Chanyeol pov

Chanyeol sat and watched his sleeping beauty. Baekhyun’s skin was pale and blemish free, his lips the perfect pink heart. He murmured slightly as his thick, dark eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks. Chanyeol felt his muscles tense up, pulling tight, but relaxed again when Baekhyun just shifted slightly before continuing his deep breaths. Chanyeol ran his finger tip over the soft, plush skin of Baekhyun’s lower lip and sighed. He wanted to go and talk to the doctor about how Baekhyun was doing and to question him but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the small hand that was gripping his own tightly.

His eyelids began to droop as he sat there, in silence apart from the steady beep and the reassuring sounds of Baekhyun’s breaths. He felt as his neck started to drift forward of his own accord. A few moments later he found his head resting on Baekhyun’s chest while the hand that wasn’t occupied with Baekhyun’s rested on the smaller boy’s stomach. The thump, thump, thump of Baekhyun’s heart comforted him as he was lulled into a light sleep.

What seemed like seconds later, but was in actual fact about an hour, he felt himself be shaken gently awake. He looked up from Baekhyun’s chest between his unfurling, messy halo of orange curls. A kind young face was smiling down to him, with large eyes that reminded him of Kyungsoo’s. Immediately he liked the woman, there was something about that told him that she was a good person.

“Sorry to wake you.” She said gently, her voice was lilting and soft. “But we need to Change the bandages on your friend’s leg.” Chanyeol visibly winced at the thought of seeing the wreckage that was his love’s leg. The memory of the distorted multi-coloured appendage was still fresh in his mind. It wasn’t that he couldn’t deal with blood or gore, and it wasn’t that he thought that it was disgusting. The reason why he dreaded the sight because by seeing it he would see how much pain Baekhyun was in, and that was something that he never wanted to see. The nurse seemed to see the pain his eyes and gave him a reassuring smile. “It would be easier for us if we could have more space to work. Why don’t you go get some coffee from the cafeteria?” Chanyeol knew that it really didn’t matter to the nurses whether he was there or not and that the nurse was doing this for him. Even though he knew that, he was extremely grateful and nodded with just a hint of his usual happiness. He took a few moments to pry his fingers from Baekhyun’s and as he freed them Baekhyun murmured and thrashed slightly in his sleep. Chanyeol placed a sweet kiss on the hand he had dropped and one on the boy’s forehead. He back his hair and whispered, “I’ll be back soon Hyunnie.” Chanyeol knew that Baekhyun couldn’t hear him but he could have sworn that the older had relaxed again at his words. The nurse patted his shoulder as he turned to leave.

“You two make a lovely couple you know.” She said with kind twinkling eyes. Those shining orbs held no sign of judgement or anger or any of the other emotions which he had expected from people. He bowed lightly and thanked her graciously before slipping from the room with a fleeting glance back at Baekhyun.

As he began to walk down the corridor, he thought about the nurse’ advice to get some coffee. He didn’t drink coffee. Baekhyun drank coffee, size medium with cinnamon syrup. He found himself in the line at the cafeteria without even realising that his feet had been taking him there. As he reached the cashier they looked up with a bored expression, asking for his order in a monochromatic voice. His usual order of a regular tea stuck in his throat as he found himself saying, “One medium cinnamon latte and a caramel slice please.” The cashier just nodded and motioned for him to move over to where he would collect his food and drink further along. Once collecting his tray he wondered over to an empty table and sat down. He laid the cinnamon latte and the caramel slice out before him but he didn’t taste any. He inhaled the smell of the cinnamon deeply and felt his mouth watering automatically at the sight of the gooey caramel, sandwiched between the sweet chocolate and the crumbly shortcake. He stared. He didn’t eat. He couldn’t, he didn’t know why but he just couldn’t. He sat, letting the smells and sights bring memories of him and Baekhyun together. He remembered the time when they had fed each other strawberries with hot chocolate at a small café; Baekhyun had somehow gotten chocolate above his eyebrow and laughed like an angel when he was told. He remembered the time when they had gone shopping together and Baekhyun had begun half skipping, half running, their hands intertwined, when he saw the candle shop. He didn’t even look at the signs, he didn’t need to. He began happily smelling the cinnamon and ginger and floral smells. He had smiled so wide and flung himself at Chanyeol when the shorter realised that he had bought him the cinnamon one without him realising. He felt a smile twitch at his lips as the memories flooded over him.

He was pulled out of his reverie when a slip of white fabric whizzed past his vision. He looked up and noticed the source of the white. It was a white doctor’s coat. In fact, it was Baekhyun’s doctor’s coat. Chanyeol shot up from his seat, leaving his purchase on the table as he hurried after the retreating figure. Chanyeol caught up to him seconds later with a panted, “Excuse me.” The doctor turned around and smiled at Chanyeol. Smile lines fanning out from around his eyes as he did so. “Could I talk to you for a minute?” The doctor glanced at his watched and looked up with kind eyes.

“I think I can spare 5 minutes young man. Shall we sit down?” Chanyeol nodded as they walked back to the table he had vacated in a rush. Chanyeol winced at the grating noise of the chair legs on the cheap floor but fell into it none the less.

“So, what is it you want to talk about?” The man was middle aged and plum and had the face of a caring father.

“Well it’s my friend. I remember that you said he could have some short term memory loss but…but he can’t remember a whole series of events that began months and months ago. Is that normal?” The doctor’s smile didn’t drop and Chanyeol took that as a good sign as hope fluttered within him.

“Don’t worry. I wanted to be sure so I gave him a brain scan…” Chanyeol opened his mouth to interrupt, “And before you ask it wasn’t invasive and he wouldn’t have even felt anything, even in his sleep.” Chanyeol sighed in relief.

“And? What did it tell you?” He asked, his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape as he took in everything the man was saying.

“He shows absolutely no cerebral damages, he has quite a beautiful brain actually, alive with activity.” The doctor smiled again, chuckling, and patted Chanyeol’s hand once. “If you are worried I will talk to Mr Byun, however If he is experiencing memory loss then it is only due to shock.” Chanyeol frowned as his heart ached.

“Will he remember again?” He asked desperately. He thought of Baekhyun’s dream to become a singer. A dream he had had since he was old enough to know what singing was. A dream that same boy could now not even remember. The doctor sighed.

“He will remember, but how long it will take I cannot say. There are things you can do. Show him photographs or videos, talk about things related to what he can’t remember, take him to places he has been. Hopefully one of those things might spark his memory.” Chanyeol nodded slowly as his mind started whirring with ideas. The kind doctor looked down to his wrist once more before looking up apologetically once more at Chanyeol. “I am sorry I must get going. I will be checking up on Mr Byun soon, don’t worry.” Chanyeol nodded and thanked the man profusely, bowing as the doctor walked away.

He followed the man’s actions and checked the time. He had been away longer than he had expected and sprung out of his chair. He raced back to the room, heart pounding as he sped his way through the pale, clinical corridors. As he approached the wooden, panelled door he heard women’s voices echoing loudly out of the room. He recognised one two of the voices but the third was unknown. As he rounded the corner into the doorway he was met with an unexpected sight. His mother was sat on one side of Baekhyun’s bed, her glowing hair waving around her beautiful, smiling face. Another middle aged woman was sat on the other side. She had salt and pepper hair, running down her back in a thick plait and was wearing an assortment of wacky colours. She turned to face him, her eyes were very large and her grin gave her wide eyes a twinkle as her cheeks became puffy.

“And this handsome young man must be Chanyeol.” His mother nodded proudly. “I have heard wonderful things about you from Baekhyun; would you care for a homemade rock scone?” She smiled and the whole room seemed to light up.

“Don’t eat it Channie, they’re horrible and you might die from food poisoning.” Baekhyun chuckled from the bed, his voice was still weak but Chanyeol could hear his laughter clearly in the tinkering sounds. Having grabbed his attention Chanyeol drew his gaze to the boy sat up in bed. He had the covers tucked around him and a brightly coloured and very mismatched knitted pillow was supporting his head. His skin was still unhealthily pale but pink tinged his cheeks as he smiled widely at Chanyeol. The woman pouted slightly closing the lid on the Tupperware box with puppy dog eyes. Baekhyun just giggled and she grinned at him, “You know it’s true Umma. You really can’t cook.”

“Oh, you’re Baekhyun’s mother?” Chanyeol asked, eyes wide. Whenever Baekhyun spoke of his mother it was always with anger and betrayal. He had depicted the image of a cruel, career oriented woman who had no time for her son. That was not the person he saw before him.

“Oh no dear.” She said with a chuckle as she looked Baek to Chanyeol. “I am not his mother. I am Mrs Do.”

“Oh the eyes! I knew that I knew them from somewhere. You’re Kyungsoo’s mother right?” She smiled even wider at that and she looked so much like Kyungsoo he was surprised that he hadn’t seen it before.

“You are my Umma.” Baekhyun grumbled from the bed. She laughed again, like chiming bells in summer.

“Yes, and you are my son.” Baekhyun smiled at her with the affection of a boy for his mother. He looked back up to Chanyeol, lips turned up in the most adorable way as he reached out both of his arms and grabbed at the air, “Channie…” He whined, pouting. Chanyeol chuckled but walked over and sat himself on the bed beside Baekhyun, wrapping his arms around him.

They all stayed like that for a while. Chanyeol didn’t really contribute to the conversation much as they seemed to go from one girly topic to the next. Baekhyun was fully into a discussion about the pros and cons of liquid eyeliner over pencil eyeliner when Chanyeol’s mother noticed the time.

“Gosh! Yeollie, you need to go home now and get some rest. Baekhyun needs rest too, he needs to recover.” She smiled at Baekhyun as he yawned adorably, stretching out his tiny clenched fists.

“But Umma...” Chanyeol started.

“No buts Yeollie. You can come and see Baekhyun after school tomorrow and I will visit him in the day. You need to sleep.” Mrs Do nodded in agreement.

“You go home with your mother dear, I will stay with Baek until he falls asleep and I will visit him tomorrow too.” Chanyeol looked between the two women and sighed in defeat. He looked down at his side where Baekhyun had curled himself up into Chanyeol’s waist, his little fist gripping Chanyeol’s jumper. He slid his body off of the bed and moved Baekhyun down from his half sitting, half lying position. He plumped the pillows around his head and before pulling the duvet up and around Baekhyun’s shoulders.

“I’ll wait outside Yeollie.” His mother said as Mrs Do said, “I think I will go to the toilet.” He looked up to find both women leaving and giving each other sly looks. It was like the two of them were the same person in different skin. He looked back down to Baekhyun. His eyes were half closed as he yawned again and nuzzled into his pillow. Chanyeol reached for the handmade pillow that, guessing by the colours, was made by Kyungsoo’s mum. He lifted the duvet and tucked the large pillow in alongside Baekhyun, wrapping the older’s arms around it. Baekhyun didn’t need to be told as he hugged the pillow closer to his body. Chanyeol leaned his face close to Baekhyun’s.

“Whenever I am not here,” He whispered. “Hug this pillow and think of me okay?” Baekhyun nodded sleepily and tilted his head upward, his lips searching for something. Chanyeol leaned down and kissed him gently. Baekhyun sighed and breathed, “I love you Channie. Go get some sleep for me.” Chanyeol his hair back and kissed his forehead.

“I will Hyunnie. I love you too baby. So much.” With that Baekhyun smiled as he sank into the covers and began to fade into a deep sleep. Chanyeol kissed him one more time before moving to the door. He opened it only to have his mother and Mrs Do fall into the room breathlessly. They flapped about with excuses but he just raised one eyebrow. He looked back at the sleeping Baekhyun with a smile before walking out. Even if it was the last thing he did, he would make Baekhyun remember.