[ c h a n g b i n s  a p a r t m e n t ]
[ 17th  M a r c h ]

"Which one should I choose? The white, black or purple hoodie?", Changbin asked, the excitement clearly hearable.

Chan and him were in Changbins room accompanied by Changbins roommates Wooyoung and Haknyeon, getting ready for a date.

To be exact, a date with Seungmin.

Seungmin had asked Changbin out a few days earlier and Changbin had been getting on Chans nerves ever since, since the older of them had more dating experience.

"I'd choose the black one. Just a simple black fit, that's the best", Chan replied, just to be pushed aside by Wooyoung in the next second.

"Are you blind hyung? He should definitely wear the white one, only black will ruin the entire look for him. I mean, just look at yourself hyung." "Uh excuse me?" "Guys stop, I'm not choosing any of these. I'll just go with purple." Haknyeon, who had stayed silence until then, nodded enthusiastically. "Good decision, the colour suits you." "At least someone with taste here", Changbin said and smiled at Haknyeon. "EXCUSE ME?", Chan and Wooyoung said almost at the same time, to what both Haknyeon and Changbin started laughing.

Changbin immediately stopped laughing, when he checked his phone.

"HE TEXTED ME THAT HE'S GONNA BE EARLY. OUR TIME JUST GOT SHORTER BY ALMOST HALF AN HOUR. CHAN HYUNG YOU NEED TO GIVE ME THESE TIPS NOW." "God, you need to calm down or else it's gonna be horrible with or without the tips. What do you even want me to tell you? It's not like you have no experience in dating."

Wooyoung and Haknyeon started laughing, while Changbin just looked away blushing.

"I'm really sorry to inform you Chan hyung, but this boy here has never dated another boy in his life." Changbin hit Haknyeon as a response and looked ashamed to the ground. "They never wanted to date me. Besides that, Seungmin is someone really special to me. I don't want to fuck this up. Can we now skip this and get to the important part?"

Chan only shook his head. These boys were something else.

"Okay sure, the most important part is to be yourself. I know that's kinda hard and you won't achieve that to 100% but at least try to not fake it too much. Seungmin knows you a bit and it would be very weird to him, if you put a "mask" on while you two are on a date." Changbin nodded.

Chan wanted to continue, when he was suddenly disrupted by a female voice saying "boo" coming from his phone.

"You use customised ringtones Chan hyung? That's really old fashioned", Haknyeon said. "Fits you though", Wooyoung added and both of them started laughing again.

Chan on the other hand did not feel like laughing. He never used customised ringtones.

Except for one contact.

Yi's contact.

It was their thing to make it special, whenever they got a message of the other. Just record an audio message and make it the others ringtone for their contact to sweeten the others day. A sweet thing as long as they were in a relationship. Now really hurtful. He wasn't even sure, why he hadn't changed it yet.

Changbin and Chan exchanged a look.

Changbin knew.

"You guys need to leave. Now." Changbin was the one to react. "What? We didn't do-" "Don't ask questions, just go already."

With a confused look on their faces both of them got slowly up and moved towards the door.

Wooyoung turned around once again and asked: "Are you sure we can't help? I think you could need us-" "NO."

In the mean time Chan had started shaking again. Small tears were running down his cheeks.

"Hey Woo, I think we really should leave", Haknyeon said, obviously he had noticed Chans state. "Okay okay."

As soon as they had closed the door and Changbin had made sure that they weren't trying to listen, he rushed over to the still crying Chan and hugged him tightly.

Getting hugged by Changbin was a really rare occasion for Chan, so he was really surprised when Changbin hugged him, but immediately hugged the other back and started crying harder.

"Shh Chan hyung, it's just a message and you haven't even checked yet", Changbin calmingly said, while slowly caressing Chans back. "It's gonna be alright, breathe in, hold, breathe out. Good."

After some time Chan had calmed down and slowly let go of Changbin.

"Did I ruin your hoodie?", he asked anxiously. "Don't worry, it's just a bit wet and you don't wear makeup, so it's fine. Do you want to check the message?" Changbin checked the time and added: "We have fifteen minuets left until Minnie arrives."

Chan only nodded and slowly grabbed his phone, which was laying a bit further away from him on Changbins bed.

He opened the message and read it out loud: "Hey Chan, I know this is weird after we didn't have contact in almost half a year, but I would like to meet up. There are some things we need to talk about, if it's okay with you."

Chan needed a moment to process the content of the message.

"She... wants to meet up? Did they see me in the mall? Oh god Binnie what if she did?" Chan started to panic again.

I don't want to admit it

If she did see him, he would be in big trouble. He couldn't even talk with his friends about his situation. How was he supposed to talk with Yi about it?

"Hey Chan hyung breathe. It's alright. You can do this. Maybe it's good that they saw you. Even though you may not like it, talking about it would make it easier for you to deal with this situation, yeah?"

Maybe Changbin was right. He still wasn't sure on how to talk about it and if he said yes to the meet up, it would be extremely awkward, but maybe it would help him with his delusional thinking and maybe even the voices.

"Okay yeah, but what do I text?" "Ughh Chan hyung you're 24, can't you write a text message on your own?" "No, not really." "Oh my god, just go with "yeah sure, where and when?" or something. It's just a text." "Okayyy, if you think sooo." "Yes, yes I do. Now hurry up Seungmin will be here to pick me up in 5."

Chan quickly typed out the from Changbin suggested response and almost immediately got the reply 'do you have time today? At the park?' to which he just replied with a 'yes, I'll be there in 15'.

While they texted Changbin looked over Chans shoulder to check every message Chan typed out.

Then the doorbell rang and pulled both of them out of their bubble.

"I need to go, but I'm sure you can do this. I believe in you Chan hyung", Changbin said and pulled Chan into a short hug. "Thank you Binnie. You can do it as well. Good luck with your date and love you." Changbin only blushed and smiled a small smile, before he left the room.

Chan waited a few moments until he heard, that Seungmin and Changbin had left, before also getting ready to leave the apartment.

He didn't meet Wooyoung and Haknyeon on his way out, but he could hear them screaming in the living room. A clear sign that they were playing some games.

[ t h e  p a r k ]
[ 10  m i n u e t s  l a t e r ]

When Chan arrived at the park he was beyond nervous.

Yi and him had met up there a few times, when they were in their dating phase, so it was a special place to both of them ...or had been.

Because of that Chan knew exactly where he had to go. A bench close to a playground with a wider space of grass, on which they had done some picnics from time to time.

He wasn't sure, why they had chosen that place. It was quite loud, whenever there were kids on the playground. There was no reason. They just came to love that place.

He slowly approached it. Yi wasn't there yet, so he just sat down and waited.

It was nice to come there again. The kids on the playground were loud, as they usually were, but it didn't bother Chan. He somehow liked it. The sun shined through the trees, leaving a pattern of dots on the ground. It wasn't too warm, Chan had to wear a jacket to stay warm, but it also wasn't too cold. Just nice.

A person sat down next to him, breathing heavily, as if they came there after a run.

I still miss you

His heart started beating faster. He already could not deal with this situation.

He wanted to hug her but at the same time he wanted to run away.

Chan let her calm down a bit, taking the time to get a bit more comfortable with the situation.

Then the other person turned to him, a wide smile on their face. "Hey Chan, it's so nice to finally see you again. It's been so long."

Chan took a huge breath before turning to face the person, who obviously was Yi and replied: "Hi Yi, nice to see you too. Was there a reason as to why you wanted to meet up?" Yi pouted as a response. "Can't we do a bit small talk before we come to the serious stuff. Man, I haven't seen you in so long and I do care about you. But okay... I saw you in the mall earlier. It was because of me, wasn't it?"

Now Chan felt guilty, but at the same time, he couldn't do small talk at that moment. There was too much bothering him and too much in between them, that they had to get away, before they could do such things again.

"Yes it was. Sorry", Chan said looking away and nervously running his hand through his hair.

"Why?"

Anger and sadness rushed through Chan and he turned to Yi quickly. "You know exactly why. It's hard for me to deal with our break up. I've been having a really hard time these past months and seeing you in that mall kind of ruined everything once again."

"I'm sorry." Yi looked to the ground, clearly feeling guilty. "No, I am. It's my fault, that I'm not able to deal with our break up."

How could I forget

Now it was Chans turn to feel guilty again. He didn't want Yi to suffer from this situation. It wasn't her fault, that she had lost her feelings for Chan. He had forgot, that Yi easily thought things were her fault, even though they weren't.

"You haven't changed your opinion on not being together anymore, have you?"

In his thoughts he screamed at himself. WHY WOULD YOU ASK THAT QUESTION? NOW EVERYTHING'S GONNA BE SO AWKWARD. But he needed to know. To finally stop his thoughts. Maybe even to finally be able to control the voices.

"No, no, I haven't. I'm so sorry", Yi replied, still guilt but also determination in her voice. "Don't apologise, it's probably the best for both of us."

There was a moment of silence. Both of them were in their own thoughts. Processing, what just happened. Making a silent agreement.

"So... how have you been?"