Chanbaek

ChanBaek is the slash ship between Park Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun from the EXO fandom.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun in Return of Superman
In the 79th episode of the famous variety show The Return of Superman, which aired on June 14, 2015, Baekhyun and Chanyeol arrived as guests to visit the twins Seo-jun and Seo-eon. It all started because the twins’ father saw on SNS (social media) that Chanyeol wanted to come visit the twins. Chanyeol and Baekhyun played together with the twins, went to the market with them, and even fed them their meals. Chanyeol posted a photo on his personal Instagram account to reminisce about the moments.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun in NEW YORK
In 2017, EXO released a mini-series, EXO Tourgram, through special broadcasting channel VLive+. The series was filmed during their journey to North America for their third world concert tour, EXO Planet 3 – The Exo’rdium.

In episodes 5 and 6, Chanyeol together with Baekhyun went on an improvisational trip through the city of New York. Their first destination was to Times Square.

While walking to their destination, Baekhyun talked about their habit while traveling together. Usually, Chanyeol is the one who takes care of everything, especially when they are traveling abroad. Being a person who stays at home a lot (usually called ‘homebody’), Baekhyun barely has any sense of direction, thus relying on Chanyeol a lot on their trips. Chanyeol then added that if Baekhyun just follows him and his direction, everything will be fine.

Other than this they have quite a lot of moments and fans love shipping the two together.

Baekhyun's standee
For Baekhyun’s 25th birthday (26 Korean age) on May 6, 2017, Chanyeol uploaded a short clip on his Instagram account where he was jokingly saying his birthday wish to a Baekhyun standee laying on his bed.

Little did we know, Chanyeol was seen stealing the same standee in November, 2016, from a Nature Republic road shop. He was caught by a fan and through CCTV. At the time, fans were wondering why he did that, until the next year when he used it to wish Baekhyun on his birthday.

Chanyeol's Instagram live
On February 3, 2019, Chanyeol did an Instagram live from his personal studio room. He called several members to join him through the live, including Suho, who appeared shortly because he was in the middle of a practice, and some other members who unfortunately did not pick up the call. Lastly, he called Baekhyun, who picked up the video call from his home in Bucheon.

Chanyeol started the call by saying “do not curse” several times while the volume of the call was lowered. It was probably due to the fact that they are really close friends who usually talk comfortably, and apparently occasionally curse, to each other. Chanyeol then asked Baekhyun to give his (Lunar) New Year greeting through his live. Baekhyun said, “''Our EXO-Ls, happy new year! Actually I’m now with my Bucheon friends! Since it’s the new year, happy new year [receive lots of blessings in the new year]! It’d be great if everyone can be happy!''”

Meanwhile, in July, 2017, at the backstage of the final concert of EXO’s fourth tour, The ElyXiOn Dot Day 2, Chanyeol was seen taking a picture together with Baekhyun’s Bucheon friends. This shows how close he is with Baekhyun, that he also knows his friends very well.

Fanon
The who fan base in EXO, love shipping the two together quite often, to be honest it is the most shipped in Exo, and third or second placed in KPOP ships.

In the fandom, one of the most common elements of the culture is ‘shipping’, a term used when fans pair up two members (either from the same group or from different groups) because they look cute or good together. Shipping, initially derived from the word relationship, is the desire by fans for two or more people, either real-life people or fictional characters to be in a romantic relationship. It is considered a general term for fans’ emotional involvement with the ongoing development of a relationship.

Lately, the degree of the shipping itself has varied between fans. For boy-group members or ships between guys, some fans ship them for their bromance (brotherly romance), a close, but non-sexual relationship between two or more men. Some fans ship them just for their friendship because they really like good, close friends. But the majority of the shippers (fans who ship members together) ship members as lovers or to be in a romantic relationship.

The beginning of the ChanBaek ship actually started just a little after their debut days. The two of them seem to be the closest to each other and always joined at the hip, so fans started shipping them because they thought they look cute together.

What further fuels this is the fact that they’ve never hesitated to show skinship (expression of feeling by physical intimacy) with each other.

Later on, the number of shippers grew because fans claimed that they can see something different, like a different glint, in the way Chanyeol and Baekhyun look at each other. This makes the shippers feel as if there is actually something between the two of them, something more than just friendship.

Not to mention that they are the same age and they have a very similar sense of humor, no wonder that they click very well with each other through their jokes and conversations.

Even Koreaboo wrote an article once, titled ’10 Photos That Prove Chanyeol Baekhyun Could Be Secretly In Love’, containing a list of photos showing how sweet Chanyeol and Baekhyun can be to each other, because that’s just how much they care about each other (or also that’s how famous they are among all ships in K-pop).

As more and more people started shipping the pair ChanBaek, more social media accounts are created for the shipping purposes. A Twitter account dedicated for ChanBaek, @CHANBAEKUNION,  has already gained more than 60,000 followers. There are also a lot of fansite masters who are dedicated to just capturing pictures and moments of ChanBaek, such as @puppystore_1992 and @CandyBlossom92.

Along with the growth of the number of people shipping ChanBaek, the content created for shipping purposes also grew. Fans no longer depend on official photos or moments to ship them, but they create their own content, such as fanfiction, fanart, and fanvideos. Fanfiction is basically stories or fictions created by fans with their favorite characters or idols as the characters of the story, while fanart and fanvideos are basically art and videos inspired by their idols.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

Trivia

 * Baekhyun mentioned that the closest member to him is Chanyeol and he thinks he's tall and handsome.
 * Chanyeol states that Baekhyun makes moaning noises like a puppy before he sleeps and he has even imitated them
 * Chanyeol has stated that he likes people who resemble puppy features and so does Baekhyun.
 * Chanyeol was the only member along with Suho who came to support Baekhyun during his solo stage shoots like CANDY, although Suho left quite early, Chanyeol stayed for a long while and helped Baekhyun, he even stated that he liked giving Baekhyun surprises and the cameramen edited into that part that Chanyeol is quite the romanticist.
 * Baekhyun said that he was sensitive about his shoulder blades because they protruded when he does a specific position but Chanyeol said that that feature only makes Baekhyun look like an angel and Chanyeol was the one who wrote the song heaven which states the exact same thing saying 'You are one with invisible wings, just like an angel'.