Words (TaoXChanyeolXreader fanfic)

Chapter 2: Summer camp

He was sitting in a campus cafe grading papers for the class he was a teaching asistant for when a group of girls sat down across the long table from him. Three of them talking over and into each other in that way that only close friends had, in that way that Chanyeol didn't really have with anyone. He was in his first year of grad school and it was a new city and he was friendless again but he was used to that. He would meet someone.

The brunette wearing the white wool sweater leaned across the table to shift his book and read the spine. It was for an English lit class. He was a linguistics major with aims at working in translation but this was the TA position that had come through. He struggled with it but it was a first year class and he was finding that he wasn't terrible at teaching even if he was terrible at poetry.

"Don't pull other people into this, Victoria," one of her friends said.

"You aren't a poet are you?" she asked.

And the world dropped out around him like it had ten years ago when he'd been just a little boy at a summer camp. He pulled himself back together but couldn't think of an answer that made sense. All that would come was the boy on the dock and that night they'd climbed up onto the roof of the dining hall and Sehun had quoted poetry at him. So that was what came out.

"Pulvis et umbra sumus," he said.

She laughed, not like the world had dropped out around her as well but like it was funny. Like he had told an unusual joke. She studied him for a moment and then said, "Classics?"

"Linguistics actually, I'm TA for a first year lit course," he said.

"Ah, that's close enough, explain to her that Romantic with a capital R is not the same thing as romantic," she said.

"Romanticism was a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual," Chanyeol pulled out of memory.

"See, spooky moors are Romantic even if they aren't romantic," she said and then she pulled back from him and dropped herself back into the flow of the conversation with her friends.

As though nothing had happened.

And Chanyeol 's heart felt like it was made out of glass. He tried to look back at his papers but the words had lost their meaning. She was right there. She was beautiful, a little younger than he was, probably an upper year undergrad. Gray eyes, brown hair, a fleeting smile that broke through her otherwise serious expressions. A bag of books, a cup of tea. A necklace on a long chain though the pendant was inside her shirt where he couldn't see it. He grabbed details as he glanced up but didn't let himself stare. She couldn't be more than twenty one but after a little bit of real staring at her hands wrapped around the china mug he couldn't doubt that was what it was. A gold band and a ring with an sapphire set in it.

A wedding ring.

His glass heart did shatter. Because that's why she hadn't said anything. She hadn't waited to meet him. She had made a choice and chosen someone else before they'd ever had a chance to be in the same room. One of the friends left and when the other went to bathroom, he leaned across the table. He had almost composed himself by then.

"I respect your decision. I won't bother you. I just wanted to know your name," he said.

She looked up at him. Looked at him directly like she had only just noticed what she had said, what he had said, what it meant. Her eyes were wide and confused. A corner of his imagination was churning, running away without him, imagining the way this would become their story. They would tell people about how she was the only person in the world who didn't recognize her words when she heard them. Except that wasn't the story that they were ever going to tell because there wasn't no such thing as "they". He hadn't realized how much of his lonely childhood had been spent waiting for her until he found himself staring at her.

"You said," she started and then her voice faltered.

"Pulvis et umbra sumus," he said with a smile, "It means-"

She cut him off, "We are dust and shadows, I know."

"It doesn't have to goany farther than that," he looked down pointedly at her hand. She held itup and looked at the ring like it was something foreign. She was still at aloss for words and for the first time in his life, Chanyeol ran away. He gaveher what he hoped was a kind smile, not a sad one, and then he gathered up hispiles without any thought to his careful organization and he walked away. Hethrew himself into the crowd in the student center so she wouldn't be able tofollow him even if she wanted to.