Chapter 20

Baby's Breath

*Chapter 20;

When Baekhyun woke up, Chanyeol wasn't sleeping next to him anymore. He panicked so suddenly that the drowsiness literally jumped out of him the moment he sprang out of bed, only to find Chanyeol eating eggs at the breakfast table. His mom hadn't gone to work because she had one of the institution's staff to greet, so, for once, Chanyeol didn't have to enjoy his last breakfast of SPAM, burnt fried egg, and beansprouts. Baekhyun rubbed his face and sat at the dining table, wondering if this was all a nostalgic dream he hadn't woken up from yet. It had to be.

Today, they were taking Chanyeol away.

Today, Hye-Seong's varsity soccer team was going up against Jeon-Il.

At first, Baekhyun thought everything really was a dream because Chanyeol hadn't left yet, nor had anything suspicious happened as his mother sent both of them to school. He passed by the few stacks of moving boxes and a rolling suitcase by the door and realized it wasn't. Chanyeol didn't wear his uniform this time, but he was still allowed to stay in class until the game. The match was important to them both, and Chanyeol said he didn't want to miss it for the world.

Baekhyun thought his brother was in good hands when he met Luhan, and the doe-eyed boy agreed to buy him a special meal at the cafeteria, for the sake of saying goodbye, thanks for being my friend. Maybe Baekhyun was just childishly jealous when that happened, because he felt like he had the right to spend more time with him, while Chanyeol was still here. If Chanyeol was taken away, he wouldn't be able to see him as often with entrance exams coming up, how far the hospital was from his home, not to mention that the institution's visiting hours were inconveniently short and scheduled when he needed to be in school.

Yes, it was unfair, but Baekhyun had come to terms with that tidbit when he first found out about Chanyeol's leave. If visiting was an option, and if he could afford to visit, he wouldn't feel nearly as crushed.

He was crushed, though, and Jongin was the first to clasp his shoulder and give it a reassuring squeeze. After school, Baekhyun had gone straight into practice to prepare the final hour before the game, while the field was filling up fast with spectators from all sides. The bleachers were nearly full and the team was spraying the last of their antibiotic sprays on their ankles and fitting in small words of encouragement to each other. Even Jongin was nervous, and he usually wasn't during games because he was the type to perform effortlessly without the strain of pressure.

When the team lined up in front of the double doors to head out onto the field, Baekhyun felt his heart beating in his chest. He felt so nauseous because his heart was so weak after taking so many hits; he didn't know how to handle the pressure of performing well and the grief he felt for losing his brother.

He thought of Chanyeol as the doors opened and the fanfare rose to a deafening roar.

Cheerleaders were doing their routines, colorful banners were waving in the air, trumpets were sounding, and the announcer was calling out their names, one by one. Baekhyun stood there and looked through the crowd at the hundreds of people assembled in the stadium, searching for a familiar face. Chanyeol had said the night before that he would be there, that he would be sitting where he always sat, cheering him on the loudest.

When Baekhyun's gaze met the third row of bleachers from the bottom, all the way to the end of the bench, he saw a woman sitting in Chanyeol's place.

"From Hye-Seong High School, we have Kim Jongin, Oh Sehun, Kim Jongdae, Byun Baekhyun..."

One by one, the players walked in a single-file line to their respective sides, but Baekhyun spun in circles, trying to scope out where Chanyeol could be. The announcer's voice calling him out to stand with his team sounded muffled and faint in his ears, and so did the crowd's loud murmurs.

His palms started to get clammy and warm, and his heart thundered in his ears.

"Baekhyun!" he heard his coach call him from their side of the field.

Somehow, his feet moved by themselves as he bolted out of the field. He had never run so fast in his life, never felt such an exhilarating rush of having his heart guide his body, step by step, until he was racing out of the stadium at the speed of light. He ran so fast that he couldn't believe his legs were still attached to his body, and the pain in his knee ebbed away slowly but surely, but the pounding in his head never ceased.

Back at the stadium, Sehun rushed out to chase after Baekhyun, but Jongin held him back. He shook his head. "It's okay," Jongin said, "Flashbaek never ran that fast in his life." He grinned. "You'll never catch him." But, he looked towards where Baekhyun had run off to with a knowing smile.

Baekhyun was running through space and time; he ran so hard that he literally saw everything zipping past his peripheral vision in a burst of colors, and, in a rush of adrenaline, he actually ran across a crosswalk right when the cars were just driving in from the other side. He ran so hard that he actually felt the sting of rain slapping his cheek as it actually felt in gentle showers. He never stopped and rushed past familiar places: the supermarket, flower shop, the pet shop Chanyeol really liked, until he finally came to a halt near their house and saw a black car parked outside.

Chanyeol was there. His moving boxes were being loaded into the empty trunk, and Baekhyun's mom was signing a paper.

Baekhyun nearly fell over to the side when he stopped, his body finally going into a bit of an after-shock after the breathless sprint. "Ch-Chanyeol..." he panted, walking straight up to him with a limp, then hugging him tightly to himself. He breathed the scent of Chanyeol's shampoo, his dirty laundry, his everything. The tears finally fell over, and he gripped the back of his shirt hard, while the rain fell in heavy drops. "Don't go. Please don't go," he cried.

Chanyeol wordlessly wrapped his arms around Baekhyun and nuzzled his cheek against the side of Baekhyun's head. He held him for a long time without saying anything. "I'm sorry, Baekhyunnie... sorry I couldn't watch you play soccer..."

Baekhyun felt Chanyeol's tears soaking into his thin soccer uniform. "No," he gasped, "It's okay, Chanyeol, r-remember that promise we made? You can watch me play soccer anytime... hic- We can play soccer after school if you stay, w-we can..."

"Thank you..." Chanyeol smiled, his expression a lot calmer than Baekhyun expected, "Thank you for being my friend, Baekhyun." Their foreheads touched gently, and Baekhyun shared an eternity with Chanyeol when they made eye contact. It was such a powerful, heart-wrenching moment that Baekhyun felt the color drain from his face.

"Don't leave..." he whispered, touching Chanyeol's cheek gently, "I'll treat you better. We can eat ice cream and go play games a-at the arcade... We can do all of that..."

Chanyeol smiled, then handed him a notebook he had never seen before, nor noticed he had been holding until it was in his grip. "You can have this," Chanyeol said, "I wrote your name in here." He flipped it to the inside of the cover where there was a blank for the owner of the notebook to fill out. "Park Chanyeol" had been written in pencil, but it was obvious it had been erased and filled in again with "Byun Baekhyun" instead.

Baekhyun watched in awe as the rain dripped on the pages, each one a diary of Chanyeol's thoughts, from the day Chanyeol had moved in to their house to this morning. In every page, Chanyeol's handwriting had improved. He was writing longer sentences. Some pages were just filled with doodles of what they had done that day. Some pages had the ice cream wrappers taped onto them and the movie ticket of the animation they had gone to watch together. 

On the second to the last page were two game tokens taped onto it and a note scrawled beneath the coins: "Play again sometime, Baekhyun and Chanyeol, best friends!"

The last page he turned to was a full page with neat handwriting from top to bottom.

 

In the next world,

if you were to be reborn as a beautiful person,

I would like to be reborn as an angel.

Although I may be invisible,

and you'll go on loving someone else,

I would like to be reborn as an angel

to protect you.

 

In the next world,

if you were to be reborn as a beautiful bird,

I would like to be reborn as a magnificent tree.

Although I would have to wait for you

in one place,

I would like to be reborn as a tree,

where you may rest when your wings are weary.

 

Baekhyun's teary gaze barely skimmed the first two stanzas when he heard Chanyeol mumble softly,

 

In the next world,

if you were to be reborn as a beautiful rose,

I would like to be reborn as a humble Baby's Breath flower.

Although I may not look like much

in your presence,

I would like to be reborn as a Baby's Breath flower,

so your beauty may grow, and you can be loved.

 

The tears rolled down his cheeks and the notebook trembled in his grip. The words were smudging with the rain, or his tears, he couldn't quite tell.

Baekhyun felt a warm kiss on his forehead, and it was then that he snapped back to reality. One of the men dressed in white said something to another about the bad weather, and they gently took Chanyeol by the arm to lead him to the car. Baekhyun tore him away again, sobbing, making incoherent noises, until his mother held him back. While he was thrashing in her grip, screaming at the men to let Chanyeol go as they escorted his brother to the car, Chanyeol followed them willingly, while looking back at Baekhyun the whole time as he was being dragged away.

The car's engines roared over the pouring rain, and Baekhyun yelled for Chanyeol in his futile attempt to stop the car from leaving. He saw Chanyeol looking at him through the back window, but that face was growing distant as the car started and rolled down the street.

When it was halfway down the neighborhood, Baekhyun finally thrashed himself free and ran after the car. "Chanyeol!" he screamed, and the thunderclouds ahead answered his despairing call with a loud rumble. He tripped and slid across the asphalt so hard that the skin scraped right off his knee.

Chanyeol stuck his head out of the window and screamed Baekhyun's name, and Baekhyun forced himself back onto his feet to run. Run like he had never ran before. Run like when he did in his junior match when he made his first goal. A car, however, was too fast. The faster he ran, the further it sped away until it had become nothing more than a black shape in the distance.

Baekhyun sobbed, clutching right over his chest where his heart ached. "Chanyeol..." he wailed, falling to his knees and holding the notebook close to himself so as not to get it wet. He cried until snot and tears trickled down his face, he sobbed until his heart and lungs hurt so much he lost consciousness, right in the middle of the street.

 

"If the wind's blowing, that means someone's calling your name. If it rains, it means someone's missing you. You don't need to be scared, I'll protect you!"

"Really?"

"Really."

"Always?"

"Always! Promise!"

 

Consciousness found him again at home, where it was peacefully quiet. The rain had obviously cleared up, the birds were chirping outside. Finches, he thought they were. He felt so weak he couldn't move, until the I V rack came into view, and he felt the strange feeling of medicine being pumped into his system through a needle inserted into the back of his hand. He felt so empty.

Then, he saw it. He saw the light filtering through the open window, the raindrops pitter-pattering off the roof shingles. On the windowsill, he saw a can with white flowers blooming over the unsightly pot, the petals wet with dew. The sight of it warmed his heart and made it glow, even if he couldn't exactly remember why he was happy instead of sad.

Then, he remembered why. He remembered Chanyeol telling him that Baby's Breath flowers stood for the purity of the heart, sincerity, and happiness.

He remembered the purity of Chanyeol's heart.

He remembered the sincerity of Chanyeol's love.

He remembered Chanyeol.

Chanyeol, Chanyeol, Chanyeol.

 

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jindeul
Chapter 15 will be up tonight or tomorrow!

Comments

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27leialimel27 #1
Chapter 26: Please if someone can answer my question, I finished this story in one day and maybe it is because I am French but I don't understand something : what happened to luhan, why did he try to suicide ? Was he depressed or something and Chanyeol helped him ? and also for the author, do Chanbaek finish together as a couple at the end ? I love the story so much but I want to know more about luhan please
mahtao #2
Chapter 13: I think it's interesting.
It's not a common life for everyone but I can feel baekhyun feeling.
Thanks
Pinku2haru #3
Chapter 31: I read love this story and I'm so thankful to you that you put a happy end for items, it reminds me of :the letter c : which the couples were kai and kris, I love the both story so much
ramsha23
#4
Chapter 14: this is an absolute masterpiece. My heart hurts >.<
KpopFanficaddict #5
THIS WAS THE SADDEST STORY EVER!
chanbaekii #6
Chapter 29: IM IN TEARS THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST FICS I'VE EVER READ IN MY WHOLE LIFE
Ze_Lay #7
MY EYES HURT SO MUCH FROM CRYING QQ
real_cmh
#8
Chapter 29: woah, Jindeul, youre so mean! you made me cry! T_T
OceanicKey #9
Chapter 30: Is it still possible... perhaps to get a hard copy?
meurtrier #10
gets me all the time. forever my fave! <3