Chapter Text
It was a gloomy morning, the kind that made the world seem unfinished. Chanyeol stood outside his apartment for a moment, his hands buried inside the front pockets of his oversized hoodie, looking up at the sky as though it might tell him whether the day was worth beginning. The clouds hung low over the building, pale and heavy, and everything around him seemed to have been drained of its colour.
He had grown accustomed to mornings like this. Perhaps that was why he liked them. There was something comforting about a world that looked as tired as he felt. He finally stepped outside and made his way toward the front door, where several parcels had been left waiting for him. His name was printed on one of them in black ink, his handwriting familiar even when it belonged to someone else's label. He crouched down to collect one of the smallest one. It was light, probably another shipment of brushes, paint, or something he'd ordered weeks ago and had already forgotten about. He yawned as he stood, already thinking about going back inside. His apartment was quiet. His apartment was safe. He preferred it that way.
"Good morning, Chanyeol."
He stopped. The voice came from the small yard in front of the building. When he turned, he saw Sasha sitting in her usual camping chair, a steaming cup of coffee held carefully between both hands. She wore a thick cardigan despite the weather not being particularly cold, and her silver hair was tucked messily behind her ears. She smiled at him.
"Any new paintings?"
Chanyeol smiled back. "Good morning, Sasha."
He walked toward her and crouched beside the chair. Sasha was the owner of the apartment building, though Chanyeol had never really thought of her as his landlord. She had always seemed too interested in the lives of the people who lived here for that. She remembered birthdays. She remembered which tenants drank their coffee black and which ones took too much sugar. She knew when someone had been sick. And, for some reason, she always seemed to know when Chanyeol wasn't eating.
Whenever she suspected he had gone too many days without a proper meal, there would be a container of cookies waiting outside his door. He never asked her how she knew. He had never wanted to. There were some kindnesses that became embarrassing when you looked at them too closely.
"Nothing yet," he said, scratching the back of his shaggy hair. He gave her a small, crooked smile. "I've kind of hit rock bottom lately."
Sasha studied him for a moment. She didn't ask what he meant. That was one of the things he liked about her. Most people wanted explanations. They wanted to know why he was quiet, why he rarely smiled, why he always looked as though he hadn't slept. They saw a tall man with a tired face and a body that seemed too large for whatever room he occupied, and they made their decisions quickly. Intimidating. Unapproachable. Strange. Sometimes cruel. People were very good at deciding what someone was before they had even spoken to them.
Sasha never did.
She only took a sip of her coffee and said, "You just need rest."
Chanyeol looked at her. He almost laughed.
Rest.
As if that were something he could simply give himself.
Instead, he nodded. "Maybe."
Sasha seemed satisfied with that answer. Then, suddenly, her expression changed.
"Oh," she muttered. "We have a new tenant."
Chanyeol raised an eyebrow.
"On your floor."
"Oh."
"A new tenant," Sasha repeated, as though the information had somehow become more important now that she remembered where the person lived.
"That's nice."
"She's a girl."
Chanyeol smiled. "Good. There are already so many men here."
"I know."
"You need more female tenants, Sha. Someone to keep you company."
Sasha waved him away with one hand. "I have plenty of company."
"Of course you do."
"And I forgot her name."
Chanyeol laughed softly. Sasha frowned, trying to remember, but whatever name she was searching for refused to come to her.
It wasn't important, he told himself.
A new tenant was only a new tenant. Someone would move into an empty apartment, bring boxes through the hallway, complain about the plumbing, learn which floorboards creaked and which neighbours made too much noise at night. Eventually, they would become another familiar stranger. Chanyeol had become good at living among familiar strangers. He then glanced at his watch.
"Yes, yes. Go," she said, waving him off. "I know you have things to do."
"I don't."
"Then pretend you do."
He pretended to smile.
Before leaving, he reached down and gently patted her shoulder. "See you later, Sha."
"Go."
Chanyeol picked up his parcels and walked back toward the building. The front door closed behind him with a quiet click. When he looked straight ahead, the hallway was empty. For a moment, he stood there listening to the silence. After standing still for God knows how long, he finally went upstairs.
Back to his apartment. Back to the paintings he hadn't touched in weeks. Back to the room where everything was exactly where he had left it.
He did not think about the new tenant again.
Not that morning. Not when he unpacked his parcels. Not when he sat in front of a blank canvas and stared at it until the afternoon light disappeared. He didn't know her name, nor did he know what she looked like. He didn't know that, by the end of the year, he would remember the sound of her footsteps better than he remembered the sound of his own.
And Chanyeol certainly didn't know that the person Sasha had forgotten to mention was not a girl at all.
It was one hour before midnight, and Chanyeol had finally given up on trying to continue painting something. It had been a month since he last felt like he had created something worth keeping, and lately, his mind seemed to go completely blank whenever he stood in front of a canvas. He would sit there for hours with a brush in his hand, staring at the empty space in front of him, waiting for something— anything —to come to mind. A face, a place, a feeling. Something original, something unique enough to make him want to put it onto the canvas. But nothing ever seemed good enough. Nothing felt worth painting. The strangest part was that nothing serious or ruinous had happened to him. His life had simply become stagnant. His work was still being praised, his paintings were still selling, and commissions continued to come in one after another. People still seemed to love what he created, perhaps even more than he did. Yet somehow, this past month had him in a chokehold, and he had no idea how to pull himself out of it. He felt stuck. He felt tired. Burnt out, though even that word seemed too simple for whatever it was he was feeling.
He sat back and let the brush fall loosely between his fingers, his eyes lingering on the unfinished painting in front of him. There was barely anything on the canvas, just a few uncertain strokes of black that looked more like mistakes than the beginning of something. He was about to put the brush down when a soft yet booming voice suddenly echoed through the walls of his apartment. Chanyeol lifted his head, trying to find where it was coming from, and realized it was coming from the left side of his room. He listened for a moment. The voice was beautiful, so unexpectedly beautiful that it made him forget about the painting altogether. He placed the wet brush, still covered in black paint, onto his table and dusted his paint-stained jeans before slowly walking toward the wall. Pressing his ear against it, he listened more carefully. It was probably just one of the tenants. Someone who loved karaoke enough to sing this late at night, perhaps completely unaware that their voice was carrying through the entire building.
Chanyeol closed his eyes as he listened. There was something strangely calming about the unfamiliar voice, something that made the tension in his shoulders slowly disappear. He found himself humming quietly along, even though he didn't know the song. He couldn't explain why he was so captivated by it. Maybe it was the way the voice filled the room without actually being there, or maybe it was simply the fact that, for the first time in weeks, his mind wasn't occupied with trying to create something. He wasn't thinking about his paintings or his commissions or the empty canvas waiting behind him. He was just listening. How can a man belt out a note like that? he thought, almost in disbelief. The thought made him smile to himself, and for a brief moment, Chanyeol forgot that he had been struggling at all.
As midnight approached, Chanyeol finally pulled himself away from the wall and glanced at the unfinished painting behind him. He still didn't know what he wanted to paint, and he suspected that he wouldn't figure it out tonight. Maybe tomorrow will be different. Maybe he simply needed to sleep, let his mind rest, and try again when morning came. For now, the strange voice had done something he hadn't been able to do for himself—it had quieted the noise in his head. He turned off the lights in his studio and left the unfinished canvas exactly where it was. As he made his way toward his bedroom, Chanyeol allowed himself to believe that perhaps everything would be okay. He didn't know who the voice belonged to, and he certainly didn't know that it would soon become a voice he could recognize anywhere. For tonight, though, it was enough to make him believe that tomorrow might be different.
A loud thud echoed through the hallway, hard enough to pull Chanyeol from sleep. He had always been a light sleeper; the smallest sounds could wake him, and he sometimes joked that even if someone stood over him and stared while he slept, he would somehow know. His eyes fluttered open as he rubbed at his temples, groaning softly as he tried to make sense of the noise. For a moment, he simply sat there, still caught somewhere between sleep and consciousness, before letting out a long yawn and pushing himself out of bed. His hair was a mess from the sheets, sticking out in every direction, and the faint, familiar infamous scent of sandalwood lingered in the room around him. He rubbed his jaw as he shuffled toward the door, still half-asleep, and pulled it open.
A tiny figure was crouched in the middle of the hallway, hurriedly gathering the things that had spilled across the floor and placing them back into an open cardboard box. Bright pink hair caught Chanyeol's attention first, almost startling against the muted hallway. He stood in the doorway for a moment, squinting as he tried to make sense of the stranger in front of him. He assumed they must have been one of his neighbours, perhaps someone he hadn't seen in a while who had suddenly decided to experiment with a new look, but the thought disappeared almost as quickly as it came. There was something distinctly feminine about the person crouched on the floor—the delicate frame, the narrow shoulders, the way their clothes seemed to hang loosely from their body. Chanyeol couldn't place them. He didn't remember seeing anyone like this before.
He cleared his throat and stepped out into the hallway.
The stranger didn't seem to notice him at first, too focused on trying to gather everything that had fallen. Chanyeol leaned down and picked up several of the heavier books scattered near his feet, stacking them neatly inside the box. He glanced briefly at the covers before placing them down. Most of them were about coding.
Interesting choice of hobby... or work, he thought.
He reached for another book when the small stranger finally looked up.
Their eyes met.
The pink-haired stranger slowly pushed himself to his feet, seemingly trying to meet Chanyeol at eye level, only to realize just how impossible that was with their considerable height difference. Chanyeol looked down at him, momentarily caught off guard by the face looking back at him.
Pretty.
The thought came so naturally that he barely noticed it.
His hands continued moving almost absentmindedly, picking up another book from the floor as though keeping himself occupied might somehow explain why he had suddenly forgotten what he was doing. The stranger gave him a small smile before extending a hand.
"Hello...!"
Chanyeol froze.
His eyes dropped briefly from the stranger's face to the hand held out toward him. The wrist was slender, the fingers delicate… almost fragile-looking. There was something about the gesture that made an unfamiliar thought settle quietly in the back of his mind.
He looks like someone you should protect.
Chanyeol frowned slightly, as though irritated by his own thoughts, and shook his head to clear it. He reached out and took the stranger's hand, giving it a firm shake while consciously trying to be gentler than usual.
"Thank you for helping me. I'm new around here. I just moved in yesterday, but I have so many boxes to bring up here." The stranger spoke quickly, almost as though he was worried Chanyeol might change his mind if he stopped talking for too long. There was a faint breathlessness to his voice, and despite the obvious inconvenience of having half his belongings scattered across the hallway, he still managed to smile. He pulled his hand away and reached for the box again, but Chanyeol stopped him before he could bend down.
"I'll get it."
"Oh, no, it's okay. I can—"
"You dropped it."
The stranger blinked before looking down at the box and then back at Chanyeol. For a second, his expression was blank, as though he hadn't expected such a blunt response. Then he laughed, a bright and effortless sound that seemed almost too lively for the quiet hallway.
"Okay. Fair point."
Chanyeol picked up the box before he could protest again, carrying it as though it weighed nothing. The stranger followed beside him, watching him with an expression that was equal parts amusement and curiosity.
"Do you always do that?"
"Do what?"
"Just take things from people."
"When they're struggling."
The stranger's lips curled into a smile.
"That's almost sweet."
Chanyeol glanced at him, but said nothing.
The stranger didn't seem bothered by his silence. If anything, he appeared strangely comfortable with it. Most people became quieter around Chanyeol, their voices dropping and their bodies instinctively putting a little more distance between them. This person did the opposite. He filled the silence without seeming to notice it was there.
"I'm Chanyeol, by the way," he said after a moment, "I heard about you from the landlord."
"Oh, really?" The stranger's eyebrows lifted, "What did she say?"
"That you're the new tenant."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
He looked genuinely disappointed, "That's boring. I was hoping she'd tell you something impressive."
"Like what?"
The stranger thought about it for a moment.
"I don't know. That I'm incredibly charming. Talented. Very good-looking."
Chanyeol looked at him.
"You talk a lot."
The stranger's mouth fell open in exaggerated offense.
"Wow."
He placed a hand over his chest.
"We've known each other for less than five minutes, and you're already hurting my feelings."
Chanyeol couldn't stop the small smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth.
They stopped in front of the apartment door, and the stranger dug through his pockets for his keys. He finally found them, unlocked the door, and pushed it open, stepping aside to let Chanyeol carry the box inside.
The apartment was a disaster. Boxes were stacked against the walls, some unopened and others already torn apart. Clothes spilled from an open suitcase, books were scattered across the floor, and several objects sat wherever there happened to be an empty space. It looked less like someone had moved in and more like someone had been caught halfway through an argument with their belongings.
Chanyeol decided not to judge, because moving is messy.
"Just put it over there," the stranger said, pointing toward the empty space beside the counter. Chanyeol carried the box over and set it down carefully before straightening. When he turned around, the stranger was standing in front of him, looking at him with open curiosity.
"My name is Baekhyun," he said, as though he had only just remembered that Chanyeol had introduced himself. "Nice to meet you, Chanyeol."
He held out his hand again.
Chanyeol took it, careful with his grip. Baekhyun's fingers were small and warm against his own, and for a moment, Chanyeol found himself looking down at their hands.
Baekhyun noticed.
Instead of pulling away immediately, he tilted his head, studying their joined hands with an amused little smile.
"Your hands are huge."
Chanyeol looked up.
Before he could respond, Baekhyun released his hand and reached toward Chanyeol's shoulder. His fingers brushed lightly against the fabric of his hoodie, plucking away a tiny piece of cardboard that had stuck there.
"There."
He held the tiny scrap between two fingers.
"You had something on you."
The gesture was so casual that Baekhyun didn't seem to realize how close he had gotten. He simply tossed the piece into the nearest box and stepped back, smiling as though nothing had happened. Chanyeol remained still for a moment, because people didn't usually touch him. They certainly didn't touch him so casually.
"Nice to meet you, too," Chanyeol finally said.
Baekhyun smiled.
And somehow, that small gesture stayed with Chanyeol longer than it should have.
Not the pink hair nor the bright eyes.
Not even the strange, effortless way Baekhyun had talked to him as though they were already acquainted.
It was the way he had reached for him without hesitation.
As though Chanyeol were not someone to be afraid of.