park chanyeol is just thirteen.

his entire world becomes engulfed inside the black hole of his room and chanyeol’s not so sure he minds being swallowed — because maybe in another galaxy, in the depths of the hole he’ll find yura there and she’ll be smiling.  he doesn’t eat and he barely sleeps, curled into the corners of his imagining and his room.  maybe he’ll begin a life that spins slowly on its axis again, maybe time won’t stand still anymore and his world will soon begin to thaw.  because he revolves around yura with light in his eyes and smiles in his heart.  

but things are not that easy.  his life in the black hole begins to be measured by the number of sundays that pass — the only day he’ll leave his room ( too early ), to avoid his parents, to avoid the light of day and doctors that will look at him quizzically because it’s far earlier than a child wakes to sit in a room full of machines and purpled, broken limbs that just won’t heal.  his parents don’t visit on sundays because that is the day saved for park chanyeol and park yura, when chanyeol sits in silence and wills the life flowing through yura’s veins to waken her because this is no fairy tale and she can’t be sleeping beauty.  he wishes that his healing were hers.  he wishes it was him.  it’s pain that chanyeol feels when he looks on yura’s face.   there’s no more blood; it’s long since washed away after stitches upon stitches.  but chanyeol can still see it on her face, he can hear her screams and he remembers begging and begging and begging, the bile in his throat and bones breaking when connecting with his heavy fist.  and

it all meant nothing. this is the cruelty of human life.

he counts two, four, six, ten, seventeen sundays and still there’s no difference, there’s no flutter of an eyelid and chanyeol sinks further into his black hole of hopelessness.  without a sun to ground him, he is a drifting planet searching amongst the stars and swallowed by the dark.  the grief, the guilt he feels — it all sickens the mind and chanyeol begins to mull over the situation, he begins to hate; he watches and closes himself off in a box of personal space that no one can reach into.  chanyeol stares wide eyed when his mother tries to touch his arm and his body shakes when his father wants to hug him.  

park chanyeol is just thirteen and already the world has eaten him alive.

isolation doesn’t save him from the monsters that lurk in the corners.  everywhere around him there is humanity, and that means that everywhere, there lies an enemy.  humanity is what took the sun away.  humanity has left him to rot in a black hole.  humanity doesn’t look kindly on people that can do amazing things because they can’t and it’s not fair, therein lies the problem.  they’re jealous.  he wraps his arms around his knees and his chin digs heavy into his bones.  nothing makes this better.  

chanyeol is still lost to the depths of himself and his black hole when there’s a knock at his door, a plea for him to come out “ just this once, my son, i’m sorry”.  there’s tears in his mother’s voice and his bones are sluggish in their form, lost to the decay of gravity pulling him down to earth.  a click of the lock and there’s a basket held in her hands, and questions in his eyes.  his face doesn’t change when his mother mentions a “ baekhyun” because the name is not familiar and he can feel his insides prickle with distrust.  but she pushes it towards him and says it’s from a friend, please take it, please eat.

park chanyeol does not know someone named baekhyun.

but he takes the basket anyway, careful not to touch his mother’s hands and snaps the door shut with a rapid beating heart.  this is what fear is like, to be unable to look at your own mother without seeing a monster.  he’s disgusted with himself.  he’s disgusted with the world and there are no words that he can say, anyway.  chanyeol lost his voice the moment he lost park yura.  

he’s careful as he picks apart the basket full of chocolates and candies, cakes that he once ate in parks once upon a time with his sister smiling brightly by his side.  these are memories that glimmer with the light of the sun, the warmth of fire tickling his insides.  there’s something digging at the recesses of memory, but he pushes it aside because he definitely does not know someone named baekhyun ( if he did, he’d remember, he’s sure of it ).  so it’s simple curiosity that has him poking through, has him wondering about what kind of person baekhyun is ( is he human? is he a monster, too — ) but it’s then that his eyes catch the bright paper and his heart almost stops because 

it’s a drawing of the sun.  

at barely thirteen, the world has swallowed chanyeol whole and he almost wonders how baekhyun knows.  if he really does know.  fingers trace crooked lines as he looks at the paper very obviously drawn awkward in a child’s hand and he almost cannot breathe.  the snacks are ignored, the paper is his focus and chanyeol tapes it high above his head.  it looks over his bed and it stays for years and years, yellowing with time as it watches him grow from thirteen to fourteen to seventeen and fearless.