room 127 ✿ park chanyeol

SEVEN

I pray that you'll be happy like you were at the beginning.

The very thing that [Name] and I had both equally wanted, and that we had both equally hoped for, was the very thing that drove us apart. With my acceptance into SM came a whole lot of training, and not a lot of time to dawdle and catch up with friends. The other trainees were likeable- I mean, they were friendly, at the most- but none of them were [Name]. And replacing her? Not an easy thing to do.

During my first year of training, I only saw [Name] once, and that itself didn't even last long.

"How are you?" I remember asking her, only able to hang around for a small period of time. [Name], dressed in her thick winter coat and scarlet scarf wrapped around her neck, merely smiled at me as we stood outside of the studio in the bitter winter cold.

"Dying without you," she chuckled, making me snort and ruffle the top of her head.

"It's nice to know you love me so much," I winked, crossing my arms as I jogged on the spot to keep warm, dressed only in a t-shirt and jeans as I had been dancing earlier. "How's school?"

She only shrugged.

"It's been eh," she said monotonously. I quickly glanced at my watch, and saw that I only had a few minutes to get back to the training room. I'd dashed out during our break to meet [Name] in front of the building, where she'd travelled about thirty minutes by bus just to see me again.

"I'm glad you've been holding up well," I said, quickly looking back. "I'm sorry that you had to come all this way out here to see me, but I have to get back, and- well, you know..."

[Name] merely smiled and nodded in understanding. Something tugged at my heart, and I felt nothing but guilt envelop me as I realised that [Name] had gone to so much trouble to only briefly see me.

"I know, Chanyeol. It's fine. As long as you're practicing hard, then I don't care how long it is until I see you, okay? Actually, I don't want to see you until you're up there, on stage, rapping and singing and dancing your heart out for thousands of people. Do you understand?"

I smiled confusedly at [Name], not knowing what she was talking about. She couldn't have been serious, right?

Instead, she merely reached up and wrapped her arms around my neck, standing on her tiptoes as she planted a small kiss on my cheek. I immediately felt heat rushing up to my face, and couldn't do much except hug the frail girl back.

"Train hard, Chanyeol. I want to see you on that stage in future, and I want to see you famous. I don't care about not being able to talk to you or see you if it means that you will become someone great. Just know that whatever happens, you know where to find me. When you're famous, give me a call. But for now, train hard, Chanyeol. Train hard, give it your all, and I'll see you on the other side."

With that, [Name] let go of me and held up her pinky to my face, grinning like a little kid.

"Promise me?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows at me. I laughed and interlocked my pinky with hers, gently swinging them from side to side.

"I promise you."

With one final, tight hug, [Name] and I said our goodbyes. She headed back to the bus stop, and I ran back to the dance studio.

She messaged me later that night at the dorms. I messaged her back.

Pretty soon, the only contact I ever had with [Name] was through messaging, yet as the years went by and my schedule grew ever busier with my debut with EXO and all, even our messaging became scarce.

Soon, it came to the point where we only messaged each other on our birthdays and special occasions. Apart from that, [Name] and I ultimately became... strangers.

That was something I've begun to regret, with all my heart.

I didn't know why she distanced herself from me. Back then, I thought that the cause of our run down relationship was me, and my training, and my being too busy to have time to maintain regular contact with [Name]. But now, in hindsight, I've realised something. I wasn't the only one who grew too busy to talk; as a matter of fact, [Name] had cut me out of her life just as much as I had cut her from mine.

Slowly, but all at once, she had stealthily distanced herself from me.

And I finally understand why.