Chapter 10

Timeline: 15th of September 2012

Baekhyun liked the light a lot. Strike that. He loved it to bits. Maybe it was because his Supernatural Ability was the Light. And with his Light, he could create shadows.

Shadows could be kind too if they wanted to but most of them were into Dark Side and so, these shadows were categorised as evil.

In the past, he heard once from the other kids that really dangerous things lurked in the dark. He did not believe them at first so he decided to play with the shadows behind the cupboards.

He tried talking to them and they answered back, both amusing and terrifying him. He was beyond thrilled to be able to talk to the shadows. Some of the elder kids in the orphanage said he was crazy and that he was only hallucinating.

And Baekhyun at the age of ten had no idea whether he really was. So he believed them, he believed that he was perhaps, insane.

Until Chanyeol came along with a grin, splitting his face, asking him what was wrong. Baekhyun thought, 'This kid must be crazy for wanting to be friends with me.'

Timeline: 21st of March 2005

Little Baekhyun was sitting near the wall behind the cupboard again. He tended to hide from the other kids. They liked to bully him into submission, calling him names and sometimes, hitting him like a punching bag. And that was usually when the caretaker was too busy to care for him.

Hearing a deep voice from behind him, he turned and saw a shadow sliding towards him. Some of the shadows were quite friendly to him but most were not. And this one was sort of a friend to him. It listened to him talk and talk about random kid stuffs patiently when he needed to pour out his feelings. The shadow sometimes answered back when necessary. But nobody could hear the shadows talking except him so the other children in the orphanage called him, "Insane Airhead Baekhyun".

It was not very nice, the shadow told him but Baehyun was not huge. He could not defend himself in any possible way. He was a scrawny little kid for his age. He wished he could grow as tall as the two other kids in the orphanage, Chanyeol and Kris.

A few other kids like Sehun, Kai and Suho hung out with them. Their group was fine. How he wished he could join them at times.

Although they acted indifferently towards him, at least they did not call him any insulting names or anything. And Chanyeol and Kris being the tallest kids in the orphanage would protect anyone they considered as close to them, namely Suho, a bright elder-than-Baekhyun kid and the other two eight-year-old babies, Sehun and Kai.

Here he was sitting alone with a shadow that he could not show off to others and also had no real limbs to shield him from the beatings the other kids gave him.

The shadow, whom he decided to name, 'Charmer', asked him what was wrong. Sighing, he told Charmer softly, "I wanna join them."

"Them?" Charmer looked towards the direction where Baekhyun was pointing.

"Ah... Why don't you, then?"

"It's not easy to do so. I overheard the other kids saying that I had to pass their test or something like that."

"Well, they cannot be hundred per cent true about that now, can they? They aren't exactly your friends, right? Why listen to them gossiping untrue stories like aunties in hypermarkets?"

Baekhyun giggled at that and if shadows could smile, he was sure Charmer would be smiling right now. But of course, shadows did not have faces.

"I should try, shouldn't I?"

"Yes, yes. Oh, look. One of them is coming here. You're in luck today, Baekkie. Maybe he would be friends with you. Gotta go." With that said, the shadow sauntered away to who knows where.

Chanyeol, an extremely hyperactive kid, was, in all honesty, making his way towards where he was hiding. For a second, he doubted Charmer was right. He was probably just passing by or got fascinated with the huge cupboard in the living room.

His heart pounded as Chanyeol greeted him with a deep, "Yo!" I thought kids' voices were supposed to be high-pitched until they hit puberty. So, was this kid elder than him?

The taller boy stuck out his hand towards Baekhyun, waiting for him to take his hand. Baekhyun, being Baekhyun, hesitated before letting Chanyeol pulled him out of his hiding place.

"What are you doin' in there? Doesn't seem fun hiding behind the cupboard in the shadows. You should get out more often and stop making yourself invisible."

Baekhyn flushed red. Who was he to tell him what and what not to do? Charmer did say that he should get along with Chanyeol and his group so he would let it slide this time.

"I'm Chanyeol and I've decided that you should join our group. What's yours?"

That was just it? No test and no nothing? So, the other orphans were wrong all these times? Charmer was right.

"Hello? Anybody home?" Chanyeol poked his sides. Unable to hold it in, he burst into laughter. The grinning kid had just discovered his weak points. Baekhyun, not wanting to loose, engage the other to a battle of tickling. The little match went on until Kris decided to come and stop the two of them.

"What are you guys doing?" Kris questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Yo, Kris. I'm making friends with this guy. But he hasn't answer me what's his name," Chanyeol said, winking at Baekhyun playfully.

"His name's Baekhyun. There, I've answered for him. So both of you should get up from the floor because others are watching."

Baekhyun looked around. Sure enough, the other kids were trying to peek and they were trying to make it not too obvious.

"You can't just answer for him, Kris!" Chanyeol's lips turned downwards in a pout.

"C'mon, Baekhyun. We're going to our room so you could properly introduce yourself to us without eagle eyes watching our every move," Kris spoke loudly. Those who heard flushed hotly, knowing that he was talking about them.

The three of them strolled towards the shared bedroom of Chanyeol, Kris, Sehun and Kai’s. Every bedroom had four occupants. But Baekhyun's bedroom only consisted of him and himself, or him and the shadows. Creepy, huh? But Charmer was always there to shoo the other evil shadows or ghosts away. Maybe Charmer was someone of utmost importance? That was probably the reason Charmer was feared by many in the Shadow Realm.

Baekhyun followed Chanyeol and Kris into the bedroom. Surprise was clearly written on the other three boys' faces as he entered. He smiled shyly to them. They beamed back.

"Quick. Introduce yourself!" Kai demanded while bouncing on the lower bunk bed.

"Uh... Hi, I'm Baekhyun. I'm ten." Baekhyun said, suddenly finding his feet more interesting than any other things.

"Baekhyun! Nice to meet you! I'm Sehun!" Sehun yelled, clapping his hands like a baby. The others found it amusing and they chortled. If Baekhyun was close to them, he would laugh along but the thing was, he was not. Everything seemed surreal from the beginning when Chanyeol approached him till now. He did not know whether he should believe it.

"I'm Suho. Eleven." He took Baekhyun's hand and shook it.

"Kai here!" Little Kai waved at him trying to catch his attention.

"You probably already know but yeah, I'm Kris and I'm twelve years old." Baekhyun nodded before turning to look at Chanyeol from under his eyelashes.

"You're Baekkie and I'm Happy Virus Chanyeol or Chan-Chan! We're the same age so we could be best friends!" Chanyeol said, placing his arms around Baekhyun's shoulder as if they had known each other for years already.

“Hey, no fair. Why can’t we call  you Chan-Chan too?” Sehun demanded, pointing his chubby finger at Chanyeol accusingly.

“No way. You can’t. Only Baekkie can. ‘Cause he’s special.” Chanyeol stuck out his tongue at Sehun. The youngest boy leaped from the top bunk bed into Chanyeol’s arms.

“I want to call you Chan-Chan too!” He wailed, his little fists hitting Chanyeol’s chest. Baekhyun laughed at the sight of them. Their group members were close to each other like family. Family… That’s a nice word.

"Welcome to the family, Baekhyun." Suho thumped his back while the others just smiled at him.

"Thank you." Strangely, why were his eyes b with tears? Boys should only cry not more than thrice in his lifetime.

Timeline: 15th of September 2012

Until now, Charmer stayed by his side and he reported daily on his findings. He knew he did say he liked the light and all but Charmer was the only exception. He was special to him. The only dark thing he liked. His true friend.

"I've been travelling. But so far, I still can't find anything about the Tree of Life." Charmer told Baekhyun who was looking hopefully at it.

"Oh... It's fine. Really. You've been a great help and a dear friend."

Chanyeol still found it peculiar to watch Baekhyun talking to a shadow even after seven years. He could not hear it speaking so it was like listening to Baekhyun talk one-sidedly.

"We need to be on the move again. Looks like we've searched every possible place around this region," Baekhyun announced.

"Alright, we'll move to Melbourne this instant."

"How I wish I had Kris' ability to fly. The plane's making me sick."

Baekhyun hated planes for a passion. Something about them irked him to no end. They're always shaking so badly when they passed through a cloud. Couldn't they just fly steadily? He wanted to ask Tao whether the future planes were still like that. If they were still that way in the few years to come, then he could say good riddance to them after their mission was accomplished.

"It's not that bad. You're exaggerating." Chanyeol rolled his eyes while Charmer only chuckled.

"We're taking a cab. I don't wanna suffer through sitting in a plane that might wreck anytime soon."

"Hush, now. Don't speak of such ominous things," Chanyeol said as the two homo sapiens began packing their stuff into their luggage.

"We should go now, Charmer."

"Okay. Do be careful. Goodbye. Take care and stay safe. Or I’ll hunt you in the afterlife." Charmer disappeared into thin air then.

To be continued...

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Who likes Charmer? LOL. He's such a charmer. I wanna own him.

Thank you so much, everyone for reading, reviewing, subscribing and voting.

Homo sapiens = Humans, if anyone’s wondering. I like that term soooooo much. So there, a hint of BaekYeol. 

Oh My Kray. I simply cannot believe that I'm at Chapter 10 already.

To be honest, this story was supposed to be historical but I sort of messed up with the timelines. But it's better this way. They got to use Samsung products. Sorry, I'm a fan of Samsung products because well, Samsung belongs to South Korea! Which reminds me of EXO-K promoting Samsung product.