they did, he was so smart and his smile was so perfect. But no one wanted him.
They made a passport for Li Jiaheng just so they could bring him over, then they made a passport for Wu Fan so that they could return him.
He didn’t know what to call himself anymore. He felt like spoiled goods.
When he returned to the orphanage, Lu Han re-attached himself to Jiaheng/Wu Fan immediately. It was as if he had never left. Except this time, Xiaolu sobbed even harder. “I t-thought you d-didn’t want me a-anymore,” he cried and tugged on Jiaheng/Wu Fan’s sleeve, sobs wracking his small body. Little Jiaheng/Wu Fan cried too because it was true. It was true that he didn’t want Xiaolu anymore when he first left. But it turned out that no one wanted him either.
They left when they were eighteen and no longer cried over the fact that they were unwanted. They had - have - each other anyway.
It was spring when they arrived in Seoul. Wu Yifan’s favorite season. It felt like rebirth.
Everything was so warm.
★
“She is in Seoul. She wants money,” Yifan mumbles, holding Chanyeol against him, finger drawing circles on his forearm. They are lying on the bed and it’s dark but Chanyeol doesn’t flick the light switch on because it’s easier to face hurt when you can’t see it. But at this, he stiffens and pulls himself free so that he could turn and look at Yifan’s eyes. Smiling, Yifan cups the side of his face and draws him close again. “Loan sharks. He’s sick and she needs money for the medical bills.”
Chanyeol is horrified. Throwing his arms around Yifan, he buries his face into the crook of his neck as if he were the one who needs protection. “Don’t give it to her!” he cries.
Yifan never thought he’d be able to laugh when he finally dragged up the ghosts of his past, but then, he shouldn’t be surprised. Chanyeol is invincible, he already knows this. “It’s for our apartment. If I gave it to her, I’d be penniless.” Truthfully, the amount his mother is asking for isn’t much, but it would take all of Yifan’s savings. He's never had a lot to begin with. Chanyeol nods fiercely. “We’ll be so happy in our new home.”
Yifan drags slim fingers through Chanyeol’s soft brown hair. “Aren’t you angry that I kept this from you?”
“Don’t be silly, Yifan. Everyone needs to have some secrets. I have mine too.”
The sound of Yifan’s chuckle is light. In fact, his tone when he narrated the past was light. But with a single touch, Chanyeol knows he isn't alright at all. He never voices it out though, just staying close and consoling Yifan with companionship. “Like what?”
Like the fact that Chanyeol has been stealing Yifan’s tidbits since last year but blaming it on Lulu instead (he still blames it on him, saying Lu Han helps himself to them whenever he visits). Then he snitches Lu Han’s food and complains to him that Yifan has been stealing his food, too. But hush, baby.
The next day, however, when Yifan is lounging on the sofa watching the news, Chanyeol shuffles up, plops down beside him and demands a snuggle. “Will she die?” he asks in a small voice when Yifan wraps an arm around him. Chanyeol doesn’t think he’d be able to be happy if he ever caused someone’s death.
After a few moments of consideration, Yifan replies, “Maybe.”
Gasping, Chanyeol breaks away from Yifan and looks at him, shock making his eyes and mouth go round. “Surely you jest,” he wheezes, voice high and whiny, like a chipmunk on helium.
“Loan sharks are awful people, Chanyeol. Have you seen those in Chinatown? They have tattoos of dragons and phoenixes on their backs. It’s for good luck,” Yifan pauses for dramatic effect, “for when they kill people.”
Chanyeol has seen loan sharks in Chinatown before, in all those Hong Kong triad movies he watches. They always pray to Guan Gong before wrapping long knives in newspaper and hiding them in the legs of their jeans. Then they go out for war, to reclaim territories that a rival clan has snatched. He loves gangster movies. So manly. Just like him.
But they remain films. His eyebrows droop unimpressed and Chanyeol shoves Yifan away. “I don’t know what will happen to her. Probably not anything good,” Yifan concedes, no longer joking.
Only the television speaks. Chanyeol maintains his silence mostly because he knows Yifan won’t like what he’s about to propose. But Yifan can tell anyway. “No.” His tone is low and authoritative. Sometimes he uses it when Chanyeol is being his terrible obstinate self.
But Chanyeol is of the opinion that Yifan is the stubborn one now. He goes gentle on him though. When he places his hands on Yifan’s shoulders, he feels the same tension vibrating through him. Pulling Yifan into his arms, Chanyeol whispers, “You will never be able to live it down. We can never.” The truth is a harsh slap to the face. Yifan moves to break away but he forgets Chanyeol isn’t weak; he frequently forgets that Chanyeol is just as strong as he is, if not on the exterior, then in character. Clasping Yifan to him, Chanyeol mumbles, “We can get another home. Do this not for her, but for me, for yourself.” His thumbs smooth over Yifan’s eyes which have been squeezed shut. “For us.”
His eyes flit open and meet Chanyeol’s, always smiling. But Yifan is aware of the bright spark of brilliance underneath the softness. Chanyeol will steer them towards the right path. For them, Yifan knows he will.
★
“Feed me.”
Yifan blinks his eyes wide as Chanyeol sullenly pushes past him at the door, saunters into the living room and flops onto the black couch. He carries with him a black plastic bag which he has thrown carelessly onto the coffee table. With astonishment, Yifan watches him pick the remote up and start channel surfing.
It’s as if the past forty-two days of his absence have never occurred. A gap now hinges between the present and the memory of his last meeting with Chanyeol. “Wha-“ Yifan begins but Chanyeol interrupts him. “I’m hungry,” he pouts and Yifan ceases all questioning.
Chanyeol is back.
It’s already 9 p.m. and Yifan is already done with dinner. He walks to the living room and points at the black plastic bag. “Didn’t you already buy something to eat?” Two can play that game, Yifan figures. But then Chanyeol looks at him all weird before he picks up the plastic bag and empties it out in a flourish.
There’s his wallet, a brand new one, and a passport. That’s all.
The realization stuns Yifan. Chanyeol has left home.
“I told him,” Chanyeol says plainly, as if he were reporting the time to Yifan, “he doesn’t like it. But that’s alright. I’m graduating in two months, I’ll get a job then and you have a new job as well. We’ll do ok. It will be fine.” But Chanyeol doesn’t sound like he’d be fine. He sounds like the empty echo of a bottomless well, as if endless reiterations would cause beliefs to become facts.
And it’s only now that Yifan catches on. “You plotted this,” he mumbles in a daze, “All this time. For me to quit my job, for you to finish your studies.” Belatedly, he recalls an episode when he once called Chanyeol scheming. He knows Chanyeol wants to protect him but he doesn’t appreciate it very much right now.
“I waited,” Chanyeol corrects him firmly, “we waited.”
For a long while, there’s only the sound of the television showing a variety show, perhaps, the laughter is loud and empty to Yifan’s ears. “Go home,” he finally rasps out and Chanyeol lowers his head. A crack surfaces from his within and propagates so quickly, he can’t stop himself from falling apart. His entire world is caving in upon Yifan’s words.
“I can’t." Chanyeol can no longer hide the despair in his voice.
But Yifan is already grasping his hand and pulling him up from the couch. He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t ask for Chanyeol to become someone like him. An orphan. Chanyeol has a family, something Yifan has always craved for. When he was small, the craving was an obsession and he wanted it so badly, sometimes he felt like he could taste it. It tasted like metal, like blood.
And Chanyeol doesn’t want it. The thought that he might be responsible for this is unbearable. He is furious, with Chanyeol, with himself. There is a wild urge to destroy something.
“Go back to your father,” he grits out, dragging Chanyeol to the door, grasp angry and burning on his arm, but Chanyeol offers no resistance when Yifan shoves him out, allowing himself to be manipulated like a broken doll.
“D-don’t,” Chanyeol whispers brokenly when Yifan closes the door in his face.
A minute later, the doorbell rings. Yifan leans on the door but ignores the ringing. After half an hour of this, Lu Han is eventually smoked out of his room, although he has been trying to keep out of Yifan’s private matters. “Can I open the door?” he asks meekly. Blankly, Yifan stares at him but his mind has wandered off and Lu Han retreats back into his room when he fails to get a response. He’s still worried but he’s unsure if he should interfere. Reaching for his phone, he calls Jongin.
When the ringing stops, Yifan opens the door, fully expecting Chanyeol to be there. And he’s there, crumpled on the floor by the side of the door, head between folded knees, back curled in a bizarre angle as if someone has taken him by the ends and snapped him into two from within. There’s nowhere else Chanyeol can go, Yifan knows it. But he thinks Chanyeol needs to be punished. Yifan asks no questions, he doubts he has any words left in him. But when he nears, Chanyeol starts unwinding. His breakdown is eerily serene.
“He didn’t reject us, didn’t reject you. I was the one he rejected. He still doesn’t know about us, I never told him. All I said, all I said was that I liked boys. He said it was wrong. He said I shamed him. He said it was because my mum died and no one was around to teach me how to be good. He said it was my fault. He said it was her fault. He said she loved me too much. He said she shouldn’t have given birth to me if she was going to die so early.” Chanyeol’s eyes are dull when he lifts his head, there isn’t even the shimmer of tears. All the brilliant lights have been extinguished. His voice is strangely clear and stoic when he repeats those cruel words that shock Yifan. That’s when he sees the faint imprint of a hand on the left side of Chanyeol’s face and reads what he has deliberately left out of the story. Gently, he lays his own hand over the red mark and feels the tremors reverberate in Chanyeol, aftershocks of being rejected by his closest kin.
“I didn’t run away, I didn’t want to leave. I begged. I begged so hard but he pushed me out of the door.” Just like how you pushed me out.
“I did everything he wanted me to. I became everything he wanted me to. I hoped he would love me like how my mum did.”
“I have been a good son my whole life. But I’m not good anymore.”
“He doesn’t want me. You don’t want me either.”
In a flash, Yifan pulls him into his arms, hands shaking with frantic attempts to offer consolation and apologies. Chanyeol doesn’t push him off but neither does he reciprocate. Numbly, he continues his incessant mumbling, words muffled against Yifan’s shirt. But Yifan hears him perfectly well, as if it were a piercing scream instead of a soft whisper. “He said I’m not his son if I’m gay. He said I’m not his son if I’m gay.”
★
Chanyeol doesn’t get out of bed for a long while. He is whole and healthy on the surface but then, a lot of people break on the inside, too. They bleed where you cannot see, they hurt in a place so secret, you’ll probably never find it your whole life. But Yifan knows. Every day, he wakes up beside Chanyeol, strokes his hair quietly and whispers a soft, ‘I’m going to work, are you going to be ok?’ to him. Chanyeol always nods and Yifan takes that as a ‘yes’. Although they both know he is not ok. But there is little to do. The world doesn’t stop spinning because of a broken heart, no matter how unfair it seems. Life goes on.
There is no reason why Chanyeol shouldn’t get up and get on with life. There is no reason why it should be this hard. But it is. He struggles to find the will to get out of bed for everything. He struggles but gives up soon after. It’s much nicer to just give up and lie there. It is so easy. Living is too difficult. Bathing, food, school, they no longer seem necessary. The bed covers will keep him safe. Nothing else exists outside this warm cocoon. He never counts the days. He no longer cares.
But one cold night, when the lights are out and Chanyeol has already curled himself into a tight ball, thinking he has repelled all, he hears Yifan say, “I’m sorry.” The word slices through all his layers of defenses.
After some time, he cautiously pokes his head out from the covers but Yifan has his eyes closed. Chanyeol cannot tell what’s in his eyes but when he looks down, he sees the corner of his blanket caught in Yifan’s grasp, fingers tangled up in cotton instead of Chanyeol’s hand. Still, they remain linked even in sleep. Chanyeol feels his heart throb and everything starts hurting at the same time when he recollects a promise he once made. It seems like a century ago.
I will give you a home.
★
Life cannot be sustained with just love. Yifan has learnt that life can be very ugly. But he doesn’t want Chanyeol to know this. So when he opens his eyes the next morning and sees Chanyeol sitting at the edge of the bed beside him, wearing a clean pair of jeans and t-shirt, looking like he just came out of the shower, he wants to say, ‘don’t go, stay’. Chanyeol silences him with a smile, however. It ends up in one of those funny lip shapes Yifan is so fond of, except this time, it’s cracked around the corners, like the ends of his mouth can’t decide to go up or down and they are caught in the middle. But it has been so long since Yifan last saw Chanyeol smile. He lifts a hand and traces the curve of Chanyeol’s lips. This is what he wanted to protect but ended up destroying.
“You look good in my shirt,” Yifan compliments, which completely sidetracks what has happened over the past three weeks and is a big fat lie. His white V-neck tee is too big for Chanyeol who has lost too much weight. At least this means the waistband of his jeans is well covered up with the shirt’s hem. Chanyeol has given up on a belt, he rolled the waistband several times so that it’d sit on his hips. The legs are too short now though. But beggars cannot be choosers. “Are you wearing my underwear too?” Yifan teases.
Still an ass, Chanyeol thinks, but it’s better than asking ‘are you ok?’ when the startlingly obvious answer is no. And it will remain so for a long time. Chanyeol is not sure how long, but he hopes it’ll pass soon enough. He doesn’t like being sad.
His smile widens in reply. “Are you going to school?” asks Yifan. Chanyeol nods, still not saying a word. Pulling him down into his arms, Yifan lets Chanyeol lay against him, his bones feel so fragile. He isn’t aware that his grip on Chanyeol has grown stronger.
“I-“ Chanyeol’s voice is raspy from disuse and he has to cough to clear his throat. “I want this to be good.”
It’s Yifan’s turn to keep his silence. He begins stroking Chanyeol’s hair, giving in to his habit of running his fingers through those soft brown locks, soothing Chanyeol as if he were a kid. But Chanyeol isn’t a child. He’s already twenty-two years old. When Yifan was twenty-two years old, he was already supporting himself with three part-time jobs, surviving on less than five hours of sleep everyday. Removing Yifan’s hand, Chanyeol frees himself from Yifan’s hold and says quietly, “I’m not a kid anymore.”
An indulgent smile hangs on Yifan’s face. “I just don’t want you to grow up so fast.”
“Everyone has to grow up someday.” Despite the display of bravery, Chanyeol suddenly feels lost. He still isn’t ready for the world but it’s no longer a choice, is it? He is a kid who has been forced to age overnight, new skin hanging on him like a loose identity. Lowering his head, Chanyeol fingers the hem of Yifan’s shirt. “I don’t have anything left.” The shirt on his back doesn’t even belong to him. Although Chanyeol doesn’t think he has ever really owned anything at all his entire life.
He is afraid.
But Yifan takes his hand then, and he tells him without words that this, this is what you have.
Wind filters through the window’s gap. Yifan neglected to check that the windows had been shut tight last night. No wonder it was so cold. Looking out the window, Chanyeol thinks he sees a hint of pink.
“It’s almost spring.”
★
When the furious pink of the cherry blossoms begins coloring Seoul, Chanyeol graduates from college. He doesn’t attend his graduation. The certificate is passed to him by Jongin. It feels deceptively light in his hands when his whole future seems to weigh on it.
Lu Han takes the addition of Chanyeol to the household rather well. In fact, Chanyeol isn’t really sure because all Lu Han has asked is, “Do you like washing dishes?” Chanyeol is rather taken aback to learn that dishes don’t just wash themselves. The ones in his old home seemed to do exactly that. So Yifan teaches him how to be independent around the house and Chanyeol learns without complaints although his frustration is easily detected in his upturned mouth. He learns that the washing machine works best if he gives it a kick or two in the ass, and when he thinks no one is looking, that’s what he does instead of fiddling with the buttons like Yifan. Actually, Lu Han is looking on but he keeps his silence because that’s exactly what he does, too. Sneaks need to keep a lookout for each other.
Since he left home, Chanyeol hasn’t bought a lot of things. He continues wearing Yifan’s ill-fitting clothes and refuses all his attempts to bring him out shopping. But there are things he needs and one cannot afford dignity when there isn't a single Won to his name. A blue toothbrush, a change of underwear, grey slippers - necessities. They all seem to cost so much now that Chanyeol can no longer use his credit cards. (He keeps them still, in the pockets of his new wallet. It’s so empty anyway.)
His cheeks burn when Yifan tell him it’s alright in the supermarket. “I will pay you back,” Chanyeol insists. He doesn’t want to live off Yifan.
“Let me take care of you for now,” Yifan says, ruffling Chanyeol’s hair, causing floppy bangs to fall into guarded eyes. “As repayment, just wheel me around in the park for some sunshine when I’m eighty. Bring the Bichon Frisé along, we’ll get one when we grow old.”
Chanyeol blinks at Yifan who just smiles and messes up his adorable mushroom hair even more. The idea of growing old together is wonderful.
However, “I’m going to be seventy-eight when you’re eighty,” Chanshroom frowns, “what if I have arthritis? What if the dog shits and I break my back while I’m bending down to pick up its poop? And you can’t even help me up ‘cos your knees would already have blown.”
Yifan stares at Chanyeol, fingers still caught in his hair. “My knees…” He looks down at his knees then. Just checking they are still perfect.
“Setting. You’re the one who said you’d be in a wheelchair.”
Yifan resumes mauling his cute little mushroom with a pondering look on his face; Chanyeol ducks and draws away. This is clearly a matter deserving of serious contemplation. “Then we’ll get Jongin and Lu Han to wheel us around.”
That was already a month ago. Tonight, Chanyeol removes a black suit from Yifan’s wardrobe. The legs of the pants are a little too wide to be fashionable but it’s the only suit that fits. All of Yifan’s newer suits are meant to hang on broader shoulders. He asks Yifan to iron it for him because he’s worried he’d burn it. In the end, it’s Lu Han who irons the suit for him. He unfolds the iron table, setting the iron to high steam, and as he presses and smoothes out each and every wrinkle, the chatty housewife dispenses bad advice to Chanyeol, telling him what to say and do. “Say you might not know much but you’re always willing to learn. Speak slowly and formally. Look smart but stupid.”
“Look smart but stupid?” Chanyeol and Yifan are sitting on the couch, watching little Lulu fuss over the suit.
“Look like you’re smart enough to do whatever they tell you to but stupid enough not to ask.” Lu Han says importantly and squirts more starch onto the suit.
Chanyeol attempts to appear smart and stupid at the same time. “You are a natural at the ‘stupid’,” Lu Han comments objectively and Chanyeol pouts angrily at him, “but it’s going to take more than a night for you to get the ‘smart’ right.’
“Just be yourself,” Yifan interrupts when he sees Chanyeol worry his lower lip. His smile is soft and assuring as he tugs Chanyeol’s lip free with light pressure from a thumb. But Lu Han isn’t done yet.
“And whatever you do, don’t smile.”
Chanyeol flashes Lu Han his trademark Cheshire grin then. His teeth are so white and lovely. All fifteen of them, Yifan counts. Chanyeol tilts his head so Yifan can spot the upper tooth in the corner that he missed out. Sixteen.
“Yes, like this,” Lu Han nods and flattens a stubborn crease with malice, “never do this. You look mad and... mad.” There’s just no better word.
Yifan laughs as Chanyeol throws a cushion at Lu Han and hides behind him when Lulu lifts the iron menacingly. They end up taking turns spritzing each other with starch.
The next day, Chanyeol asks to borrow some money from him. This is the first time he has held his hand out. Usually, Yifan has to press money into Chanyeol’s hands. “Eat more, buy things you like,” he’d say, and at the same time, Yifan would eat less and stop buying things.
Yifan is not laughing anymore when Chanyeol flags the cab down. He doesn’t laugh when Chanyeol turns and gives him that weird smile again, trying his best to appear brave when his uncertainty is scribbled all over his face, looking scared in a suit that obviously wasn’t made with him in mind.
Still a child, Yifan thinks wistfully. But Yifan will always think of Chanyeol as a child.
He doesn’t speak because he thinks he might say ‘you don’t have to’ again when Chanyeol is clearly adamant that he does this right. He doesn’t run his hand through Chanyeol’s hair either, because it has been gelled up neatly to reveal his forehead. He does none of this.
Instead, Yifan hands a good luck charm to him, withdraws his protective wings and lets Chanyeol step away from him, out into the world.
It’s time for Chanyeol to grow up.
★
“They asked me when I planned to get married,” explains Chanyeol that night, pinpointing the exact moment when he failed his first interview. They are having a dinner of ginseng chicken soup in the living room. Lu Han is sitting on the floor because the giants are monopolizing the couch again.
“What did you say?” Yifan asks and ladles up some samgyetang for Chanyeol, who scowls his thanks. Lu Han asks Yifan sweetly for a bowl of soup too.
“Today, I decided that I’d get married at thirty.” In fact, Chanyeol at first stared wide-eyed and terrified at the panel of interviewers. For a moment, he was sure it was a trick question and that they knew his secret, that his identity had been tattooed on his forehead, the ink still bleeding on skin, letting everyone judge him freely. But this couldn't be true. His own father had not been able to tell in the years they'd spent under the same roof. It was just his fear talking. So when the interviewers repeated the question, he swallowed and replied, “T-Thirty.” They nodded and proceeded to the next question, which he fumbled with like a ticking time bomb in his hands.
It was a politically correct answer. But Chanyeol felt like he had never been more wrong his entire life.
“So, we’re getting married at thirty?” Yifan asks with a blank face. But it only lasts a second because Chanyeol has been reduced to a stammering mess. “I. You. Haven’t. I. Proposed,” he sputters, horrified at the lack of romance in the timeline of their relationship and Yifan chuckles, fingers playing with the ends of Chanyeol’s hair, the gel already washed out.
Lu Han announces his presence by coughing solemnly. “I will excuse your flagrant disregard for me as a human being deserving of respect and grace.” With some extravagant eyebrow acrobatics, Chanyeol shows Lu Han exactly how much he disagrees with his statement. Just the part that starts with ‘human’ and ends with ‘grace’, actually.
“It’s only your first interview. You have many more to come.” Yifan passes a bowl of chicken soup to Lu Han and catches the sneaky one stealing the drumstick from Chanyeol’s bowl. Smiling, Yifan lets him take Chanyeol’s drumstick and just replaces it with another one from the pot. Lu Han blinks because the sad truth is, a chicken only has two legs. So he tries to place the stolen drumstick into Yifan’s bowl. But Yifan declines. He still hasn’t gotten out of the habit of indulging his gege. Some things never change.
Lu Han stares at Yifan, his brother, closer to him than how the thickest of blood could bind kin together. Then he looks at Chanyeol, sad-faced & wobbly chin. Quietly, Lu Han puts his drumstick into Chanyeol’s bowl. This is how the Chinese show their love, by giving you the best part of the dish, what they would have wanted for themselves. If Yifan accepts Chanyeol, Lu Han will take him under his wing too.
“More interviews?” The sobbing Chanyeol bites into his drumsticks. They taste so good.
From then on, Chanyeol attends one or two interviews per week. During good times (or bad, depending if you’re Chanyeol), he has three on his schedule. Chanyeol hates interviews. Yes, he wants a job, badly too. But he didn't know it entailed answering the same questions over and over again and he doesn't have an inkling how ‘What would you like to be in 5 years time?’ would have a direct connection with his work capability. And that one time, he almost replied, ‘Your boss’ to an ass of an interviewer.
Bored with the ever-identical process, his speech changes from panicked and saturated with speech fillers to being rehearsed and steady. The interviewers like that, he realizes. They've stopped lifting their eyebrows like how they usually do when he is being too lively. During one of his practice sessions with Lu Han, he even gets complimented by the obnoxiously picky shortie. “You. You look smart and stupid. How.”
Replying with a question, Chanyeol asks little Lulu why Jongin has taken to showing up at their place, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, to watch EPL matches with him. One time, he even stayed the night after a crucial derby match between Manchester United and Manchester City that Lu Han had been so excited for. Chanyeol discovered them the next morning, Lu Han fast asleep and curled up on Jongin on the couch, a tiny scowl still caught on his face, confused even in sleep as to how the hell his club - the one he pledged fierce, undying and wholly blind allegiance to for the rest of his life - could have lost to Man City, quite arguably their worst nemesis (they have many). Oh Lord, the pain. Lu Han would have preferred losing to frigging Liverpool. He had been as furious as Sir Alex Ferguson and he'd paced the living room just like how Ferguson had paced the sideline screaming at his players, giving them his infamous hairdryer treatment while he chewed gum (man, the ruddy Scot sure chews a lot of gum). Jongin had been very amused. His Lu Han was so adorable.
Lu Han’s reply is in Chinese. Chanyeol thinks he catches something like dan and teng. He wonders what that means and makes a note to ask Yifan.
★
Summer settles on them in a whirlwind of biting heat and gritty dust. Indeed, it has been both biting and gritting on Chanyeol who began work a month ago. Sometimes he thinks being an adult means wearing a mask and hooking his mouth into a smile when what he really wants to do is to deliver a sucker punch to the Marketing Director who exceeded their budget for the quarter (again, it seems). He now works as a Planning Officer for a large local company, helping it manage the annual budget. Honestly, it isn’t Samsung or LG but eh, Chanyeol doesn’t really care. All he needs is, well, as harsh as it sounds, money. Not everyone has a dream like Yifan. It would be nice to have one, he thinks. But dinner would be better. He just got his first paycheck.
This night, when Yifan returns home that evening, it is to a bowl of kimchi ramyun, watered down until it’s absolutely tasteless. It sits by itself on the coffee table, lonely without even an egg in it for company. This is the first time Chanyeol has cooked. This is the first time Yifan has come home to a homemade dinner.
“Welcome home,” Chanyeol greets Yifan and hands him an envelope even before he could ask. Yifan gives Chanyeol a questioning look when he finds the wad of cash inside.
“Everyone contributes to the family,” Chanyeol replies simply.
Family.
Yifan can still remember that winter when Lu Han and he sat in the yard of the orphanage. The memory is as cold as the flecks of snow on their thin mian ao. The weeping willow was bent over them, branches as bare as their room. Lu Han asked him what he wanted if he could have anything in the world. One of the many ‘what if’ questions they sometimes asked because they lacked so much in life and were so often hungry. Before Yifan could answer, someone called Lu Han away. The ten year old Yifan answered anyway, although no one was there to listen. Staring at the new scabs on his hands - still fresh from a fight a few days ago - but feeling the pain emerge from another gaping hole in him, Yifan whispered, “I want a family.” The winter breeze swept by then, dispersing his yearning so that it settled like frost onto the roof and seeped into the sewer by the time the morning sun rose, just as unwanted.
“Eat.” Chanyeol holds Yifan by the wrist, pulling him to sit beside him on the couch. But Yifan doesn’t eat. Instead he places his hand over Chanyeol’s, the touch feels incredibly warm. Someone wants to hold his hand. The mere thought of this sends something bubbling up and Yifan swallows hard to push it down. Crying gets one nowhere, he knows this, yeah, Yifan would know. But it’s still difficult anyway. Their grip is strengthened with a clutch of Chanyeol’s fingers when he feels Yifan shaking. The slight quavering would have been indiscernible if they hadn’t been touching. Yifan pulls his eyes away from their laced fingers and peers into Chanyeol’s eyes, the ends thinning when he eases into a soft smile.
For you, they seem to say. This dream has no strings attached to it; it’s given freely to him as a promise.
As impossible as it seems, Yifan summarizes all his feelings, the fulfillment of his one true dream into two words. It’s as if someone pried opened his mouth, reached into his heart and sifted around for something as valuable to offer back to Chanyeol. But all he has are these two words and somehow, they seem right.
“Thank you.”
Chanyeol bends forward and presses his lips full on Yifan’s mouth. He kisses with his eyes open so Yifan could see the adoration in them and understand that he never needs to thank Chanyeol for what he does for him. They drift close only when Yifan slides his tongue into Chanyeol’s mouth, deepening the kiss. It is soft and warm until Chanyeol makes a low sound at the back of his throat and the kiss goes wild.
Yifan presses Chanyeol against the back of the couch and draws his tongue into his mouth, sucking on it until he reciprocates with sweeps on the inside of Yifan’s mouth. Neither of them are breathing smoothly anymore and Chanyeol shudders when Yifan finally releases his mouth only to gasp when he starts licking up the slope of his jaw and tongues his lobe. Hands slide down Chanyeol’s chest and pull his work shirt free, a palm resting on the front of his pants, rubbing him urgently and Chanyeol can’t help it, he gasps and arches into the touch. He has never been touched like this. When Yifan starts unbuckling his belt, Chanyeol stills him with a hand on his forearm, suddenly a little scared. Yifan’s pupils are dilated already, Chanyeol can tell even in the dying light of the sun and he is shocked at how hard Yifan is panting, how hard Yifan himself is, pressing tightly against himself. But Yifan nods, not moving to break Chanyeol’s grasp on him.
“Run,” he whispers, not quite trusting himself when his body is shaking with the need to absorb Chanyeol and consume him into his being. Although he is still locking Chanyeol down with his body, taut with desire, tension strumming his nerves.
But, “No,” Chanyeol mumbles, lips brushing against Yifan’s when he speaks.
“I want you,” Yifan explains harshly, as though he thinks Chanyeol still doesn’t realize what he’s in for. In reply, Chanyeol releases his hold on Yifan. “Can we at least do it on the bed?” he asks meekly, unsure if he’s spoiling it for Yifan but they’re still in the living room and Lu Han exists, he might come home anytime.
Yifan would have laughed but he really isn’t in the fucking mood. Instead, he grabs Chanyeol by the waist and pulls him up. He kisses him and backs him blindly until they’re stumbling into his room and onto the bed. This time, Chanyeol lets Yifan remove his shirt and belt, although he has to squeeze his eyes shut when his pants are unzipped and pulled down along with his boxers. It’s only when he feels his leg being lifted up that Chanyeol opens his eyes, only to meet Yifan’s gaze head on when he opens his mouth and takes Chanyeol’s cock in. Gasping and blinking in disbelief, Chanyeol tries to push Yifan’s head away but Yifan has hooked his leg over his shoulder and his grip is firm as he laps at the tip of Chanyeol’s cock, tongue curling around the head and slipping into the slit. He sticks the tip of his tongue into Chanyeol’s slit, increasing the pressure and flicking his tongue until Chanyeol is thrashing and gasping, heel digging into Yifan’s back, but still unable to pull away from the heat of his mouth. When he feels the squirt of pre-cum against his tongue, Yifan takes half of Chanyeol’s cock in and begins sucking him in earnest while he rubs his balls and strokes his perineum, big hands roving freely all over his lower body. Chanyeol stops struggling because he can no longer find the strength to protest. All he can do is to part his lips and pant, body going pliant and submissive, giving Yifan access to do whatever he wants to him. Withdrawing until only the head is in his mouth, Yifan sucks hard while his tongue presses right into the slit with unrelenting pressure and Chanyeol starts screaming.
Yifan pulls more of his cock in, tongue tracing the vein before wrapping tightly against the underside of his cock, pausing each time he feels the gag reflex. He ignores all of Chanyeol’s gasps begging him to stop, he can’t take it anymore. When he’s comfortable enough, Yifan takes the whole cock in, letting it slide down his throat, feeling Chanyeol’s leg on his back jerk weakly in reaction. “No…” Chanyeol pants and shakes his head mindlessly. This is more pleasure than he can endure. He attempts to push Yifan’s head away again but then Yifan swallows experimentally, massaging Chanyeol’s length with his throat muscles, and Chanyeol chokes on his gasps, his hands sinking into Yifan’s hair, holding him to his cock instead.
When Yifan hollows his cheeks, the back of his throat squeezing the head of Chanyeol’s cock, tongue still rubbing persistently along the entire hard length, he hears the gush of his exhale. The suction is so intense that Chanyeol’s eyes start to water, he loses focus of everything else except the hot mouth sucking on his cock. In a daze, Chanyeol lowers his head and sees Yifan’s head between his legs, lips red and tight around the base of his cock, his own hips moving to an unconscious rhythm, fucking Yifan’s mouth. The sight of it is really too much for him take then.
With his palm lying on the flat of Chanyeol’s stomach, Yifan feels his muscles tighten and he releases Chanyeol’s cock with a loud pop, moving down to run his tongue over the sensitive perineum instead. With every lick, he incites a spasm from Chanyeol who’s ejaculating, eyes wide and blinking up at the ceiling, as he throws his head back and keens.
After Chanyeol rides out his orgasm, Yifan licks a slow heated path over his cock, up his navel and across his chest before he slides his mouth over Chanyeol’s lips, so that he is now panting into Yifan’s mouth instead. Yfan continues licking Chanyeol’s mouth with swipes of his tongue. “How do like your own taste?” he asks wickedly. And Chanyeol flushes. He flushes even deeper when he realizes he is wholly naked while Yifan is still fully clothed, lying on top of him with elbows propped at the sides.
“Take off your clothes.” Chanyeol’s complaint sounds raspy, his chest still heaving a little in the aftermath of his orgasm.
“Sure.” Yifan’s voice is deep, so deep it sounds like a growl instead. Chanyeol has never heard Yifan’s voice like this. It leaves him dry-mouthed in anticipation. But he starts backing away, unsure what else Yifan has in store for him. This is too intense for his first. Yifan grabs his hips, however, and pulls him back under him.
“Where do you think you’re going? We haven’t even started.”
★
The next morning, when Chanyeol wakes up, Yifan has already opened his eyes. “You monster,” he shivers, pulling the blankets up to his chin. Yifan grins very devilishly.
When Chanyeol leaves his room, wincing more than a little when he walks, he sees Lu Han in the living room eating a breakfast of choco pie. Lu Han pauses mid-bite when he spots Chanyeol but soon resumes eating.
“What?” Chanyeol asks defensively. Lu Han ignores him, choosing to open another packet of choco pie instead.
“What!” His voice is much louder this time and Lu Han finally gives him his attention. Then with an ‘oh!’, Lu Han removes something from his ears and shows them to Chanyeol. Orange ear plugs.
“Sorry, still had these in my ears,” he explains, “had trouble sleeping last night because…” Trailing off, Lu Han leers at Chanyeol.
Chanyeol would like to die. He would like to die very much. Apocalypse? 2012? Right-fucking-now, please.
Lu Han ignores his death wish, however. Taking a huge bite out of his choco pie, he asks coolly, “So, did it hurt the first time?”
★
A week later, the two words become, “Stop cooking.”
“Why!?” Chanyeol protests, scrubbing at a blackened pot and watching Lu Han run to the toilet. Again. Poor little deer. Who totally deserves it. “Ok, maybe there’s something wrong with that piece of pork. That butcher did have a porky look about him, I’ll go to another-“
“No, it’s not about Lu Han,” Yifan cuts him off flatly, “it’s the fact that your cooking tastes like-“ The sound of the toilet flushing interrupts him then. “-yeah, that.”
Sometimes, Yifan catches Chanyeol still looking sad when he thinks Yifan isn’t around to see. It still haunts him, the fear of rejection. When they are out in public, Yifan can tell that Chanyeol is measuring the distance between them in his head, cautiously shifting away an inch or two so that the space that stands within would declare them as friends instead. Because some people read between the lines but they live within these blanks. Yifan is alright with this, as long as Chanyeol is comfortable, and he is extra puppyish when they are home, although Yifan isn’t sure if it’s compensation or just Puppyeol asking for more hug-times. He does seem to like linking their arms together a lot, even if they aren’t doing anything more than reading books and watching tv on the couch.
When Chanyeol is sad, he would sit and stare at the blank blue walls, his eyes detached and faraway. Yifan knows then, his heart is away, visiting the past, not too many days ago. But this is the process of healing. It sounds preposterous to Chanyeol now but one day, he will get better. Time steals a lot of things - youth, love, memories - but it dulls pain, too. It acts according to the law of equilibrium. Once upon a time, you hurt so bad you thought you’d never make it. But you did. We all did.
★
Chanyeol stops cooking but not because he no longer wants to accidentally poison Lu Han, but because he has no more time to spare. As he gets more and more acquainted with his job, his duties only get heavier, sometimes forcing him to work until early morning in the office. But the idea of quitting never makes its way into his mind. It’s hard not having anything. Like so many people out there, he learns that he would rather have something than nothing at all. He learns to fear, learns to adapt to circumstances instead of getting out of them, learns that maturing is not difficult if he lets go. Recklessness becomes something Chanyeol rarely dabbles in. Something dies slowly in him while he learns to survive. It happens with acceptance.
He gets along well with his colleagues; when they ask if he has a girlfriend, he just replies he’s going to get married at thirty. No one suspects a thing. It’s ok, he pacifies himself from time to time, it’s going to be alright. And things are really alright, he realizes. Might have to break up at twenty-nine though.
Weekdays usually pass by in a clusterfuck of where-the-hell-did-time-go. There is really just one weekday, interspersed by brief periods of sleep. This is how I’m going to grow old, Chanyeol thinks glumly, all my good looks squandered on number crunching. He starts living for the weekends instead. Jongin is dropping by more and more frequently, until one time, Yifan asks if he would like to stay as well. Jokingly, with a flicker of a smile, Jongin says that he’s going to steal Lu Han away instead. Chanyeol frowns at this, “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?” The infuriating smile pulls itself into a taunting grin.
“Little Lulu is ours.” A possessive arm finds its way around Lu Han and he looks up gaping at Chanyeol standing before him as if shielding him from harm, when it’s really just Jongin, dangerous only when his sleep is interrupted. Jongin, who has said he would like to take care of Lu Han. Whether he likes it or not, Lu Han is part of the family. Yifan stands behind and watches all this. He thinks this is the moment Lu Han really lets Chanyeol into his guarded heart and this time, it isn't because of Yifan.
Lu Han isn’t rich. None of them are. He now works as a clerk in a tiny company that needs someone to translate documents. The pay increment is meager, so it isn't often that he has something good to give, but whenever he does, he now looks to Chanyeol first instead of Yifan. That’s alright with Yifan though.
Come spring, they celebrate the Lunar New Year together with jiaozi due to Lu Han’s insistence. “It symbolizes prosperity because they are in the shape of gold ingots. Very important,” he informs Chanyeol and instructs him to throw the dumplings into the boiling broth while he sits and stares at his nails. Oh, the importance of being idle.
Yifan walks into the kitchen to get a drink and dumps in some rice cakes for extra good fortune. Scowling, Lu Han nags at Chanyeol to scoop out them out after Yifan leaves. “But why?” He thought Lu Han would be pleased with the idea of extra prosperity. “Do I look Cantonese to you?” Lu Han demands.
Chanyeol has no idea what a Cantonese is supposed to look like but he decides ‘no’ is more likely to grant him longevity right now. “But why are we having kimchi dumplings instead of pork dumplings?” asks Chanyeol, stirring the pot’s contents and watching the dumplings swirl. Some of them have their skin broken already and the chicken broth is turning red very fast. He hopes it isn't very noticeable. Yeah, right, red broth is totally common.
If your soup is Korean.
“Buy one get one free,” replies Lu Han disinterestedly. His nails are getting long but he can only cut them after the New Year now.
When they are seated around the coffee table in the living room, for some reason, Jongin is also there. Chanyeol looks at Lu Han, Yifan looks at Lu Han, Jongin looks at Lu Han, Lu Han looks at the pot of red dumpling soup. As a way of explaning his presence, Lu Han ladles up the ugly soup and serves a bowl to Jongin first. ”Guo men shi ke,” he insists to Yifan in Chinese, however.
Jongin peers at Chanyeol who just shrugs because he’s used to their secret Chinese conversations already. ‘Get used to it if you plan to stay, buddy,’ he advises with expressive eyes. Jongin bobs his head in understanding.
Yifan just grins at Lu Han and suggests that they stream chun wan on his laptop while they eat.
The rice is served in porcelain bowls decorated with peonies instead of metal ones and he holds red wooden chopsticks in his hand instead of stainless steel chopsticks. Chanyeol cups his bowl of rice with both hands, feeling the heat spread onto his skin and looking at the smiling faces around him (he ignores Jongin’s confused one). His new family. Tuan yuan, Yifan has told him this is what the dinner is about. Chanyeol believes he has truly come full circle. He still misses his father but when Yifan places a hand over his and smiles knowingly, Chanyeol doesn’t find it too hard to tug the ends of his lips up.
It has been a year and they have already accommodated each other’s quirks and are even becoming fond of them. (Chanyeol loves watching Lu Han shave. He didn't think the adorable little deer would need to engage in such manly acts. Stubble is for real men like Chanyeol.) But two weeks later, Lu Han announces that he’s moving out.
He breaks the news at dinner, over some tteokbokki still steaming in its container. “Jongin’s parents knew a long time ago, about him. Uh, Jongin says we should find a place of our own…” Actually, Lu Han wants it as well but he decides to use Jongin to soften the impact. It doesn’t help much. Chanyeol gets up and stalks away, unsure why he’s angry but feeling it all the same. To be honest, he’s jealous. Why isn’t his own family as accepting? Why doesn’t Lu Han want this?
But he knows Lu Han yearns for his own family, too. No matter how big Chanyeol’s heart is, Lu Han is not his special someone. He loves him in a different way. Sometimes Chanyeol catches Lu Han looking at Yifan and him with desire written all over his face, although his smiles are always glad when their eyes meet over Yifan’s shoulder.
“Is he going to be ok?” Lu Han asks Yifan worriedly, watching Chanyeol stalk back to his room.
“He’s just attached to you.” Yifan gives Lu Han an assuring smile.
“Are you going to be ok?” The concerned question takes Yifan by surprise. He stops jabbing the rice cake with the stick.
“Why wouldn’t-“ But then he thinks of all the mornings Lu Han has had to pull him out of bed, all the cups of Nescafé Lu Han has made for him when he has to work late, all the care he has received from Lu Han, buried under snide remarks. All these years, Yifan thinks he’s been taking care of Lu Han, when really, it has been the two of them looking out for each other, the two of them against the whole world. When things seemed impossible back then, it was Lu Han patting his back and telling him they were going to be fine. He was so scared himself. Perhaps Yifan has been taking him for granted.
His reply becomes measured. “Probably not,” he says slowly, “but we will be fine.” When he looks up, he sees the tears sparkling in Lu Han’s gentle eyes. It shouldn’t be happening. They are people whose tears have long dried up. But no one can really handle farewells with ease. You can’t separate flesh from bones and expect a man not to bleed.
Especially not Chanyeol. He sulks and pouts and says more than a few mean things. But when Lu Han is about to leave, he conveniently forgets all his misgivings and rushes forward to pull him into a fierce hug. “Lulu…” Chanyeol bleats, crouching down until his chin rests on Lu Han’s shoulders. His hyung feels so small in his arms.
Lu Han soothes him with light pats on his curled back. “Take care of him,” he instructs (unnecessarily, to be honest. But he can’t help it. Chanyeol is his baby) Yifan who smiles and nods.
“I will come over frequently to play with you,” Chanyeol says tearfully. Lu Han makes him promise. But.
“Please don’t,” gasps Jongin, standing at the door with Lu Han’s luggage. The gross tender look on his face fades into mortification.
In the end, Yifan and Jongin have to tear Chanyeol and Lu Han apart. “You are so cruel,” Chanyeol dry-sobs after Jongin pulls Lu Han away.
His little Lulu is gone.
And the timing is wrong but Chanyeol remembers something Lu Han said a long time ago, memory spurred by his departure. “Yifan… what does dan teng mean?”
★
At the first traffic light, Jongin sees Lu Han still craning his neck, trying for a glimpse of Yifan and Chanyeol. He sighs. “Why don’t you move back instead?”
Lu Han swivels around so fast, his neck cricks. “What?” he asks incredulously, one hand massaging his neck.
“You can’t bear to leave them, obviously.” Shrugging, Jongin turns away from Lu Han and squints against the sunlight filtering into the car instead. Something hits him on the back of his head. Jongin looks down and sees the map of Seoul lying on his lap. Beside him, Lu Han folds his arms and says, with as much snide as he can muster from his soul. “Yet I’m sitting here beside you. What do you think, Your Ass-jesty?”
Jongin barks a laugh. Hannie is so cute. He leans forward and presses a kiss on Lu Han’s forehead, smiling really sweetly as if he wants to please him.
“What are you doing!” Jongin gets shoved away by a blushing Lu Han. He looks angry and embarrassed at the same time. Really cute. Undeterred, Jongin closes in again and nuzzles Lu Han’s neck.
“I’m going to. Eat. You. Up.”
★
Chanyeol and Yifan visit so often, Jongin threatens them with rent. Lu Han gets a cream-colored sofa bed instead.
★
They start searching for a new place too. Yifan is excited about it. He doesn’t say much but that day, when he comes home announcing his promotion to a book buyer, he brings a couple of flyers with him and insists on showing Chanyeol each and every floor plan. Beaming, Chanyeol agrees with every comment he makes. Exasperated, Yifan reminds Chanyeol that it’s going to be his home, too. But home to Chanyeol is anywhere Yifan is.
Despite his boss’s grumbling, Chanyeol manages to take a day off work and they hop from one apartment to another, looking for the perfect place. But there’s no perfect apartment to be found that day. They spend a lot of timing visiting empty houses but none of them pleases Yifan. Chanyeol wonders what a perfect home looks like.
But this day, he knows they have found the perfect place. To Chanyeol, it’s just another apartment, still white paint and smooth tiled floor. Yifan runs his hands over the walls, however, imagining shelves tightly lined with books. When the real estate agent turns his back, Yifan mumbles to Chanyeol, asking him to enquire for the price. It’s different when Chanyeol does the asking, he isn't a foreigner, and he does it with careful nonchalance in his voice but is still shocked by the deposit money they will have to cough up for it. The price doesn’t disturb Yifan and Chanyeol realizes that he has been saving up for this. They argue it down anyway, pretending to walk away a few times as if they were at the market, shopping for a pair of pants. It works just as well. They get a discount and agree to meet again to hand over the deposit and sign the lease.
The second Chanyeol steps out of the apartment and the door closes behind them, he starts. “I don’t have enough money for this.” His hands are tucked into the pockets of his jeans, the familiar glower sitting on his face, the slant of his shoulders telling Yifan to ‘go away’. Chanyeol has been saving up since he started work, but it has only been less than a year. The argument is getting old - Yifan wanting to pay for more than his share, Chanyeol refusing it.
“I have it.” But this isn’t news to Chanyeol. He tilts his head up challengingly, only to wither when Yifan pulls his right hand from the pocket and envelopes it with both hands. It is a silent plea. “I want this,” he says simply and Chanyeol caves in. He cannot say no to Yifan.
They arrange to sign the lease on a Saturday so Chanyeol won’t need to take a day off and suffer the brunt of his boss’s incessant nagging. “Bring the seal,” Yifan reminds him before they leave and Chanyeol goes digging into the cabinet in Yifan’s bedroom. They still share a room although Lu Han’s room is now empty. It’s used only when Jongin and Lu Han come visiting. “Seal, seal, seal,” he chants while throwing things out from the cupboard. In the end, the frustrated Chanyeol swipes everything out with a roar and two small notebooks come flying out. Except they are not notebooks.
Curious, Chanyeol picks up the red passport and flips it open. He shouldn’t have. The second he reads the name, intense foreboding shoots up his spine and tingles in the scalp, numbing his senses.
Li Jiaheng
It’s Yifan, darker and younger in the passport photo than he is now. A child. But the sharp brows are the same. Chanyeol’s mind draws a blank when he turns the pages and there’s just one stamp in there. It was a flight from China to Canada. Something drops out from the passport when he’s about to place it down. It’s folded tight and small, the way letters might wrap up secrets.
“The navy one says Wu Fan.” Startled, Chanyeol drops the passport. Guilty conscience makes his hand tremble a little when he retrieves it from the floor. Yifan doesn’t appear angry, however, when he walks into the room and kneels down beside Chanyeol, taking the letter from him. His face is the still surface of a lake in a windless night.
“And this,” he mumbles, fingering the sharp edges of the folded letter, “is a letter from my mother. Dated a month ago.”
This day, they sign no lease.
★
Technically, it’s half a lie. Yifan’s dad has passed away, he doesn’t know the stranger, doesn’t know when he went on and has never thought to ask. But his mother is still alive. When he was twelve, she came searching for her son, snow resting on the top of her shoulders. It happened in winter, too. Maybe that’s why all of Yifan’s childhood memories are cold.
“We are leaving here,” she said. Yifa- Jiaheng wanted to go, although he didn’t know who this woman was. They said he belonged to her now. She held a certificate and that flimsy piece of paper declared him hers. He had a mother now, he was going to be loved. A child with a mother is cherished like treasure. That was how the lullaby they taught in school went, they taught him that when he was even younger. So young that he didn’t know what a mother was and that everyone in class had one except him. The other line went, A child without a mother is like a weed. Jiaheng had been a weed but now, he was going to be treasured. He was so sure.
Lu Han had cried until he choked between gasps for air and he pulled on the hem of Jiaheng’s shirt as his mother dragged him away. Tears streamed down his face and he was screaming, “Don’t go! Don’t go!” Jiaheng stared helplessly at that little face, the one he had come to love so much, now twisted red with agony. When they took him away, Jiaheng shouted, “Xiaolu!” He could only call out his name because he didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t want to say he’d stay.
His mother was unable to have a child anymore, he discovered during one of the muted conversations she had with the man. Jiahe- Wu Fan was staying in his house in Canada now. They renamed him because they didn’t want to be reminded. It was true that his mother had always thought of him as a reminder of a past she hated but he didn’t know it back then when she had sent him to Beijing all the way from Guangzhou, too small to collect memories. He liked the man and he thought the man liked him, too. But one day, his mother got pregnant and he wasn’t their son anymore. He was just her son. Wu Fan had been a treasure for all of four months but he transformed into Jiaheng again. And Jiaheng was a weed. No one wanted a weed. He was taller than his peers, he read more than they did, he was so smart and his smile was so perfect. But no one wanted him.
They made a passport for Li Jiaheng just so they could bring him over, then they made a passport for Wu Fan so that they could return him.
He didn’t know what to call himself anymore. He felt like spoiled goods.
When he returned to the orphanage, Lu Han re-attached himself to Jiaheng/Wu Fan immediately. It was as if he had never left. Except this time, Xiaolu sobbed even harder. “I t-thought you d-didn’t want me a-anymore,” he cried and tugged on Jiaheng/Wu Fan’s sleeve, sobs wracking his small body. Little Jiaheng/Wu Fan cried too because it was true. It was true that he didn’t want Xiaolu anymore when he first left. But it turned out that no one wanted him either.
They left when they were eighteen and no longer cried over the fact that they were unwanted. They had - have - each other anyway.
It was spring when they arrived in Seoul. Wu Yifan’s favorite season. It felt like rebirth.
Everything was so warm.
★
“She is in Seoul. She wants money,” Yifan mumbles, holding Chanyeol against him, finger drawing circles on his forearm. They are lying on the bed and it’s dark but Chanyeol doesn’t flick the light switch on because it’s easier to face hurt when you can’t see it. But at this, he stiffens and pulls himself free so that he could turn and look at Yifan’s eyes. Smiling, Yifan cups the side of his face and draws him close again. “Loan sharks. He’s sick and she needs money for the medical bills.”
Chanyeol is horrified. Throwing his arms around Yifan, he buries his face into the crook of his neck as if he were the one who needs protection. “Don’t give it to her!” he cries.
Yifan never thought he’d be able to laugh when he finally dragged up the ghosts of his past, but then, he shouldn’t be surprised. Chanyeol is invincible, he already knows this. “It’s for our apartment. If I gave it to her, I’d be penniless.” Truthfully, the amount his mother is asking for isn’t much, but it would take all of Yifan’s savings. He's never had a lot to begin with. Chanyeol nods fiercely. “We’ll be so happy in our new home.”
Yifan drags slim fingers through Chanyeol’s soft brown hair. “Aren’t you angry that I kept this from you?”
“Don’t be silly, Yifan. Everyone needs to have some secrets. I have mine too.”
The sound of Yifan’s chuckle is light. In fact, his tone when he narrated the past was light. But with a single touch, Chanyeol knows he isn't alright at all. He never voices it out though, just staying close and consoling Yifan with companionship. “Like what?”
Like the fact that Chanyeol has been stealing Yifan’s tidbits since last year but blaming it on Lulu instead (he still blames it on him, saying Lu Han helps himself to them whenever he visits). Then he snitches Lu Han’s food and complains to him that Yifan has been stealing his food, too. But hush, baby.
The next day, however, when Yifan is lounging on the sofa watching the news, Chanyeol shuffles up, plops down beside him and demands a snuggle. “Will she die?” he asks in a small voice when Yifan wraps an arm around him. Chanyeol doesn’t think he’d be able to be happy if he ever caused someone’s death.
After a few moments of consideration, Yifan replies, “Maybe.”
Gasping, Chanyeol breaks away from Yifan and looks at him, shock making his eyes and mouth go round. “Surely you jest,” he wheezes, voice high and whiny, like a chipmunk on helium.
“Loan sharks are awful people, Chanyeol. Have you seen those in Chinatown? They have tattoos of dragons and phoenixes on their backs. It’s for good luck,” Yifan pauses for dramatic effect, “for when they kill people.”
Chanyeol has seen loan sharks in Chinatown before, in all those Hong Kong triad movies he watches. They always pray to Guan Gong before wrapping long knives in newspaper and hiding them in the legs of their jeans. Then they go out for war, to reclaim territories that a rival clan has snatched. He loves gangster movies. So manly. Just like him.
But they remain films. His eyebrows droop unimpressed and Chanyeol shoves Yifan away. “I don’t know what will happen to her. Probably not anything good,” Yifan concedes, no longer joking.
Only the television speaks. Chanyeol maintains his silence mostly because he knows Yifan won’t like what he’s about to propose. But Yifan can tell anyway. “No.” His tone is low and authoritative. Sometimes he uses it when Chanyeol is being his terrible obstinate self.
But Chanyeol is of the opinion that Yifan is the stubborn one now. He goes gentle on him though. When he places his hands on Yifan’s shoulders, he feels the same tension vibrating through him. Pulling Yifan into his arms, Chanyeol whispers, “You will never be able to live it down. We can never.” The truth is a harsh slap to the face. Yifan moves to break away but he forgets Chanyeol isn’t weak; he frequently forgets that Chanyeol is just as strong as he is, if not on the exterior, then in character. Clasping Yifan to him, Chanyeol mumbles, “We can get another home. Do this not for her, but for me, for yourself.” His thumbs smooth over Yifan’s eyes which have been squeezed shut. “For us.”
His eyes flit open and meet Chanyeol’s, always smiling. But Yifan is aware of the bright spark of brilliance underneath the softness. Chanyeol will steer them towards the right path. For them, Yifan knows he will.
★