10080 | chanbaek

열여섯

Sometimes Baekhyun thought about moving on, but his heart wouldn't let him. He still loved his giant despite the fact that every night he went home to "their" quiet estate only to lie in a bed with a cold side unoccupied at the end. He missed the nights when they'd stay up just whispering to each other. He missed the board games, the trees, and the movies. The only thing that would sometimes get him through the day were the photographs from their wedding day.

Chanyeol was obligated to go to his company's annual Christmas party for appearances sake and had to reject Baekhyun's offer to come back home for the holidays. Like always, Baekhyun said he understood and hung up soon after. The lack of argument and Baekhyun's peaceful conceding bothered Chanyeol. He thought that maybe if Baekhyun had fought for his time a little harder, he would have said yes. But then he reminded himself that he couldn't have said yes. He was busy.

With a relationship dry and cold like the weather, Chanyeol moved on. With a drink in hand and a smile on his face, he lifted his eyes. It was there at that annual Christmas party that he met Kyungsoo.

During one of the hardest times in Chanyeol's finals week, Baekhyun sweet talked Chanyeol's roommate, Kris, into letting him into their room early one morning the day of Chanyeol's exams. He placed three pieces of Chanyeol's favorite candy near his textbooks before tiptoeing over to Chanyeol and gently putting a sticky note on his head. With a smile on his face, Baekhyun quietly laughed before backtracking and quietly leaving the room.

When Chanyeol woke up thirty minutes later from his alarm clock, the first thing he noticed was the paper stuck on his forehead preventing him from rubbing his eyes. Taking it off, he squinted his eyes and took a closer look at the letters. As his eyes focused, he noticed that the written items weren't letters, but rather, zeros and ones.

"01000111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100101 01111000 01100001 01101101 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100111 01101001 01100001 01101110 01110100 00100001"

Chanyeol's eyes dragged down and looked at the bottom part of the message.

"01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100001."

Despite having just woken up, Chanyeol took the time to decode the note. As he walked to his class that morning, he quickly and efficiently copied the numbers onto his cellphone. Using a translator, he read what Baekhyun had written for him.

"Good luck on your exams, giant!"

Lastly, Chanyeol translated the shorter message at the bottom.

"I love you!"