Chapter 5

The sun has risen and the rays reached Chanyeol's bedroom.  His window was wide open, the fabric of the curtains were heavy enough to not move even when some wind blew in.

Chanyeol was still fast asleep. He slept facing the ceiling, his hands were at his sides.  There was no sign of him of being awake until he began to crinkle his nose.

He began to sniff with eyes closed.  The smell was faint but he could distinguish what it was. 

He opened his eyes, alarmed.

"Something is burning!" he sat up as fast as he could.  He sniffed again and figured that the smell came from next door. 

His eyes widened in horror as he glanced at his window.  The house next door was on fire.

"Oh my god, Baekhyun!" he dashed out of his room and tripped by the door.  He took a quick look at his knee that now had scratches on it.  He couldn't feel anything. Not a single pain.

The house next door was on fire, for heaven's sake.  What else could he feel but panic.

He went out, without any slippers on and immediately went in the burning house.  The entire kitchen was close to   gone, the fire now spreading rapidly to the other rooms. 

The fire started to travel to the adjacent room from the kitchen. 

Baekhyun's room.

"Baekhyun!" he screamed as he enters the room.  The room was filled with smoke so he couldn't see a single thing. 

He covers his nose in an attempt to prevent himself from inhaling the smoke. 

He d his way in, "Baekhyun! Where are you?!"  
There was no answer.  

He continued to search in vain.  The heat of the room didn't bother him at all. 

He was close to giving up when he tripped over something. 

It was Baekhyun,  lying unconscious on the floor on his stomach.

Chanyeol hurriedly carried Baekhyun on his back.  With the panic he was already feeling, he couldn't feel any weight upon carrying him. 

He then dashed out of the house and on the the street.  He placed Baekhyun down on the ground and shook him awake. 

"Baekhyun! Wake up! Baekhyun!" 
He pestered the unconscious body in front of him.

CPR.

He needed to perform CPR. 
Without further hesitation, he pumped Baekhyun's chest and gave his breath through his mouth. 

The unrelenting tension consumed him.  All he wanted now was for Baekhyun to show any sign of life. 

He shut his eyes, praying and hoping earnestly for Baekhyun to wake up.

The moment he opens his eyes, Baekhyun was gone.

He blinked again. 

He rubbed his eyes and still, he was not there.  He looked around him and realized that the house was never on fire. 

The house was in tact.  In fact, all he could see was Baekhyun's house.  The steep road ahead was covered in haze. He could not see any of their neighbour's houses.  Not even Minseok's house.

"It was all a dream?" he gawked.  He walked closer to Baekhyun's house to investigate and there was no sign of fire in it at all.  It was just the way it was before; empty.

"Are you looking for someone?" a voice behind him asked.  He turned around and saw Baekhyun.  He stood there in  front of him, alive.  He had his usual pink thin lips and his hooded small eyes.  His signature furrowed eyebrows never left his expression as well.

"Y-You're alive!" Chanyeol beamed and hugged Baekhyun in total relief.  He couldn't imagine the amount of guilt that could have ruined him if Baekhyhun really died. Most especially in the same manner he lost his only sister.

If someone he knew died in his presence again, he would not be able to take it any longer.  Not for the second time. 

Never.

"I'm so glad, I'm so glad you're alive!" Chanyeol cried, embracing Baekhyun even tighter.  Baekhyun did not respond to the hug, nor did he refuse to be hugged.   He just stood there, planted om the ground, allowing Chanyeol to hug him. 

After a while, Chanyeol lets go of the hug and decides to face Baekhyun. He almost forgot that this was all a dream.   

He faces Baekhyun.

Chanyeol froze as he realized that he was hugging a skeleton all the while. 

He tries to scream his lungs out but he could not even hear his own voice. He managed to take small steps away from the creature, extremely terrified.  He wanted to scream for help but he could not even breather properly as he felt something squeeze his neck.

 
It was a hand that tried to strangle him from behind him. 

He tried to look behind and there the culprit was.  It slowly revealed itself, face to face with Chanyeol. 

It was a lady.  A rather beautiful lady.

"Chanyeolie, why didn't you help noona? I waited for you to help me.  Noona waited for you." the lady claiming to be his sister sobbed, gradually letting go of her grasp from Chanyeol's neck.  

Chanyeol's eyes were b with tears.  His mouth was moving.  He was talking.  He was explaining something.

But it was never heard.  He had no voice.  Chanyeol became frustrated and tried even harder to speak but only yelps managed to escape from his mouth.

He felt horrible.  Just horrible. 
He wanted to explain and talk to his sister more than anything in the world but he had no voice.

In an instant, it occured to him. 
He remembered that there was no way he would be speaking to his sister.

She died. 
Yura, his sister, was dead 10 years ago.

He gives up in speaking with her and turns his back on her.

He now sees minseok's house next to Baekhyun's empty house.  

This was all a dream. Everything was a dream.

He ran back into Minseok's house and into his room. To wake up was to lie on the bed.
He did so. 

He shut his eyes really tightly and told himself to wake up.

"Wake up!" and he did. 

Chanyeol sat up quickly in his bed, breathing heavily as if he was being chased by someone earlier. 

He scanned his room quickly, making sure he was awake in real life.  He then recollected that one ways to determine a dream from a reality was turning  the lights on and off. 

He dashed across the room for the light switch. He tries to breathe in and out before he finally pressed the switch to turn on the lights. 

"Thank god!" he exclaimed in huge relief when the lights .  
He wheezed, very much disturbed by the dream he had earlier.  He was aghast  of being stuck in his own dream, not being able to wake up to reality.

Reality was already nightmare.  He did not need anymore nightmares in his dreams. 

It gradually dawned on him of what was the real nightmare was.

It was the guilt. The guilt that was hidden inside him for a very long time since the accident. 

Flashback

"Chanyeolie, are you free later?" a wide smile was plastered on his sister's face who was sitting next to him in their dining table one morning.

"I'm playing with friends after school, noona. We're going to some arcades." Chanyeol answered, spreading nutella on his bread.

"Postpone it! I have something to give you!"

"I'm here, you can give it now.  What difference does it make if you give it now."

"It makes a huge difference!" his sister insisted. 

"What's the matter?  Why are you arguing while eating?"  Their father joined in for breakfast, followed by their mother. 

"Besides, Chanyeol is right my dear.  Just hand it over to him now or later.  I need to bring him to some place after school anyways." their father added.

"What? But I'm meeting my friends! Dad!" Chanyeol protested. 

"And it does make a difference!" Yura added.

"No buts. Chanyeol, see you after school.  Yura, go home immediately."

Both children pouted.  Everything really did not went in their way at the start of the day. 

  - -- 
After school, Chanyeol was picked up by his dad to attend a company meeting. He wanted to expose his son to the business world as early as possible.

Meanwhile, Chanyeol's sister was at the school storeroom.  She stood back and forth from the lifesized terracota clay sculpture that was sitting on one of the tables.  It was a figure of a woman sitting down.  Yura's hands were dirty with the earth clay; an apron was preventing her school uniform from getting dirty.

She squinted her eyes as she observes the proportion of her sculpture.  All of a sudden, the lights were flickering.  One of the light bulbs were about to retire.  The flickering lights made her eyes uncomfortable. With this, she turns off the lights and lighted some candles instead.  It wasn't as bright as it was but she thought it was better than the flickering lights.  Besides, there were still some sunlight from the outside since the sun has not fully set yet. 

She then hears a rattle by the door.

"Who's there?" she asked. 

"It's me, noona!" she hears a boy's voice calling her noona.  But she knew it was not her brother.  It was someone else. 

"Oh it's you again! Have you finished your homework before coming here?" she asked the boy.  "Yes I'm done! Now can we start practicing? And why is it dark here?" the boy asked with eagerness in his eyes. 

"I think one of the bulbs will be retiring soon." she giggles. "Let me just wash my hands and we can start now. " said she to which the boy nodded. 

It wasn't long before a wonderful and soothing sound of the violin came out of the school storeroom.  It was accompanied by a pleasant sound of a wind instrument, an oboe.

Yura was playing the the violin while the younger boy was playing the oboe.  They might not be of the same age, but their passion was in sync and very similar. The song was lively but solemn.  They played Telemann Duo and It was beautiful. 

Very beautiful music that had to be ended by a very bitter ending. 

As they were playing inside the storeroom, they did not notice the sun had fully set outside.  They did not notice the time pass by and they as well did not notice a candle fell on a stack of paper.

They stopped playing and turned around when they smelled something burning.   Their eyes grew wide as a fire had started right behind them. 

It wasn't huge yet but the fire caught other flammable materials around the room rapidly.  "Q-Quick! G-Get help! Call somebody and ask them for help!" Yura ordered the boy, eyes fixed on the fire right in front of them. 

The boy's feet went weak.  He neither could run, walk or respond to what has been asked of him. 

Chanyeol's sister glared at the boy.  "Go and get help!" she said firmly.  The boy looked terrified and at the same time confused.  "B-but noona, shouldn't we go together?" he asked, his eyes teary in fear.

"I'll be trying to put out the fire first! It's not yet big. Go and get help, go!"  she insisted on him to get going as fast as he could.  Without a choice, the boy dashed out of the storeroom as instructed.

  - -
The boy came back with  a number of teachers.  They panicked as they saw the fire was big enough to have covered have of the storeroom.

A few male teachers covered their nose as they went inside the burning storeroom.

They were in search for Chanyeol's sister.

A few minutes later, a fire truck came.  Firemen started moving in and out, and looking for any survivors. 

Amidst all the chaos, a loud cry could be heard from one boy who called out noona. 

It was Chanyeol. 

He was more than ready to dash inside the storeroom filled with fire but he was held by his father whom was also crying.  Chanyeol tried so hard to get out from his father's tight embrace but he couldn't. 

Chanyeol screamed and screamed, but no one would let him in to help his sister.  He kept trying until his father's grip made marks on his arms.  He kept trying until he had no more voice to scream.  He kept trying to help his only sister but he seemed to be chained in his father's arms no matter what. 

He kept crying for his sister.  He didn't trust any of the firemen. 

He didn't believe they did not find her alive.  He didn't believe because he knew that they just didn't do their job well.  They just don't know where exactly could her sister be and they were too slow.  If only he was able to get in and find his sister himself.  It was just a storeroom and they could not find her.  He thought she must be under her table with her stuff. 

If only he was allowed to go in and he was stronger to get free from the tight embrace of his father.

Chanyeol never stopped crying that night.

Not only Chanyeol but the boy who was last with her could not stop crying as well. 
 

----------

While his hand was over one side of his face, he leaned on the wall and slowly slid his way down to sit.  He started whimpering.

After 10 years, he was again reminded of the tragic accident. The day he started hating his own father.  

"Noona..." he cries.

"Noona, I'm sorry..."

"Noona.."