ENTER INTO THE MISTERY for PARKOURDEER
For: parkourdeer
Title: Enter into the Mystery
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/D.O
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s):[Spoiler]mentions of bullying and domestic abuse, suicide attempts
Length: 2,018w
Summary: Chanyeol needs to figure out how Do Kyungsoo fits into his life.
Author's note: Dear recipient, I actually wrote a different piece for check-in, which I changed a few days after. This is my third attempt, which I wrote the night before submitting so I really am sorry if it's not to your liking :c
Deeply inspired by Tree of Life soundrack, title also taken from one of its songs.
Sunlight on gravel. Double yellow lines. The faint smell of freshly baked bread. Blue skies. A flutter of a breeze and the rustle of leaves.
Those were the things Chanyeol noticed on his trek to school, knuckles white against the bicycle handles, body bouncing off its own accord at every bump.
That very morning, he had dared to think the day was going to be beautiful.
If only he had known how wrong he was.
Park Chanyeol was not one to cause trouble. He dressed prim. He spoke in proper sentences. He gave the right answers. He had no desire to be of nuisance to anyone, just as no other teenager had any desire to be around him.
Chanyeol liked that about his world. In a place as vast as Earth, with its trillions of inhabitants, there was an entire group of humans he did not have to worry about pleasing.
He liked the quietness that adults settled into when he sat with them. He liked boarding the bus unaccompanied and squinting his eyes until the passing trees blurred and meshed into each other, like watercolor paintings on display throughout the entire city.
If Chanyeol had known that everything would change, he would have gotten off his bicycle that morning for one last indulgence in the world he was so used to. He would have laid down on the pavement to feel the sunlight baring down on him. Picked at the road markings to see if any of it would flake. Ran down to the bakery to get a good, long whiff.
Anything to make him feel like he had something to hold on to, while everything he knew and enjoyed was being ripped away from him.
He had reached the school grounds the same time he always had; a good thirty minutes before the first bell would ring. The teachers had all greeted him the same way - a curt nod as he bowed respectfully at each and every one of them, as he walked the exact same route he always had for the past couple of years.
That day, however, his usual routine had been interrupted by another student.
Do Kyungsoo had just transferred in from Sol Saints High, a delinquent inappropriately applied into a school with something so benevelont in its name. He was everything that Chanyeol was not and never wished to be - rough and intrusive, going about his days with a hatred Chanyeol could neither understand nor ever muster.
Even after weeks of having his face shoved into the water in the ceramic bowl and being forced to listen to Kyungsoo's snarls of derogatory names and indecent threats, Chanyeol still found himself incapable of feeling hatred towards the new student.
Instead, he pitied Kyungsoo.
Bloodshot eyes. Mussed hair. Shuddering breaths. Gray skies. Hesitant footsteps, and then, a long exhale.
"H-hold on!" Chanyeol shouted. His teeth grazed his inner cheek and it bled again. "You for-forgot to give me my 6 o'clock punch?"
Kyungsoo's fists trembled at his sides, whiter than Chanyeol's had been on the morning that kept haunting him. Kyungsoo did not look at him, but his foot retracted and he stayed where he stood.
"Maybe if you come down from there, we can stick to our schedule."
Kyungsoo hung his head and scoffed. "Why would you ask to be hit?"
"Because I don't want you to jump."
There was no further exchange of words after. When Chanyeol extended his hand out for Kyungsoo to take, the smaller boy had ferociously swatted it away, knocking Chanyeol's glasses askew.
For the first time in months, Chanyeol had the chance to fall back into old habits and routines. But his world was no longer the same. Minutes that were usually spent contemplating the purpose of life or calculating distances in his head had now morphed into hours wondering and worrying about Do Kyungsoo.
In a school as small as theirs it should be hard for two people to avoid each other, especially when Chanyeol towered over most of the other students and could easily find anyone he wanted to.
Kyungsoo proved otherwise.
It was impressive, the way Kyungsoo seemed to disappear from Chanyeol completely. It was frustrating, too, the fact that someone who had unwillingly become part of Chanyeol's daily patterns was now a mere phantom.
A poltergeist, who had Chanyeol turning left and right at every familiar footstep or groan. Never manifesting itself into the narrow-shouldered boy Chanyeol wished to see.
Weeks passed that way - Chanyeol desperate for even a glimpse of Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo cleverly hiding himself. Then, almost miraculously, Chanyeol found him the one time he had not been looking.
Kyungsoo's face was a lot paler, voice a lot softer, eyes a lot kinder when he gently pulled Chanyeol aside. They stood in the shade of the biggest tree on campus, Kyungsoo's teeth worrying into his lip and Chanyeol remembering all the myths and legends about said tree.
"What's your name?"
Chanyeol blinked. He was sure Kyungsoo had known his real name. "P-Park Chanyeol," he stammered a moment later.
"Look, Park," the boy said. His tone was firm, but there was something else laced in his words that Chanyeol could not quite put a finger on. "I'm sorry about what I did."
Apologetic. His tone was firm, but apologetic. Chanyeol was glad he could put a finger on it after all.
"I know saying it won't mean anything. I'll -" Kyungsoo closed his mouth, then parted his lips as though to speak again, only to close his mouth after.
The wind whistled above them, and the tips of Kyungsoo's collar flapped slightly. Chanyeol dreaded what he would say next.
"I'll show you," he continued. "I won't bother you anymore, okay?"
Chanyeol said nothing when Kyungsoo was still standing there, looking up at him and waiting for a reply. He said nothing when Kyungsoo started walking away, either, even though he kept yelling at the other boy's shrinking figure in his head.
Kyungsoo was long gone by the time Chanyeol had the courage to squeak out a pathetic, "wait."
Perhaps having his head shoved into the toilet too many times had made Chanyeol more sensitive to the sounds in the lavatory. The pop had been faint, easily overpowered by the gushing of the tap, but Chanyeol heard it.
He recognized what it was in an instant.
Putting his lanky limbs to good use, Chanyeol climbed up the commode and hoisted himself up with hands gripping the top of the partition. In the next cubicle sat Kyungsoo, holding a small orange bottle that made Chanyeol's stomach churn.
The bottle was full, still, its contents being scrutizined over and over by the boy on the floor. Chanyeol thought about how white kept associating itself to Kyungsoo, and was becoming such an awful color to see.
"Don't do it."
It was the helplessness in his eyes that made Chanyeol wonder - really wonder - what type of person Do Kyungsoo was, and what his own world had been like before Chanyeol appeared.
The tip of Kyungsoo's nose reddened with every sharp inhale, chapped quivering lips parting further apart only to be bit on by pearly teeth.
"Don't do it," Chanyeol repeated.
Quietly, Kyungsoo dumped the white pills into the bowl.
Kyungsoo stayed with him the rest of the day, followed Chanyeol around without question. They boarded the bus together and Chanyeol let Kyungsoo sit by the window, but the other student was too busy staring into space to appreciate the sights of the city.
Chanyeol watched as buildings became smaller and smaller, much like he was in Kyungsoo's mind. He wondered what he might find in such a space - whether he would be engulfed in the woes of a suicidal teenage bully, or be greeted with nothing.
He decided he wanted to find out.
Chanyeol could not deny that he sometimes feared he might arrive to a harsh tug on his neatly-pressed shirt instead of the twitch of a smile he was starting to get accustomed to.
He noticed that sometimes it seemed like Kyungsoo had the same fear, too, the way his thick eyebrows almost knit together when Chanyeol stood over him. Chanyeol briefly wondered, one day, if his height intimidated Kyungsoo, but pushed the thought back.
His height had never stopped Kyungsoo from gaining power over him before.
Weeks passed before Chanyeol could say he truly trusted the other boy. The smiles grew horizontally, bit by bit, every few days until Chanyeol could see that Kyungsoo was no longer straining or forcing himself.
The look of fear in Kyungsoo's eyes was fading more and more each day, too, and though it was something that made Chanyeol highly curious about, he did not pry. Not that he wanted to, anyway, because for the very first time Chanyeol found someone his age whom he wanted to be around and who wanted to be around him.
"Why do you still hang around?" Kyungsoo asked him one day, the bags around his eyes carrying a lot more weight than they were made to.
Chanyeol shrugged.
"Answer me, Park."
Chanyeol shifted from where he sat, discomfort starting to set in. He never liked wooden benches like this one.
"I'm afraid of what you might do when left alone."
Kyungsoo was clearly not satisfied with his answer, the way his brow furrowed and his head shook slightly.
"And I have yet to figure you out," Chanyeol added.
The breeze ruffled his hair and the sunlight cast diagonal shadows down his face and neck when Kyungsoo spoke again. "Would you stay if I told you what you wanted to know? Would you still be with me when I'm no longer thinking of ending my life?"
"I don't know," he answered honestly.
Chanyeol let the silence stretch between them, watched the moist bounce in Kyungsoo's eyes as they searched Chanyeol's own. Kyungsoo took a deep breath sooner than later, giving one slow blink before finally opening that door Chanyeol had feared would always stay closed.
"You shocked me. You looked so much like my father did when he was younger. You reminded me so much of him," Kyungsoo told him. "I made a mistake, then. You are nothing like him, Park. You're sweet, and kind, and endearingly odd - my father is none of those things."
The shadows on Kyungsoo were broadening; light was rapidly turning into dark, and Chanyeol hoped the oncoming night could mask the pain bound to show on his face.
"The day before you found me on the rooftop, I watched my mother climb out of bed to sit on the window sill. She gave me one look, but it didn't feel like she could even see me. She just turned back to face out the window again. I stood there. For hours, until she went back to bed.
"Weeks later I caught her in the kitchen. I had to pry the bottle of pills out of her hands. She wouldn't let go. She called me so many things that day. I think she hoped that it would shock me, and that I would be the one to let go instead."
Chanyeol struggled to form the words he wanted to say to Kyungsoo, but words were quickly losing their meaning. There was no appropriate statement to rightly express the ache in Chanyeol's heart; to fully convince Kyungsoo that Chanyeol still wanted to stay by his side, possibly in a more significant way.
So he leaned in and took Kyungsoo's lips in his own, right there on that uncomfortable wooden bench. Kyungsoo thanked him through the kiss, tongue swirling softly and fingers grabbing the front of his shirt.
Night came before they pulled apart, Kyungsoo muttering more apologies under his breath while Chanyeol whispered for him to stop.
Their next bus rides together were not that different from their first. Their fingers intertwined but they would stay silent throughout the rides, staring out the window, lost in their own individual thoughts.
Wide eyes. Hints of cedarwood and vanilla. Heart-shaped lips. Melodic humming, and a warm hand in his.
This was Chanyeol's world now.
Title: Enter into the Mystery
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/D.O
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s):[Spoiler]mentions of bullying and domestic abuse, suicide attempts
Length: 2,018w
Summary: Chanyeol needs to figure out how Do Kyungsoo fits into his life.
Author's note: Dear recipient, I actually wrote a different piece for check-in, which I changed a few days after. This is my third attempt, which I wrote the night before submitting so I really am sorry if it's not to your liking :c
Deeply inspired by Tree of Life soundrack, title also taken from one of its songs.
Sunlight on gravel. Double yellow lines. The faint smell of freshly baked bread. Blue skies. A flutter of a breeze and the rustle of leaves.
Those were the things Chanyeol noticed on his trek to school, knuckles white against the bicycle handles, body bouncing off its own accord at every bump.
That very morning, he had dared to think the day was going to be beautiful.
If only he had known how wrong he was.
Park Chanyeol was not one to cause trouble. He dressed prim. He spoke in proper sentences. He gave the right answers. He had no desire to be of nuisance to anyone, just as no other teenager had any desire to be around him.
Chanyeol liked that about his world. In a place as vast as Earth, with its trillions of inhabitants, there was an entire group of humans he did not have to worry about pleasing.
He liked the quietness that adults settled into when he sat with them. He liked boarding the bus unaccompanied and squinting his eyes until the passing trees blurred and meshed into each other, like watercolor paintings on display throughout the entire city.
If Chanyeol had known that everything would change, he would have gotten off his bicycle that morning for one last indulgence in the world he was so used to. He would have laid down on the pavement to feel the sunlight baring down on him. Picked at the road markings to see if any of it would flake. Ran down to the bakery to get a good, long whiff.
Anything to make him feel like he had something to hold on to, while everything he knew and enjoyed was being ripped away from him.
He had reached the school grounds the same time he always had; a good thirty minutes before the first bell would ring. The teachers had all greeted him the same way - a curt nod as he bowed respectfully at each and every one of them, as he walked the exact same route he always had for the past couple of years.
That day, however, his usual routine had been interrupted by another student.
Do Kyungsoo had just transferred in from Sol Saints High, a delinquent inappropriately applied into a school with something so benevelont in its name. He was everything that Chanyeol was not and never wished to be - rough and intrusive, going about his days with a hatred Chanyeol could neither understand nor ever muster.
Even after weeks of having his face shoved into the water in the ceramic bowl and being forced to listen to Kyungsoo's snarls of derogatory names and indecent threats, Chanyeol still found himself incapable of feeling hatred towards the new student.
Instead, he pitied Kyungsoo.
Bloodshot eyes. Mussed hair. Shuddering breaths. Gray skies. Hesitant footsteps, and then, a long exhale.
"H-hold on!" Chanyeol shouted. His teeth grazed his inner cheek and it bled again. "You for-forgot to give me my 6 o'clock punch?"
Kyungsoo's fists trembled at his sides, whiter than Chanyeol's had been on the morning that kept haunting him. Kyungsoo did not look at him, but his foot retracted and he stayed where he stood.
"Maybe if you come down from there, we can stick to our schedule."
Kyungsoo hung his head and scoffed. "Why would you ask to be hit?"
"Because I don't want you to jump."
There was no further exchange of words after. When Chanyeol extended his hand out for Kyungsoo to take, the smaller boy had ferociously swatted it away, knocking Chanyeol's glasses askew.
For the first time in months, Chanyeol had the chance to fall back into old habits and routines. But his world was no longer the same. Minutes that were usually spent contemplating the purpose of life or calculating distances in his head had now morphed into hours wondering and worrying about Do Kyungsoo.
In a school as small as theirs it should be hard for two people to avoid each other, especially when Chanyeol towered over most of the other students and could easily find anyone he wanted to.
Kyungsoo proved otherwise.
It was impressive, the way Kyungsoo seemed to disappear from Chanyeol completely. It was frustrating, too, the fact that someone who had unwillingly become part of Chanyeol's daily patterns was now a mere phantom.
A poltergeist, who had Chanyeol turning left and right at every familiar footstep or groan. Never manifesting itself into the narrow-shouldered boy Chanyeol wished to see.
Weeks passed that way - Chanyeol desperate for even a glimpse of Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo cleverly hiding himself. Then, almost miraculously, Chanyeol found him the one time he had not been looking.
Kyungsoo's face was a lot paler, voice a lot softer, eyes a lot kinder when he gently pulled Chanyeol aside. They stood in the shade of the biggest tree on campus, Kyungsoo's teeth worrying into his lip and Chanyeol remembering all the myths and legends about said tree.
"What's your name?"
Chanyeol blinked. He was sure Kyungsoo had known his real name. "P-Park Chanyeol," he stammered a moment later.
"Look, Park," the boy said. His tone was firm, but there was something else laced in his words that Chanyeol could not quite put a finger on. "I'm sorry about what I did."
Apologetic. His tone was firm, but apologetic. Chanyeol was glad he could put a finger on it after all.
"I know saying it won't mean anything. I'll -" Kyungsoo closed his mouth, then parted his lips as though to speak again, only to close his mouth after.
The wind whistled above them, and the tips of Kyungsoo's collar flapped slightly. Chanyeol dreaded what he would say next.
"I'll show you," he continued. "I won't bother you anymore, okay?"
Chanyeol said nothing when Kyungsoo was still standing there, looking up at him and waiting for a reply. He said nothing when Kyungsoo started walking away, either, even though he kept yelling at the other boy's shrinking figure in his head.
Kyungsoo was long gone by the time Chanyeol had the courage to squeak out a pathetic, "wait."
Perhaps having his head shoved into the toilet too many times had made Chanyeol more sensitive to the sounds in the lavatory. The pop had been faint, easily overpowered by the gushing of the tap, but Chanyeol heard it.
He recognized what it was in an instant.
Putting his lanky limbs to good use, Chanyeol climbed up the commode and hoisted himself up with hands gripping the top of the partition. In the next cubicle sat Kyungsoo, holding a small orange bottle that made Chanyeol's stomach churn.
The bottle was full, still, its contents being scrutizined over and over by the boy on the floor. Chanyeol thought about how white kept associating itself to Kyungsoo, and was becoming such an awful color to see.
"Don't do it."
It was the helplessness in his eyes that made Chanyeol wonder - really wonder - what type of person Do Kyungsoo was, and what his own world had been like before Chanyeol appeared.
The tip of Kyungsoo's nose reddened with every sharp inhale, chapped quivering lips parting further apart only to be bit on by pearly teeth.
"Don't do it," Chanyeol repeated.
Quietly, Kyungsoo dumped the white pills into the bowl.
Kyungsoo stayed with him the rest of the day, followed Chanyeol around without question. They boarded the bus together and Chanyeol let Kyungsoo sit by the window, but the other student was too busy staring into space to appreciate the sights of the city.
Chanyeol watched as buildings became smaller and smaller, much like he was in Kyungsoo's mind. He wondered what he might find in such a space - whether he would be engulfed in the woes of a suicidal teenage bully, or be greeted with nothing.
He decided he wanted to find out.
Chanyeol could not deny that he sometimes feared he might arrive to a harsh tug on his neatly-pressed shirt instead of the twitch of a smile he was starting to get accustomed to.
He noticed that sometimes it seemed like Kyungsoo had the same fear, too, the way his thick eyebrows almost knit together when Chanyeol stood over him. Chanyeol briefly wondered, one day, if his height intimidated Kyungsoo, but pushed the thought back.
His height had never stopped Kyungsoo from gaining power over him before.
Weeks passed before Chanyeol could say he truly trusted the other boy. The smiles grew horizontally, bit by bit, every few days until Chanyeol could see that Kyungsoo was no longer straining or forcing himself.
The look of fear in Kyungsoo's eyes was fading more and more each day, too, and though it was something that made Chanyeol highly curious about, he did not pry. Not that he wanted to, anyway, because for the very first time Chanyeol found someone his age whom he wanted to be around and who wanted to be around him.
"Why do you still hang around?" Kyungsoo asked him one day, the bags around his eyes carrying a lot more weight than they were made to.
Chanyeol shrugged.
"Answer me, Park."
Chanyeol shifted from where he sat, discomfort starting to set in. He never liked wooden benches like this one.
"I'm afraid of what you might do when left alone."
Kyungsoo was clearly not satisfied with his answer, the way his brow furrowed and his head shook slightly.
"And I have yet to figure you out," Chanyeol added.
The breeze ruffled his hair and the sunlight cast diagonal shadows down his face and neck when Kyungsoo spoke again. "Would you stay if I told you what you wanted to know? Would you still be with me when I'm no longer thinking of ending my life?"
"I don't know," he answered honestly.
Chanyeol let the silence stretch between them, watched the moist bounce in Kyungsoo's eyes as they searched Chanyeol's own. Kyungsoo took a deep breath sooner than later, giving one slow blink before finally opening that door Chanyeol had feared would always stay closed.
"You shocked me. You looked so much like my father did when he was younger. You reminded me so much of him," Kyungsoo told him. "I made a mistake, then. You are nothing like him, Park. You're sweet, and kind, and endearingly odd - my father is none of those things."
The shadows on Kyungsoo were broadening; light was rapidly turning into dark, and Chanyeol hoped the oncoming night could mask the pain bound to show on his face.
"The day before you found me on the rooftop, I watched my mother climb out of bed to sit on the window sill. She gave me one look, but it didn't feel like she could even see me. She just turned back to face out the window again. I stood there. For hours, until she went back to bed.
"Weeks later I caught her in the kitchen. I had to pry the bottle of pills out of her hands. She wouldn't let go. She called me so many things that day. I think she hoped that it would shock me, and that I would be the one to let go instead."
Chanyeol struggled to form the words he wanted to say to Kyungsoo, but words were quickly losing their meaning. There was no appropriate statement to rightly express the ache in Chanyeol's heart; to fully convince Kyungsoo that Chanyeol still wanted to stay by his side, possibly in a more significant way.
So he leaned in and took Kyungsoo's lips in his own, right there on that uncomfortable wooden bench. Kyungsoo thanked him through the kiss, tongue swirling softly and fingers grabbing the front of his shirt.
Night came before they pulled apart, Kyungsoo muttering more apologies under his breath while Chanyeol whispered for him to stop.
Their next bus rides together were not that different from their first. Their fingers intertwined but they would stay silent throughout the rides, staring out the window, lost in their own individual thoughts.
Wide eyes. Hints of cedarwood and vanilla. Heart-shaped lips. Melodic humming, and a warm hand in his.
This was Chanyeol's world now.