Double Ending Update Part 2! Read Chapter 48 first if you haven't yet! ✪ ω ✪

Hell was a lot more pleasant than Baekhyun thought it would be.

For one, there was not nearly as much fire and screaming as he thought there would be, and two, the air didn’t smell like smoke or blood at all. It just smelled a little dusty.

Then again, they weren’t in the area where ‘all the screaming happened.’ They were in Chen’s house in hell. Baekhyun (or any full human for that matter) wasn’t supposed to be there, but he had to see Minseok even if it meant making Chanyeol make Chen open a portal and smuggling them in. Apparently, humans couldn’t be in hell long because they would lose their minds to the dark—temptation and madness and whatnot. So Baekhyun noted that he would have to be quick.

But then he saw Minseok alive and breathing, and he launched himself at his old friend, shedding frustrated shouts at his crazy- luck—or maybe it was misfortune—and a few tears of relief. After wiping them away, he needed the full story from Minseok and ended up climbing into the futon with him to talk. Chen glared at him, Baekhyun stuck his tongue out in response, and a fight didn’t occur only because Minseok waved Chen over and gave him a surprise smooch on the cheek and told him to go talk to Chanyeol.

“What is this PDA I’m seeing?” he had to ask after Chen walked out of the room with a little hop in his step.

“What? You know that we’ve been partners-slash-prey for a while now.”

“Yeah, but you’ve never been that lovey-dovey in front of people. The most you would do is, like, shamelessly stare at your partner with hearts in your eyes.”

“Hey!”

“And maybe hold their hand.”

Minseok smacked him in the arm, and Baekhyun feigned pain before sitting back up, going dead serious.

“Okay, so you still haven’t explained to me the ing hair. What happened?! Do they have hair dye or salons in hell too?”

“Uh, I don’t think they do. And Chen told me that any hair dye will fall off an angelic’s hair when they use a decent amount of aura, so it’s not worth it.”

“Okay, but this—” he swiped his hand through the blue-white, almost shining, strands. “—is not hair dye. I can tell.”

“Of course, you could.” Minseok sighed. “Well, I had a dream that Hell visited me and told me that it thought that I was interesting, so as insurance that I would live, it gave me extra power. Like, a LOT of power. Apparently, the hair color change is an indication of that, since all angelics are born with natural hair colors.”

“So you went from once-in-a-blue-moon-I’m-becoming-a-demon to once-in-a-blue-moon-I’m-a-ing-powerful-demon?”

“Pretty much. Oh, but I’m not the first. Chen’s commander, Suho, is the first. I guess Mr. Satan counts too. His hair is still black, but, you know, he’s Satan.”

Baekhyun nodded, then marveled at the fact that he just nodded nonchalantly to a statement that included Satan as a very powerful and real being. Some of the supernatural marvel hadn’t worn out yet.

“That’s cool, I think. I still don’t get everything. I saw your hair and thought that you were going back to our university days.”

Minseok opened his mouth to reply but stopped and looked to the door’s hallway, which was a short corridor before actually opening to the cave-like room. He flicked his hand, and Baekhyun jumped into the mattress as a burst of cold flew out the room.

“Ow!”

“Don’t eavesdrop, Chen!”

“What the ?” Baekhyun mumbled, sitting back up. “How’d you know that he was there?”

“I can sense him. He zoomed over as soon as he heard you mention university.”

“Is this part of the extra power thing?”

“I would’ve had this skill if I finished my proxy process normally. It’s a lot stronger than before though. I also haven’t figured out how to stop randomly seeing people’s auras and souls yet, so I just sense people’s presences at random too.”

“You mean, you can literally see into my soul?”

“Not into, just seeing it.”

As if on cue, their gazes locked, and Baekhyun found himself unable to look away. He felt drawn, obligated even, to stare into the brown of his friend’s eyes and lay bare everything he was. Then Minseok blinked, and Baekhyun shook out of his trance.

“Sorry,” Minseok said.

“I’m assuming that that was it. What’d you see?”

“It’s kinda hard to describe. There was a bundle of… this amorphous grayness above a pillar of earth. It’s misty all around, and there were a bunch of rope bridges that stem out from the platform, and there’s one that points to a light.”

Baekhyun gave him a bewildered look.

“It’s weird for everyone. When I look at Chen’s, I see the soft parts of his lightning surrounding this dark fwooshy fwoosh thing shaped like a cat.”

Baekhyun gave him a deadpan look.

“Chanyeol’s looks like his body is a house, but the inside is completely lit, and then there’s a giant fire in the middle but in a swirly shape.”

“Okay, at least that one makes a little more sense.”

“You’re just saying so for Chanyeol because you like the idea of it.”

It was Baekhyun’s turn to smack Minseok in the shoulder, though he turned away in embarrassment too.

“How’s it been for you two, by the way? Chen told me that Chanyeol was guarding you to make sure Hayong didn’t come after you.”

“It was fine. Great, actually, except for the whole, ‘demon was after my best friend’ thing.”

The smile was creeping up his face, and he couldn’t hide it from his voice even though he hid his face from Minseok. His friend pounced on him and snickered.

“Details, Hyunnie. Spill.”

“Okay, okay. I mean, there’s not that much to report. We just… He picked me up from work every day because demon-wants-my-soul, and then we just chilled at my flat.”

“But you like this chilling. Tell me more.”

“Minnie, there’s not that much to tell.”

“Lies. I can smell it on you. Oh, gosh, I know what a lie smells like now.”

“You’re becoming more cat-like than I could’ve ever imagined when I joked about it in university.”

“Well, I can apparently transform into a snow leopard from Chen’s guess. But back to you—have you confessed?”

Baekhyun froze and sidled his gaze away. He really did enjoy Chanyeol’s company, and the more time he spent with him, the deeper his heart thought of the angel, wondered something about his likes and would commit the answer to memory, wanted the angel close. But there was a problem that hovered at Baekhyun’s shoulder at every touch, every smile, every conversation.

He would die, and Chanyeol wouldn’t.

He knew about the whole soul afterlife and going into heaven or hell procedure, which was fine, but did that mean he wouldn’t ever be able to leave the areas demarcated for souls? He could never call Chanyeol and grouch about his day or sneak up on the angel and pull his giant ears or give him a back hug. He’d have to float endlessly without a purpose or even a job, and he wouldn’t be able to initiate contact with the one he really loved.

More than anything else, that was making him hesitate in committing.

It was stupid—he knew—but its hold over him was tight and unbudging with his current unstable plan. He looked over at Minseok and found his friend staring into the blanket that covered their legs, but then he looked up at him and tilted his head. Baekhyun had to chuckle at the fact that Minseok’s patience hadn’t changed.

“I’m too afraid to,” Baekhyun whispered.

“How come?”

“Because I’ll die, and angels won’t.”

Minseok nodded, crossing his arms and gazing into their blanketed legs again.

“Chen’s asked me about this—what we would’ve done if we met under different circumstances and still… became partners-slash-prey. I didn’t really know how to answer him, so I first dodged by asking where he got the hypothetical. Then he said that that was your and Chanyeol’s situation.”

“If you want to dodge me asking this time, that’s okay. It’s not an easy question.”

“No, I did answer him. I answered that I would’ve looked for a way to live alongside him. Not to my ego or because I’m afraid of dying—we both know that I was basically waiting for it before all this happened—but because I’m selfish and I can’t let go of someone I love.”

He smiled a little.

“Chen said that true neutral souls have a little bit of virtue and sin while also believing in both more strongly, so Baekhyun, what do you believe?”

Baekhyun blinked dumbly at his friend. Minseok had always been pretty wise if also a little vague in his words, but for good reason. But the Minseok now looked at him as if he could already tell what answer Baekhyun would say.

Because yeah, he had a plan. He just had zero confidence in it, and Minseok seemed to have locked onto that.

“I believe that I’m a true neutral soul too, and there are certain things I can’t let go of either. But what if… Yeol doesn’t feel the same way, or his feelings change? Or worse, my feelings change and I break a promise to him?”

“It’s weird, huh? To have to consider eternity and forever now.”

“Yeah…”

“Remember what I said to Chen during that counseling session when he and Chanyeol burnt your furniture?”

Baekhyun filed back through his memories, but it had been several wild weeks, almost a month, since that session. He shook his head, and Minseok chuckled.

“I told him that I would rather coincidentally stumble upon forever with him than to make it a finish line. And after, he asked me if that meant that he should treasure the time we had now. What do you think, Doctor Byun?”

He shot a look at his friend but sighed. “How come you didn’t go into counseling?”

Minseok laughed and nudged him. He hooked an arm around Baekhyun’s shoulders, the way he always did when his friend foresaw tears, and lowered his voice, quiet with empathy.

“Get all the information you can. Yixing is the one who knows all the proxy stuff, and he’s my really good friend. I can ask him to go to you, and he can help you through the process too. Discuss it with Chanyeol and don’t forget to be a little flexible and open to changes, Mr. Planny McPlan-Plan.”

Baekhyun let out a laugh even as he pressed an arm to his eyes. He leaned into his friend’s embrace and silently cried out his pent-up anxieties about it all. When he was done, and Minseok had him blow his nose and dry his eyes with some tissues, Baekhyun glanced at his friend.

“How’d you know that that was my plan?”

“Because I know you, and we’re sadly a lot alike.”

“Hey.”

But they both burst into a fit of giggles. They chatted a bit more before leaving the den and heading to the living room. The two angelics were playing a board game which Baekhyun would have never thought that the demon would have lying around. Chanyeol jumped to his feet and immediately held Baekhyun’s face when he saw that his eyes were still a bit puffy, and Baekhyun shoved him away, trying not to look at the sly grins that both Minseok and Chen were giving him. He swore that Minseok was getting more and more cheeky, but that behavior resembled the times when his friend was freer, so Baekhyun preferred to see this teasing even if he was the subject of said teases.

A week later, he seemed to be the subject of even more teases when another white portal opened in his living room while he was in the middle of an… intense cuddling session with Chanyeol, and Baekhyun just wanted to fly through a portal and kick Minseok in the for never telling him when Yixing AND CHEN would come.

They both gave him and Chanyeol such sly grins—gosh.

But Baekhyun would endure it because Yixing gave him the answers to all his questions and even more answers than he thought he needed. The time frame of becoming an angel made him gulp and need a moment to digest that detail. The angel though, smiled at him, a dimple in his cheek, when Baekhyun asked for him to continue.

The question he had been most apprehensive for turned out to be in his favor, and by the time the angel finished explaining everything, he found his answer. Or maybe he already had his answer, but he found his confidence.

“Good luck, Baekhyun. And I apologize for not coming earlier. I was helping Hayong with her transformation as well.”

“Ah. What’s she going to do if she can’t stop the process, and she’s not going to use a person’s soul?”

“Earth is a bit kinder to those of its neutrality. There are certain places where she can go to cultivate that connection with Earth relatively quickly.”

“So you guys are just going to drop her off there?”

“No, she gets to experience the joys of trying to get halfway across the world without human identification documents or angelic powers.”

“Oh. Isn’t that… kinda mean? Even to her?”

“Okay, Minseok got her a boat, but that’s all.” Yixing raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you’re still so compassionate towards her.”

“Well, Minnie told me more about the system the angelics have, so I can’t completely blame only Hayong or her accomplice. It doesn’t excuse it, but she’ll do her punishment time... for all eternity. Plus, leaving any person to the mercy of humans is a cruel and unusual punishment.”

Yixing nodded and stood, and Baekhyun remembered something.

“Hey, Yixing? You’re an angel, right? Chanyeol told me that angels need permission to enter a private property even through a portal unless like, there’s probable cause. The portal was white, so it was yours too, so how’d you come in?”

The angel laughed loudly, and when he turned back to him, something devious shaded his expression.

“You and Minseok are terribly alike, you know that?”

“He might’ve mentioned it, but my question?”

“I’m an angel, yes, but some aspects from my time as a demon have remained. I was never someone who stood only on one side. Probable cause is also subjective. How do you think Tongza invaded Minseok’s house?”

Baekhyun screwed his eyebrows in confusion, but he couldn’t ask because Yixing skipped to the front door and told the other two angelics to come in since they finished. After they waved bye to Chen and Yixing, Chanyeol pulled him into a back hug that Baekhyun immediately melted into.

“What’d you need to talk about with Yixing?”

“Hmm. Secret.”

“Baek.”

He giggled at the whiny pout in the angel’s voice and turned in his hold, holding his cheeks.

“But I will tell you soon. Preferably when I’m not about to go to work in—” He leaned around Chanyeol’s bulk and peered at the clock in the kitchen. “—six hours.”

“Oh, you should go sleep then. Hurry and off to bed with you.”

Baekhyun scrunched his nose but agreed and shimmied towards his bedroom to get ready while singing the pop song with those same lyrics.

He kept his promise when he invited the angel out on a… date. According to his coworkers, it was date, anyway. Baekhyun took Chanyeol out to a plaza lit up with festivities for the Lunar New Year, walking through a light show, watching a parade bursting with lanterns and fireworks, hopping from food stall to food stall and laughing when he snuck something spicy to the angel’s plate. He still found it adorably ironic that Chanyeol’s power was fire and he couldn’t eat spicy things.

Then he drove them to someplace quieter, where bridges overlooked a river and the lights from the street waved in the ripples. He knew that Chanyeol recognized the place because he looked stunned as Baekhyun pulled up to the parking lot and escorted the angel closer.

“Be honest with me. This was the place you put that mark thingy on me by kissing my temple, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Chen might’ve let it slip.”

He laughed at the pout settling over Chanyeol’s lips and tugged him closer. As they walked the bridge, Baekhyun felt himself start to heat up and his heart start to race. He was pretty sure that the angel could sense it too, so he teased Chanyeol like normal and trotted a little faster to the crest of the bridge. He gripped the railing and took a deep breath. Winter chilled his throat, but it felt good too, something cool to keep his nerves down.

“Baekhyun, is there something wrong?”

He his lips, took another deep breath, and turned to face Chanyeol. The giant looked at him with concern but patience, and Baekhyun thought of forgoing his plan just to stare into those beautiful orbs.

But he shook out of it. This was important, and he didn’t want to put it off any longer. The sooner he did this, the sooner Chanyeol could (if he accepted) stay with him.

“Chanyeol, I have a proposal to make.”

The angel’s eyes widened so far out that Baekhyun saw the streetlamps illuminating in the whites of his eyes. Then Baekhyun realized the other meaning of the words he chose, and his hands flew out.

“Wait! Not that kind of proposal!”

“Oh.”

—was that disappointment? It was! The angel’s shoulders sagged, and he could see how hard Chanyeol was fighting off the pout to his lips by chewing on them.

But… that was a good sign, right?

“Uhm, well, you wanted to know what I was talking to Yixing about, so I’m going to tell you now.”

“Okay.”

“First thing I asked was if I would look the same age as when I died when I became a soul.”

“Why would you ask that? And I could’ve told you too.”

“I’m leading up to that. Yixing told me that I look the age when I ‘shined the brightest in life.’ He also said that if throughout my life I had multiple of those moments, then I could change my appearance.”

“It’s true. A bit rare but true.”

The grin pulled at Baekhyun’s mouth, and the nerves slowly came out from his excitement as he thought of his next point.

“Second thing I asked was if it was illegal to do this proxy process on anybody, considering the fiasco that happened with Minseok. Yixing said that the process itself isn’t illegal and continues to not be illegal, but that it was Hayong using other people that made her actions unlawful.”

Chanyeol nodded, a little bit of confusion sliding into his eyebrows.

“The third thing I asked was if a soul could become an angel.”

Chanyeol’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, then realization. He took Baekhyun’s hands, squeezing them.

“Baek, do you mean— You want to—”

He smiled and laughed a little at the angel’s stupefied expression, but the nerves returned into his body, his hands, and his vocal cords.

“Yeah. I want to become an angel after I’m done being human. I know that it sounds really—like I have a god complex or something, but I don’t. I just want to be with you.”

Chanyeol just stared at him with his mouth open like a fish, so Baekhyun took another breath and laid out his case.

“I talked with Minseok first, and he gave me the confidence and connection to seek out Yixing. I was asking him about all the details, and he said that he would help me if I decided yes. Minseok also told me that true neutrals had both virtue and sin and believed in them more strongly, and that honestly fits with what I feel because I am selfish, and I don’t want to leave you. You told me about what it’s like to be a soul and… I don’t want to live a life where I can’t reach out to the person I love.”

He looked down at their hands and rubbed his thumb across that giant and gentle hand, feeling the warmth in it.

“But if you don’t feel the same way, or if you ever, uhm, stop feeling like you want to stay with me, then you can leave. I plan on living out my human life because I owe that to my family, and I want to help people still. If sometime between then and me becoming a proxy and then a real angel you’re not… into the idea anymore, then I won’t hold anything against you. This is ultimately my decision, so don’t feel pressured to agree or—”

His words cut off as a chest smooshed his face together. Arms wrapped him close, and the warmth coming off the fire angel enveloped him fully. He felt Chanyeol’s body tremble, and above, there were quiet gasps.

“Yeol?”

“Baek— I— I want to stay with you.”

in a breath, he stepped back a little out of Chanyeol’s hold and widened his eyes at the tears streaming down the angel’s face.

“Wha— Yeol, why’re you crying?”

“I— Because I was worried about this too.”

“Really?”

He nodded and wobbled, so Baekhyun led them to a bench to sit, dabbing at the tears with his sleeve. Chanyeol though, wiped some of them off and drew them into Baekhyun’s cheek. He knew that it was protection, and he had a brief moment of internally imploding with fuzziness and appreciation before turning back to the angel.

“While you were talking with Minseok, Chen and I spoke about… deep stuff.”

“Not just playing board games?”

“N-No. I thought we would, but he wanted to talk to me too. He said that he was pretty sure that he learned what love was, and he asked me if I wanted to know what it was too. When I asked him why I would want to know that, he just said, ‘Baekhyun.’”

He chuckled a little at that.

“And I thought that he was right. In the angelic world, there is no ‘love’ as a personal feeling. It’s just what we use to explain the emotions that drives humans to kill lovers out of jealousy or why people remain with another at their own detriment or why they fight for each other. Things like that. If an angelic deems someone worthy of a little more attention, then we call it favoring them, but it’s never more than that.”

Baekhyun couldn’t help but feel the little sting in his heart at that, but he knew that Chanyeol wasn’t done yet. The giant smiled, looking away.

“I initially thought that you were someone I favored too. That was all I really knew, but the more I spent time with you or watched over you, the more I worried. The more I wanted to see you again and talk to you. The more I wanted to give you something that I couldn’t really describe. So Chen asked me what I felt with you, I told him as best as I could, and we agreed that I love you.”

All of Baekhyun stopped. His jaw dropped open, and he forgot to breathe. It was only after the angel chuckled, a soft and deep flutter, that Baekhyun remembered that he needed oxygen to function. Chanyeol rubbed their hands together and looked up at him through his eyelashes, shy.

“So your plan to stay with me as angel—I know it’s not my decision, like you said, but it makes me so happy that it’s all just building in my chest. The fact that you would ask around for answers, that you would even consider me as someone to stay with. I just— I don’t know how to put everything I feel in words. I’m an angel and supposed to be good at this for heaven’s sake, but I don’t know how to say it all when I’m personally feeling it—”

Baekhyun yanked him forward by their handhold, grabbed the lapels of the angel’s coat, and held him to his face, not quite touching but so so close. He breathed in the air around Chanyeol’s lips and his own.

“The angelics really have a ty emotional and mental support system, don’t they? Don’t tell me then. Just show me.”

He had barely finished speaking before his lips became too occupied to say anymore words.

~~~~~

Luhan deflected a stray paper ball from hitting the spare desk that he always made sure was set to the side of his classrooms now. He had told his students to toss the ball, not throw it like a baseball. He chucked it back towards the students, chuckling when it bounced off someone’s head.

“Okay, okay, now everyone get one? Go ahead and open it.”

As they finished up the activity and class, he answered some questions before heading to his office. He strode down the hallways and wondered-not-wondered if Tao was walking on his left, his right, flying above him or simply following him. Luhan could never feel his presence, but he hoped that it wasn’t the last one. He would rather have his new friend not acting like his secretary or something.

Luhan, after he was sure that a demon-human’s hand had sunk through his chest, woke up absolutely fine, save for his still broken arm. He panicked a bit seeing that Minseok was passed out, he met a few of his friends and the people trying to help them (including the actual devil himself!), and he hugged Sehun tight with his non-broken arm. The boy was uninjured to Luhan’s relief.

They were taken back to Luhan’s apartment and told to rest there together because Yixing, who Luhan remembered was one of Minseok’s ‘co-workers,’ said that they