The Names I Call Chanyeol || Chanbaek

Ginko

Song to listen to when reading this chapter: Finding Home by Mindy Gledhill

Becoming friends with Chanyeol again was weird. They both already knew each other, but there was so much that changed. It was awkward, to say the least.

First, Baekhyun invited Chanyeol to eat with him and his friends for snack-time and lunch. Sooyoung and Sehun were quick to accept him, but Kyungsoo was even more awkward around him than he had been around anyone else. Baekhyun found it strange, it was almost as if Kyungsoo was allergic to Chanyeol with the way he kept avoiding him.

Then, for recesses, Kyungsoo eventually warmed up to him because Baekhyun always put in an effort to put them on the same team whenever they played grounders on the playground. It turned out that the more frustrated Kyungsoo was with someone, the more comfortable he was with them. The amount of times Chanyeol let out a giggle and revealed their hiding spots were countless and Kyungsoo began getting annoyed.

After being angry for a while, he eventually let into Chanyeol's friendly nature and they became friends.

Baekhyun's other classmates, meanwhile, didn't warm up so fast. Because Baekhyun was only close friends with three of them, the rest were hard to persuade.

Baekhyun made sure that his other classmates would treat Chanyeol fairly, and although he was sure they were beginning to get annoyed with him constantly reminding them, he didn't really care.

Baekhyun felt bad that he had shut Chanyeol out of his life after having not seen him for a little more than a year so he felt that he owed it to him to bug the life out of anyone who would treat him with anything but kindness. Either way, it made him happy to see everyone getting along so well.

With Chanyeol back, he thought he would be happier than before. Baekhyun's one goal had always been to not be alone, and even though he had been surrounded with his classmates, there was still always a part of him that felt lonely.

He had friends, but he didn't feel comfortable around them and it was hard to just fool around as he wished. While they laughed at his jokes, there was no one to talk to when he felt his mom was being too harsh or when he felt the teacher was picking favourites again.

Chanyeol and Jongdae had been those people for him even though he hadn't had that many problems as a kid. Now that he was actually going out and learning about people, he wished he had someone to talk to but it had been a while since he had talked to any of them and it was awkward trying to get in touch again.

When Baekhyun and Chanyeol patched things up, he had hoped they would be able to talk without having to worry about not doing anything. In the end, while they were both happy that their friendship was restored, Chanyeol wasn't the carefree child he used to be and it was hard for Baekhyun to bridge the gap that had grown between them.

They spent days together as friends who had a past; Baekhyun attempting to bring things back to how they were and Chanyeol wondering what changed in Baekhyun that made him so hard to approach.

In the mornings, the first people they greeted were each other and at the end of the day, they would walk home together. Their friends began asking why they had become so close and all Baekhyun could answer with was: "We're friends."

But he wasn't even sure if that was the truth because shouldn't friends be easy to be around? Why did Baekhyun always have to worry if he was saying the right or wrong things when Chanyeol was next to him?

Baekhyun wanted to know what changed between them so he could fix it, but days kept moving along, and by the time winter was approaching, he hadn't made any progress.