You Crossed A Bridge I Can't Follow | COMPLETED

~

Five years. Five years it's been, but still Chan finds it hard to grasp the idea that Minho is no longer around. That Minho's never going to run to him and kiss him ever again. He misses him. Terribly. "Missing you again as usual, my love." Chan says, placing down the bouquet he always gets for Minho. For a moment, he just stands there, looking down sadly at the tombstone. "How are you up there? Is it nice? Are they treating you well?" He knows the plaque isn't going to answer him, but he asks away regardless. "It's been exactly five years without you, Min. I miss you." He says, trying his best to bite back the tears forming in his eyes. He can't cry. Not now. Not anymore.

To distract himself, Chan brings out his phone and looks through his photo album containing all of his pictures with his late love. He knows it won't help much either because he's looking at things related to Minho, but he just wants to see his love smile. He just wants to remember Minho's face, even though he knows it's a face he could never forget even when there are no more pictures to preserve the memory.

An idea pops up in his head when he reaches the very last photo in the album, the very last photo he had ever taken of Minho before he was gone for good. Chan gets up, dusting himself off and quietly saying goodbye to Minho. "I'll be back soon, my love. I promise." He says, and walks off to the parking lot.

Once the engine is on and the built-in touchscreen flickers awake, Chan goes to the GPS feature. He opens the Favorites folder, scrolling through all of the addresses saved. He clicks the second one before stepping on the gas pedal. The drive to the place is quiet; Chan has chosen to keep the radio off, preferring the sounds of his surroundings over music he'd rather not hear in fear of being reminded of Minho yet again. The digital clock reads 8:19 am when he takes a glance at it. "It's still early," he mumbles. "They're probably still serving breakfast."

He arrives at the restaurant no less than twenty minutes later, and sure enough, they are still serving breakfast. "Good morning, sir!" The waitress who opens the door for him greets cheerily despite it still being quite early. "Table for how many?" She asks. Chan notes that they probably had a change of servers; usually he'd recognize all of the waitstaff whenever he was there with Minho, but now the faces are all unfamiliar.

And Chan almost says, 'Table for two, please.' on instinct, having been so used to coming here with Minho that he never had to imagine coming alone. But he catches himself. You're alone now, Chan. You have to get used to it. "Just one, thank you." He replies.

He's led to one of the tables somewhere near the garden the restaurant has out back, and he thanks the waitress with a nod when she hands him the menu. He doesn't even need to scan the menu for his eyes to land on a certain meal. He's come here so often that the spot Minho's order was printed on was engraved in his brain.

Chan has always preferred pancakes over waffles, but after Minho practically dragged him to this place because "their chocolate marble waffles are fucking amazing", Chan found himself craving waffles more.

The waitress from earlier approaches him, notepad out with a pen. "Ready to order, sir?" She asks with a polite smile. He nods, "Uh, yeah, I'll have the chocolate marble waffles." He says. The waitress nods and writes it down. "Anything else?"

"No, that's all, thank you."

The waitress then walks off into the kitchen, and Chan is left to wait for some time. He counts the minutes that pass, and once he's nearing the eighteenth minute, a waiter comes out of the kitchen with his order. Eighteen minutes. It always took eighteen minutes. But Minho would always complain about how it was eighteen minutes too long, and each time Chan would laugh and kiss him to distract him from waiting impatiently.

"Here's your order, sir. Chocolate marble waffles. Enjoy!" He says, placing the plate down onto the table. Chan looks up at him with a slight smile and is about to give him a 'thank you', but then his breath gets caught in his throat. "Chan?" It seems the waiter is thinking the exact same thing. Forget what he said about all the faces being unfamiliar, because this one is a face he's well acquainted with. "Felix, hey. I didn't know you still worked here." He says, smiling sheepishly. "Yeah, well," Felix shrugs. "Pay is surprisingly good, might as well just stay."