Can a Boy and a Girl be Just Friends?

Chapter One: Freedom

Chanyeol watched with unhidden glee as his father pulled out of their driveway, carefully maneuvering the vehicle around the hedge that acted as their front fence.

As the vehicle peeled out of sight, he pumped his fist and yelled in triumph, the house was his for the next three days and he could do what he wanted, when he wanted and how he wanted to do it.

Adults, he mused, were sometimes way too serious and needed to lighten the hell up.

Although, his father was usually a pretty cool guy - most times he let him do whatever he wanted - but it's different when no one else is around and you can be yourself in your own company.

It was only him and his father now, living in a modest two story house in one of the quieter suburbs, and yes, one of the richer and more prosperous ones.

Four years ago (he had been sixteen at the time) his mother had been involved in an auto wreck that had killed her instantly. It was the usual story, some drunken guy had decided to drive home and had proceeded to run that inevitable red light. The unfortunate side (is there ever a fortunate side?) was that the light he happened to run had coincided with the green one that his mother had been passing through. And the rest is history.

He had moved on, well, as much as any person can after the death of a loved one. He had accepted it and it hadn't been easy.

He looked down at his watch and smiled. It was just past 11am, all of his friends were in school, labouring over boring notes they had to copy from the board, writing essays and compositions. He'd managed to wrangle the day off from his father, using the excuse that he had wanted to be there to see him off. That was a half-truth, because he'd wanted to see with his own two eyes that his father was indeed leaving and would not, at the last minute, change his mind.

He was taking a small vacation for the weekend. Since his mother's death, his father had taken on full responsibility of him and he'd rarely had a chance to have some time for himself. So Chanyeol had urged, hankered and ultimately pestered him into taking a short sabbatical into the city, rent a luxurious hotel room for the duration of his stay and live like a king.

He walked back into the house and proceeded to go down into the basement, which was his room. It was nice and cool down there, a stark contrast to the humidity and punishing heat outside.

His room was amazing. The space he had to work with was staggering, the room was simply huge. He had a beautiful 76in widescreen television, surround sound with all the trimmings and two bookshelves filled with DVDs and the wall next to his bed was covered by a huge mirror for when he wanted to practice his dancing.

He also had a queen sized bed that was positioned perfectly in front of his television. Unfortunately, he hadn't had the opportunity to share his bed with anyone of the opposite sex yet, he was keeping his fingers crossed but it seemed that there were really no girls around worth going for, except, well, one, but he wasn't going to go there, there was simply too much at stake.

He went over to the bookshelves that housed his DVD collection. Carefully looking at each one, starting from the top-down, he finally chose something he was in the mood for, slid it onto the tray of his player and turned on his television and audio equipment.

Grabbing his remote and whirling away, he took a running jump and proceeded to dive onto his bed. While in mid-flight, as he was about to press the play button, the doorbell rang with its incredibly dull 'ding-dong' sound.

'Shit!' he exclaimed as he hit the bed.

He hated being interrupted while watching a movie; nothing got on his nerves more. Okay, technically he hadn't started watching it yet, but it was still annoying to halt all anticipation for the feature and go open the door.

Sighing, he put the remote down and went and answered the door.
It wasn't who he'd expected.

Standing on their 'home sweet home' doormat was his best friend, his confidant and childhood pal. They'd been through all the highs and lows of adolescence together and had come out on the other side so close that they were almost brother and sister.