the moose

[sharkemoji]

 It’s nice to wake without an alarm.

The warm feeling of the morning sun through his blinds wakes Chenle up slowly. It creeps up his cheeks and over his eyes until they open directly into the light. The brightness should be startling but it is comforting to wake up with the dawn after so many years of being awake so long before the sun even thought about rising. The sunlight beams directly into his eyes. It’s a nice way to wake up.

His morning starts the same way every day: a cup of black coffee and exactly three cigarettes out on his balcony. The sound of the flint hitting the steal is familiar now. Dancing in front of him, the flame is a taunt and a jab and Chenle wants to touch it directly to his tongue just to taste it. He doesn't. He holds it up to the end of his cigarette and lights that instead. Sets a different part of his body aflame.

His mother calls halfway through his second cigarette. She doesn’t ask if he’s smoking, even if she wants to. They understand each other like that. He doesn’t ask about the things she hides in plain sight either. It’s a mutual relationship. Their conversation is as simple as it always is. She tells him he’s getting old, he sighs and knocks the ashes into his precariously balanced ashtray. She asks if he is ever going to settle down, he asks when she’s going to visit him again. He asks about the house, she asks when he’s going to realize he’s too old for a bachelor pad. They speak around each other. This is how Chenle has conversations with his mother.

He’s surprised when she breaks character and asks after Kun, asking if he still comes around. He’s even more surprised by his own answer. They had never spoken about it while it was happening. His mother preferred not asking about things she wanted a genuine answer to. Something about mid-November must have changed her mind, or maybe she was just getting in her one real question of the year. He says no. He isn’t lying.

They carry on with their questions and their small talk until Chenle is finished with his second cigarette and he knows she is finished with her first. Their goodbyes are usually brief, to the point. His mother sighs, once, heavily. He almost asks her what’s wrong but decides to wait. 

“I wish you had moved back to Shanghai,” she answers on her own. When they finally hang up it is just Chenle and the silence. 

He lights his third cigarette.

Chenle likes the routine of his days. He walks Daegal every day after his quasi breakfast and she tugs on her leash down blocks and blocks and blocks. She’s getting older now, not as quick to run straight out the door, but she still yips at his ankles like she did when she was a baby. It’s just another reminder of the years between who Chenle was then and who he is now. If he lingers on it too long his joints ache and he hates his rheumatologist. Chenle doesn’t linger. He lets her drag him down the city blocks until she gets tired and then he picks her up and carries her home. 

Lunch time sneaks up on him as it always does. His stomach grumbles half way through their slow walk back to his apartment and he stops by his favorite place to get lunch. He never gets the same thing. It is a nice part of his routine. Daegal gets a bone when they get home and Chenle turns on his tv and pretends everything is okay. 

This is how he goes about most of his days. He shuffles around his apartment all afternoon until it is too much work to pretend to have something to occupy him. His hands twitch for something to do. He stares at his piano like it can answer him, just stares, until his eyes hurt and he has to blink. Then, he finally gives in and crashes out on his couch. 

Kun calls in the late afternoon, which is surprising, but not entirely unfamiliar. The conversation is not as stilted as it was a few months ago. Nothing will bring them back to normal — not that things ever really were normal between them — but Chenle has learned to be alright with that. He promises dinner later in the week and Chenle knows it is a hollow one when he double checks and Kun has called from his international number. 

Chenle stares at the ceiling when the call finally ends. He’s tired, all the way down in his bones, he’s exhausted. He smokes now. He's let his career fall to the wayside, more than happy to slip off into obscurity while the other members take the DREAM dissolvement as their chance to make their big break. He already had a solo career. He doesn't need a new one. 

It’s been years since he used to get calls right at midnight, or even better, birthdays filled with soju shots at midnight because all of his friends were together. It’s been years since Chenle has expected that. 

His life is simple now, he follows his day to day routine and he enjoys his peace and it’s fine, it’s all fine. 

He lays there long enough that day slips into night and by the time he realizes he is still alive, it is well past dinner time. He orders in, and sits in the dark as he waits for it to arrive. He has a basketball game recorded to watch. He sits in the dark with his food and his dog and his basketball and lets the day end. 

Chenle’s 30th birthday passes quietly.