Minuscule Chance at Love for skyroll
For: skyroll
Title: Minuscule Chance at Love
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Suho
Rating: PG
Length: 3.2k
Summary:They say that when you meet your anchor, it just feels right. Chanyeol feels sweaty.
Author's note:i smushed your prompts together so i hope i got what you wanted out of both of them!
Chanyeol’s reality today starts with him waking up in an old warehouse, among large grey rats and old boxes molding at the corners. Grumbling and squinting, he sits up, hissing when his neck and spine crack and ache from spending the night on a hard cement floor. Looking around, it seems like he’s alone, so he carefully gets on his feet, sneakers squeaking against the hard cement floor.
So this is the reality he’ll travel in today. It's been a different one every single day since he turned 18, like all the other travelers in the world.
To his right, there is a doorless exit next to an old, faded floral couch with holes in the fabric. Nothing much else fills the room, aside from a few wood planks and abandoned food wrappers. Walking towards the door, as soon as Chanyeol crosses the threshold, a thick wave of heat blasts into him, sinking heavily into his skin. He grimaces, already knowing that he’ll start sweating heavily before he can even walk half a block. In front of him lies a relatively busy street, the occasional car lazily rumbling down the road. There are more people walking the sidewalks, with their children or pets, other travelers who have found their anchor here and haven’t been anywhere else in a long while.
A woman walking past Chanyeol notices him looking lost, and stops in front of him with an understanding look on her face. “Travelers’ maps are under that traffic sign, right there, if you need them.” She points to Chanyeol’s right, and without another word, walks away with a small wave. Chanyeol nods in thanks, looking over, and sees a couple of others heading for the same place.
When Chanyeol walks over, there is a clear plastic box nailed to the wood with folded maps inside. Two men ahead of him have already started heading for inns, leaving only a couple inside the plastic bin. Chanyeol pulls one out and unfolds it, the small, multicolored lines making him go a bit cross-eyed. A big red circle with a yellow star in the center marks his location on the map, and black boxes dot the area around him, where Travelers’ Inns are. Every box is numbered, and on the back of the map, there are phone numbers that can only be called with the type of phones he’s standing at . A few inns always occupy every street and block, because Travelers can wake up anywhere. Even in the middle of nowhere, Travelers’ busses circuit the roads like clockwork, at least if one woke up in a modern enough place.
There’s one a few blocks away that catches Chanyeol’s eye. It’s not quite that close, but it’s near a large pond and on the outskirts of town that meld into a rural area. Chanyeol flips the map over, looks for the number, and punches it into a plastic phone that sits above the box.
“Hello?” a man’s voice filters through the old speaker.
“Yes, hi,” Chanyeol says. “Is there a room available for one?”
“Traveler?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful! The rooms are all prepared, so come down when you want.”
“Is five minutes okay?”
“Most certainly.”
Chanyeol sighs. Travelers don’t often stay in the inns, preferring to leave as soon as possible to set out and find their anchor, if that person is in the place they woke up in. Today though, he doesn’t feel like doing much but sleeping in a proper bed, and not the cement floor he woke up on.
The walk there is hot and humid, and Chanyeol’s shirt sticks to his back uncomfortably when he finally spots a small looking bed and breakfast that’s exactly where the inn is supposed to be. Sighing, he almost stumbles in, relieved at the cool burst of air that slides over him.
“Hot day?” Chanyeol looks up, and there’s a man smiling, ready to greet him with a cup of ice water. He takes it gratefully, nodding in agreement.
“I really couldn’t have stood another minute out there,” he replies, finishing off the water and handing it back to the man.
“I’m Joonmyun. Welcome to my inn,” the man, Joonmyun, says, and they shake hands. Joonmyun’s hands are significantly smaller than Chanyeol’s, and softer too.
“I’m Chanyeol.” Joonmyun is handsome. He has soft brown hair that swipes to the side, and a look about him that makes Chanyeol want to talk more.
“Well, Chanyeol, for the day you’re here, I’ll be taking care of all your needs. Hopefully, you’ll find your anchor and stay for a bit longer,” he says with a smile. His eyes shrink into crescents, mouth widening to reveal a row of brilliantly white teeth, and Chanyeol’s stomach shrinks a little.
Oh.
He manages an awkward smile, one that makes him look constipated, and Joonmyun’s friendly face twitches for just a bit before he gathers himself. “Let me show you to your room.”
As they walk through the halls, Chanyeol notices that it looks more like an actual home than an inn. “How many people stay here?”
“Right now? Just one other. This is actually just my house, and I lend a few spare rooms out to travelers for the money, you know? Government’s always welcome.” They head up a flight of stairs, as Chanyeol glances around at framed pictures that hang around the walls, all of landscapes and forestry.
“Nice pictures,” he says, pouting in appreciation at a particularly impressive shot of a fox.
“Oh, really? Thanks. Yeah, I used to be really into photography before I started this whole-inn thing,” Joonmyun waves a hand at the air around him. “Photography was never gonna bring in any money, so I started this thing as a backup, and time just kind of-flew by.”
“Ah,” Chanyeol says. “Travelers, we don’t really do anything, aside from look for our anchors, I guess. I mean I might buy a small toy to use for the day, but it’s always gone the next, you know? The government provides all the inns and the inns provide food, and if I want cheap clothing I just have to put in a couple hours.”
Joonmyun nods. They reach the door, and Joonmyun hands him a bronze key. “It must be fun to be able to let go of everything once you wake up. You'd get to see the world, you know. It must be nice.”
Nodding, Chanyeol opens the door, revealing a relatively bare room, save for some small pieces of furniture and a large window that faces out towards a forestry path.
“Oh, there's a preserve near here?” Chanyeol gestures out to the window.
“Yea, and a garden too. Most of the travelers looking to make quick cash help me out by doing some manual labor outside. If you'd like, I can show you around there after lunch. It's really nice to see wildlife, especially if you're traveling in the summer like now,” Joonmyun says. Hearing the word summer reminds Chanyeol of his sticky clothes and rather unpleasant smelling hair, and he winces on the inside.
“Yea sure, I'll be looking forward to it right after a quick shower. How much would it pay to do a few hours?”
Joonmyun shakes his head a bit, laughing. It sounds light and feathery, and it makes Chanyeol feel like a stone pit has lodged inside of his chest, against two of his ribs and pressing. “Enough to get you a set of clothes and maybe a new haircut. You might want to wait for that shower, because it's a pretty long walk to go around the entire trail. I have some spare clothes for the work, though they might be a bit small on you.”
“Anything's better than these,” Chanyeol says.
“Okay then, I'll have the clothes sent up, and lunch is whenever you want to come down.” Joonmyun makes his exit as Chanyeol says his thanks, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. Once Joonmyun disappears around the hallway, Chanyeol looks around, taking in the room. There's really not much, but it's not like Chanyeol has anything with him either, so it's fitting, at least for one night. A quick shower in the bathroom right next door, and a set of plain t-shirts and shorts sent from a bored looking boy named Sehun later, Chanyeol is back downstairs.
“The kitchen is exactly where you'd look for it if you walked downstairs,” Sehun drawls, not looking up from his phone. Chanyeol wonders how his traveler is like. Shrugging, he heads for the room anyways, as Sehun mutters “It's seriously not that hard to find a kitchen.”
When Chanyeol gets there, Joonmyun already has something in a frying pan and two plate set up on a small table in the middle of the tiled floor. He didn't know how hungry he was until he actually smelled food, and his mouth waters at the delicious aroma.
“That smells amazing,” Chanyeol sighs as Joonmyun turns around. He makes a face at the clothes Chanyeol's wearing, which ends up being a size too small (they squeeze around the armpits when he moves).
“Oh! Hey, your egg and ham sandwich is almost ready.” Turning back around, Joonmyun shakes salt and pepper into the pan before grabbing Chanyeol's plate off the table and sliding the egg onto a piece of bread that was on it. Laying out strips of ham on top, he hums, grabbing the last slice of bread and topping the whole thing off. He spins around with a small 'ta da,' showing off the plate in a mock modeling pose.
“That,” Chanyeol points at the sandwich, “is the best thing that's happened to me today.” Joonmyun smiles a bit and sets the plate down as Chanyeol sits, turning around to plate the other egg onto his own sandwich. It's a few minutes before Joonmyun is finished as well, and he sits down right across from him.
“You didn't have to wait for me,” Joonmyun says, noticing that Chanyeol's plate is absolutely untouched. The glass of water by it is also at the same level as Joonmyun filled it to be.
Chanyeol shrugs. “What's the fun of cooking when you can't watch the person you're cooking for take the first bite?”
Joonmyun laughs slightly, conceding with a “I guess. Most of my guests just eat something small before setting out to find their anchor.”
At that sentence, Chanyeol frowns. “Well, I wouldn't want to find my anchor it it meant having to miss out on this sandwich.” He takes a bite, groaning at the delicious flavors that sit on his tongue and Joonmyun smiles. Chanyeol tries to smile back, but the sandwich in his teeth and that weird eye squint that he has makes Joonmyun put on a weird face.
Chanyeol bows his head, licking vigorously at his teeth. “Sorry. My eye does a weird thing when I smile.”
“No, it's okay. You should smile anyways,” Joonmyun replies.
They both eat in relative silence, broken by the occasional interruption by Sehun who asks if he can take a nap (the answer is no) and another guest who comes in to grab a banana sitting on the counter before walking out again.
Once the sandwiches are both devoured and the water gulped down, Chanyeol and Joonmyun head out, armed with a backpack, three water bottles, a bag of dried fruit, and Joonmyun's camera.
“Ready?” Joonmyun says at the back door, smiling. When Chanyeol nods his agreement, they both head out for the path.
Needless to say, it's almost sunset by the time they come back, and while Joonmyun is bright and just a little tired, Chanyeol staggers through the doors with his shirt almost soaked through and his hair plastered to his face.
“I got so many nice pictures,” Joonmyun says, smiling as he looks through the viewfinder. “And you got some nice work done outside! I didn't know you'd actually want to tend to the whole garden. I'm impressed.” Chanyeol wheezes painfully, puffing his shirt to blow air inside that does only a meager job at cooling him down. Walking through the door into air conditioned air never felt so heavenly, except for that one time he woke up in the middle of a desert city. Joonmyun gives him a worried glance. “Are you okay?”
Unable to speak, Chanyeol gives him a thumbs up, Joonmyun only glancing up to see before returning his view to the camera. “Look, Chanyeol. I took a picture of you falling into the bed of lilies.” He lifts the camera for Chanyeol to see, and is greeted by an unfortunate sight of Chanyeol halfway to the ground, face caught in an ugly expression as one leg is up in the air.
Chanyeol makes a face. “Golden shot, huh.” Joonmyun chuckles before sliding to the next picture, a macro shot of a bird that had landed on a low branch.
“Well, I'll give you the funds and you can keep them in your pocket for tomorrow, since I doubt you'd want to go outside right now. I'll give you a new set of clothes too, because you did just so much work out there. Really, I wasn't expecting you to pull out every weed in the garden, Chanyeol.” A lot of the travelers and visiting anchors that were walking through the path that day gave him pitiful looks. For some reason, he really wanted to please Joonmyun.
Chanyeol looks down at Joonmyun, who hasn't peeled his eyes away from his pictures despite the conversation. His eyelashes cast a soft shade on his cheeks against the setting sunlight, making his entire face look like it was bathed in yellow light. Chanyeol gulps, and thinks that it wouldn't be so bad if he could meet someone like this every time he woke up.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” Joonmyun asks as they head up to his room. “What is it like to be a traveler?”
Chanyeol gets this question a lot, from many people who ended up being anchors who dreamed of being able to explore the world. “Well, it's pretty exciting. I'm always somewhere new, though a couple of times I've woken up in really close places. I meet really cool people, people who I keep in touch with through my traveler's account. They always have crazy stories to tell. It's pretty nice to meet new people and see new things all the time, but I always wished I could have sat down and started a career, you know? Build real relationships, make a home instead of just waking up with my clothes every day. It'd be nice to see what I could make of my life.”
Joonmyun smiles a little, but it doesn't look as happy as the other ones Chanyeol's seen. Somehow, Chanyeol wants to make them happy again. He sighs. “I wish I could be a traveler. You know, just take off, no responsibility, no debts to pay, nothing to lose. I could just travel the entire world with my camera and just-just live. Until I find my anchor, at least.” He stares down at the screen of his digital camera. It's still on the picture of the bird. “I wish I could just fly away.”
It's lonely being a traveler, floating along until Chanyeol finds that one person, that one anchor that will tie him to one place, let him wake up in the same place every morning and build a life with his soulmate. People who give up hope, who are reaching their forties and request a termination from the government, who get stripped down and turned into normal people, can't do anything but find a satisfactory life with another person who's given up, or by chance an anchor. Too often though, anchors eventually find their traveler and leave, so it's almost futile. Chanyeol's biggest fear, the thing that keeps him up at night, is dying without finding his anchor.
Chanyeol smiles. “It's okay. When you meet your traveler, I bet all their stories will make you feel like you were right there with them.” Joonmyun stares at him weirdly, face caught in a strange expression before he coughs and looks away, making Chanyeol drop his gaze to the floor too.
“Dinner will be ready in two hours. Feel free to come down and eat with me-a-and Sehun will be there.” Joonmyun lifts his head for a quick, awkward smile before ducking his head again and calling for Sehun.
Chanyeol looks around, at a loss for something to do, before he looks down, pulling his shirt forward and sniffing before recoiling. Sneering at himself, he heads to the shower.
An intense scrubbing down and a new pair of sweats dropped off by Sehun later, Chanyeol is down with Joonmyun and setting the table while Sehun is flirting with one of the guests, Zitao, who grimaces and bids a hasty goodbye to retreat to his room.
“You know, Sehun, you could help out with dinner preparations too,” Joonmyun says while placing down cups for the three of them; the other guests have gone out to eat.
Sehun sighs. “Sorry, Joonmyun.” They all sit at the table, eating together as Chanyeol looks around awkwardly. Sehun sighs harder. The rest of dinner passes a bit easier, because when Chanyeol asks what Sehun does during the day he gets into the tale of a “totally hot traveler who had the ass of a Greek god” and how Sehun had followed him around all day until he realized that the man was, in fact, straight, and then spent the rest of the day flaunting himself around him to make him realize what he was unintentionally missing out on. Chanyeol and Joonmyun send each other amused looks and coughs every few seconds.
Eventually, dinner ends, and Chanyeol bids goodbye to Joonmyun and Sehun. He waves, Sehun grunting in acknowledgement (it was too much effort to lift his eyes away from his phone), and Joonmyun waves back, calling a “Good luck, Chanyeol! Hope you find your anchor tomorrow!”
Chanyeol falls asleep to visions of waking up next to a faceless anchor and dying alone in a grave where nobody buries him.
Morning comes, soft light streaming through a window broken by large leaves, to the smell of thick syrup and the sizzle of hot oil. Chanyeol sighs, and turns over, glancing out the window at the forestry.
And then it sets in.
Chanyeol's heart pumping, he runs down, mussed hair on his head and drool on the corner of his mouth. His feet can't drag him far enough it seems, and it feels like his limbs are light enough to lift him clear into the sky.
Joonmyun is downstairs, making pancakes for two, as Sehun sits with his feet propped up in another chair, slurping loudly on a sucker. At the sight of Chanyeol, in his incredibly disheveled state, Sehun's jaw drops, the sucker almost falling out of his mouth as it hands precariously on his teeth.
“Joonmyun.”
At the mention of his name, the man whirls around, shock on his face and a flush on his cheeks. Chanyeol smiles, one of his eyes quirking and the hair sticking up flopping to the side. “Tell me about your life.”
Final author's note:im really sorry if this isn't what you wanted...it's also not as long as i intended it to be but i still hope you enjoyed it!
Title: Minuscule Chance at Love
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Suho
Rating: PG
Length: 3.2k
Summary:They say that when you meet your anchor, it just feels right. Chanyeol feels sweaty.
Author's note:i smushed your prompts together so i hope i got what you wanted out of both of them!
Chanyeol’s reality today starts with him waking up in an old warehouse, among large grey rats and old boxes molding at the corners. Grumbling and squinting, he sits up, hissing when his neck and spine crack and ache from spending the night on a hard cement floor. Looking around, it seems like he’s alone, so he carefully gets on his feet, sneakers squeaking against the hard cement floor.
So this is the reality he’ll travel in today. It's been a different one every single day since he turned 18, like all the other travelers in the world.
To his right, there is a doorless exit next to an old, faded floral couch with holes in the fabric. Nothing much else fills the room, aside from a few wood planks and abandoned food wrappers. Walking towards the door, as soon as Chanyeol crosses the threshold, a thick wave of heat blasts into him, sinking heavily into his skin. He grimaces, already knowing that he’ll start sweating heavily before he can even walk half a block. In front of him lies a relatively busy street, the occasional car lazily rumbling down the road. There are more people walking the sidewalks, with their children or pets, other travelers who have found their anchor here and haven’t been anywhere else in a long while.
A woman walking past Chanyeol notices him looking lost, and stops in front of him with an understanding look on her face. “Travelers’ maps are under that traffic sign, right there, if you need them.” She points to Chanyeol’s right, and without another word, walks away with a small wave. Chanyeol nods in thanks, looking over, and sees a couple of others heading for the same place.
When Chanyeol walks over, there is a clear plastic box nailed to the wood with folded maps inside. Two men ahead of him have already started heading for inns, leaving only a couple inside the plastic bin. Chanyeol pulls one out and unfolds it, the small, multicolored lines making him go a bit cross-eyed. A big red circle with a yellow star in the center marks his location on the map, and black boxes dot the area around him, where Travelers’ Inns are. Every box is numbered, and on the back of the map, there are phone numbers that can only be called with the type of phones he’s standing at . A few inns always occupy every street and block, because Travelers can wake up anywhere. Even in the middle of nowhere, Travelers’ busses circuit the roads like clockwork, at least if one woke up in a modern enough place.
There’s one a few blocks away that catches Chanyeol’s eye. It’s not quite that close, but it’s near a large pond and on the outskirts of town that meld into a rural area. Chanyeol flips the map over, looks for the number, and punches it into a plastic phone that sits above the box.
“Hello?” a man’s voice filters through the old speaker.
“Yes, hi,” Chanyeol says. “Is there a room available for one?”
“Traveler?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful! The rooms are all prepared, so come down when you want.”
“Is five minutes okay?”
“Most certainly.”
Chanyeol sighs. Travelers don’t often stay in the inns, preferring to leave as soon as possible to set out and find their anchor, if that person is in the place they woke up in. Today though, he doesn’t feel like doing much but sleeping in a proper bed, and not the cement floor he woke up on.
The walk there is hot and humid, and Chanyeol’s shirt sticks to his back uncomfortably when he finally spots a small looking bed and breakfast that’s exactly where the inn is supposed to be. Sighing, he almost stumbles in, relieved at the cool burst of air that slides over him.
“Hot day?” Chanyeol looks up, and there’s a man smiling, ready to greet him with a cup of ice water. He takes it gratefully, nodding in agreement.
“I really couldn’t have stood another minute out there,” he replies, finishing off the water and handing it back to the man.
“I’m Joonmyun. Welcome to my inn,” the man, Joonmyun, says, and they shake hands. Joonmyun’s hands are significantly smaller than Chanyeol’s, and softer too.
“I’m Chanyeol.” Joonmyun is handsome. He has soft brown hair that swipes to the side, and a look about him that makes Chanyeol want to talk more.
“Well, Chanyeol, for the day you’re here, I’ll be taking care of all your needs. Hopefully, you’ll find your anchor and stay for a bit longer,” he says with a smile. His eyes shrink into crescents, mouth widening to reveal a row of brilliantly white teeth, and Chanyeol’s stomach shrinks a little.
Oh.
He manages an awkward smile, one that makes him look constipated, and Joonmyun’s friendly face twitches for just a bit before he gathers himself. “Let me show you to your room.”
As they walk through the halls, Chanyeol notices that it looks more like an actual home than an inn. “How many people stay here?”
“Right now? Just one other. This is actually just my house, and I lend a few spare rooms out to travelers for the money, you know? Government’s always welcome.” They head up a flight of stairs, as Chanyeol glances around at framed pictures that hang around the walls, all of landscapes and forestry.
“Nice pictures,” he says, pouting in appreciation at a particularly impressive shot of a fox.
“Oh, really? Thanks. Yeah, I used to be really into photography before I started this whole-inn thing,” Joonmyun waves a hand at the air around him. “Photography was never gonna bring in any money, so I started this thing as a backup, and time just kind of-flew by.”
“Ah,” Chanyeol says. “Travelers, we don’t really do anything, aside from look for our anchors, I guess. I mean I might buy a small toy to use for the day, but it’s always gone the next, you know? The government provides all the inns and the inns provide food, and if I want cheap clothing I just have to put in a couple hours.”
Joonmyun nods. They reach the door, and Joonmyun hands him a bronze key. “It must be fun to be able to let go of everything once you wake up. You'd get to see the world, you know. It must be nice.”
Nodding, Chanyeol opens the door, revealing a relatively bare room, save for some small pieces of furniture and a large window that faces out towards a forestry path.
“Oh, there's a preserve near here?” Chanyeol gestures out to the window.
“Yea, and a garden too. Most of the travelers looking to make quick cash help me out by doing some manual labor outside. If you'd like, I can show you around there after lunch. It's really nice to see wildlife, especially if you're traveling in the summer like now,” Joonmyun says. Hearing the word summer reminds Chanyeol of his sticky clothes and rather unpleasant smelling hair, and he winces on the inside.
“Yea sure, I'll be looking forward to it right after a quick shower. How much would it pay to do a few hours?”
Joonmyun shakes his head a bit, laughing. It sounds light and feathery, and it makes Chanyeol feel like a stone pit has lodged inside of his chest, against two of his ribs and pressing. “Enough to get you a set of clothes and maybe a new haircut. You might want to wait for that shower, because it's a pretty long walk to go around the entire trail. I have some spare clothes for the work, though they might be a bit small on you.”
“Anything's better than these,” Chanyeol says.
“Okay then, I'll have the clothes sent up, and lunch is whenever you want to come down.” Joonmyun makes his exit as Chanyeol says his thanks, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. Once Joonmyun disappears around the hallway, Chanyeol looks around, taking in the room. There's really not much, but it's not like Chanyeol has anything with him either, so it's fitting, at least for one night. A quick shower in the bathroom right next door, and a set of plain t-shirts and shorts sent from a bored looking boy named Sehun later, Chanyeol is back downstairs.
“The kitchen is exactly where you'd look for it if you walked downstairs,” Sehun drawls, not looking up from his phone. Chanyeol wonders how his traveler is like. Shrugging, he heads for the room anyways, as Sehun mutters “It's seriously not that hard to find a kitchen.”
When Chanyeol gets there, Joonmyun already has something in a frying pan and two plate set up on a small table in the middle of the tiled floor. He didn't know how hungry he was until he actually smelled food, and his mouth waters at the delicious aroma.
“That smells amazing,” Chanyeol sighs as Joonmyun turns around. He makes a face at the clothes Chanyeol's wearing, which ends up being a size too small (they squeeze around the armpits when he moves).
“Oh! Hey, your egg and ham sandwich is almost ready.” Turning back around, Joonmyun shakes salt and pepper into the pan before grabbing Chanyeol's plate off the table and sliding the egg onto a piece of bread that was on it. Laying out strips of ham on top, he hums, grabbing the last slice of bread and topping the whole thing off. He spins around with a small 'ta da,' showing off the plate in a mock modeling pose.
“That,” Chanyeol points at the sandwich, “is the best thing that's happened to me today.” Joonmyun smiles a bit and sets the plate down as Chanyeol sits, turning around to plate the other egg onto his own sandwich. It's a few minutes before Joonmyun is finished as well, and he sits down right across from him.
“You didn't have to wait for me,” Joonmyun says, noticing that Chanyeol's plate is absolutely untouched. The glass of water by it is also at the same level as Joonmyun filled it to be.
Chanyeol shrugs. “What's the fun of cooking when you can't watch the person you're cooking for take the first bite?”
Joonmyun laughs slightly, conceding with a “I guess. Most of my guests just eat something small before setting out to find their anchor.”
At that sentence, Chanyeol frowns. “Well, I wouldn't want to find my anchor it it meant having to miss out on this sandwich.” He takes a bite, groaning at the delicious flavors that sit on his tongue and Joonmyun smiles. Chanyeol tries to smile back, but the sandwich in his teeth and that weird eye squint that he has makes Joonmyun put on a weird face.
Chanyeol bows his head, licking vigorously at his teeth. “Sorry. My eye does a weird thing when I smile.”
“No, it's okay. You should smile anyways,” Joonmyun replies.
They both eat in relative silence, broken by the occasional interruption by Sehun who asks if he can take a nap (the answer is no) and another guest who comes in to grab a banana sitting on the counter before walking out again.
Once the sandwiches are both devoured and the water gulped down, Chanyeol and Joonmyun head out, armed with a backpack, three water bottles, a bag of dried fruit, and Joonmyun's camera.
“Ready?” Joonmyun says at the back door, smiling. When Chanyeol nods his agreement, they both head out for the path.
Needless to say, it's almost sunset by the time they come back, and while Joonmyun is bright and just a little tired, Chanyeol staggers through the doors with his shirt almost soaked through and his hair plastered to his face.
“I got so many nice pictures,” Joonmyun says, smiling as he looks through the viewfinder. “And you got some nice work done outside! I didn't know you'd actually want to tend to the whole garden. I'm impressed.” Chanyeol wheezes painfully, puffing his shirt to blow air inside that does only a meager job at cooling him down. Walking through the door into air conditioned air never felt so heavenly, except for that one time he woke up in the middle of a desert city. Joonmyun gives him a worried glance. “Are you okay?”
Unable to speak, Chanyeol gives him a thumbs up, Joonmyun only glancing up to see before returning his view to the camera. “Look, Chanyeol. I took a picture of you falling into the bed of lilies.” He lifts the camera for Chanyeol to see, and is greeted by an unfortunate sight of Chanyeol halfway to the ground, face caught in an ugly expression as one leg is up in the air.
Chanyeol makes a face. “Golden shot, huh.” Joonmyun chuckles before sliding to the next picture, a macro shot of a bird that had landed on a low branch.
“Well, I'll give you the funds and you can keep them in your pocket for tomorrow, since I doubt you'd want to go outside right now. I'll give you a new set of clothes too, because you did just so much work out there. Really, I wasn't expecting you to pull out every weed in the garden, Chanyeol.” A lot of the travelers and visiting anchors that were walking through the path that day gave him pitiful looks. For some reason, he really wanted to please Joonmyun.
Chanyeol looks down at Joonmyun, who hasn't peeled his eyes away from his pictures despite the conversation. His eyelashes cast a soft shade on his cheeks against the setting sunlight, making his entire face look like it was bathed in yellow light. Chanyeol gulps, and thinks that it wouldn't be so bad if he could meet someone like this every time he woke up.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” Joonmyun asks as they head up to his room. “What is it like to be a traveler?”
Chanyeol gets this question a lot, from many people who ended up being anchors who dreamed of being able to explore the world. “Well, it's pretty exciting. I'm always somewhere new, though a couple of times I've woken up in really close places. I meet really cool people, people who I keep in touch with through my traveler's account. They always have crazy stories to tell. It's pretty nice to meet new people and see new things all the time, but I always wished I could have sat down and started a career, you know? Build real relationships, make a home instead of just waking up with my clothes every day. It'd be nice to see what I could make of my life.”
Joonmyun smiles a little, but it doesn't look as happy as the other ones Chanyeol's seen. Somehow, Chanyeol wants to make them happy again. He sighs. “I wish I could be a traveler. You know, just take off, no responsibility, no debts to pay, nothing to lose. I could just travel the entire world with my camera and just-just live. Until I find my anchor, at least.” He stares down at the screen of his digital camera. It's still on the picture of the bird. “I wish I could just fly away.”
It's lonely being a traveler, floating along until Chanyeol finds that one person, that one anchor that will tie him to one place, let him wake up in the same place every morning and build a life with his soulmate. People who give up hope, who are reaching their forties and request a termination from the government, who get stripped down and turned into normal people, can't do anything but find a satisfactory life with another person who's given up, or by chance an anchor. Too often though, anchors eventually find their traveler and leave, so it's almost futile. Chanyeol's biggest fear, the thing that keeps him up at night, is dying without finding his anchor.
Chanyeol smiles. “It's okay. When you meet your traveler, I bet all their stories will make you feel like you were right there with them.” Joonmyun stares at him weirdly, face caught in a strange expression before he coughs and looks away, making Chanyeol drop his gaze to the floor too.
“Dinner will be ready in two hours. Feel free to come down and eat with me-a-and Sehun will be there.” Joonmyun lifts his head for a quick, awkward smile before ducking his head again and calling for Sehun.
Chanyeol looks around, at a loss for something to do, before he looks down, pulling his shirt forward and sniffing before recoiling. Sneering at himself, he heads to the shower.
An intense scrubbing down and a new pair of sweats dropped off by Sehun later, Chanyeol is down with Joonmyun and setting the table while Sehun is flirting with one of the guests, Zitao, who grimaces and bids a hasty goodbye to retreat to his room.
“You know, Sehun, you could help out with dinner preparations too,” Joonmyun says while placing down cups for the three of them; the other guests have gone out to eat.
Sehun sighs. “Sorry, Joonmyun.” They all sit at the table, eating together as Chanyeol looks around awkwardly. Sehun sighs harder. The rest of dinner passes a bit easier, because when Chanyeol asks what Sehun does during the day he gets into the tale of a “totally hot traveler who had the ass of a Greek god” and how Sehun had followed him around all day until he realized that the man was, in fact, straight, and then spent the rest of the day flaunting himself around him to make him realize what he was unintentionally missing out on. Chanyeol and Joonmyun send each other amused looks and coughs every few seconds.
Eventually, dinner ends, and Chanyeol bids goodbye to Joonmyun and Sehun. He waves, Sehun grunting in acknowledgement (it was too much effort to lift his eyes away from his phone), and Joonmyun waves back, calling a “Good luck, Chanyeol! Hope you find your anchor tomorrow!”
Chanyeol falls asleep to visions of waking up next to a faceless anchor and dying alone in a grave where nobody buries him.
Morning comes, soft light streaming through a window broken by large leaves, to the smell of thick syrup and the sizzle of hot oil. Chanyeol sighs, and turns over, glancing out the window at the forestry.
And then it sets in.
Chanyeol's heart pumping, he runs down, mussed hair on his head and drool on the corner of his mouth. His feet can't drag him far enough it seems, and it feels like his limbs are light enough to lift him clear into the sky.
Joonmyun is downstairs, making pancakes for two, as Sehun sits with his feet propped up in another chair, slurping loudly on a sucker. At the sight of Chanyeol, in his incredibly disheveled state, Sehun's jaw drops, the sucker almost falling out of his mouth as it hands precariously on his teeth.
“Joonmyun.”
At the mention of his name, the man whirls around, shock on his face and a flush on his cheeks. Chanyeol smiles, one of his eyes quirking and the hair sticking up flopping to the side. “Tell me about your life.”
Final author's note:im really sorry if this isn't what you wanted...it's also not as long as i intended it to be but i still hope you enjoyed it!