Baekho awoke in his own little room, well rested and brain clear. He yawned, wondering if he had partied a little too hard at a fashion show the night before and someone had thoughtfully called an ambulance. That was a good excuse for rest, surely. A real life doctor’s note.

And then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Ren. Ren. His Ren, the Ren he could have been holding in his arms right now if he hadn’t been so stupid. Pain clawed at his chest as his breath came fast and he swung himself over the bed, nearly crashing to the floor in his haste. He stumbled the door, clawing for the knob like a man possessed.

All his fault. Completely his fault. He’d promised! Promised to love and protect and this is what he did? He ran face first into Minhyun, knocking the other poor  boy back to fall to the ground,

“What’s happened?!” He demanded to know, ready to grasp the other by the collar and shake him if he didn’t answer – and quick.

“He’s alive! And fairly stable, he just woke up. I was coming here to wake you –“ Baekho didn’t hear the rest, didn’t hear Minhyun’s warning of “But it might be best to come back later.” He was already off to confirm the news with his own two eyes. He burst into the room to see Ren sitting up in bed, playing on his phone that Baekho had gotten him not so long ago. He played with his free arm, the one not wrapped completely in a sling and bandages.

“Ren,” he breathed as the other boy looked up in surprise. Baekho didn’t know what to do, frozen where he stood, “Ren…,” he could only whisper, sob, again. He brought the sleeve of his jacket up to cover his mouth as he bit down on his lip to muffle the sounds of his sudden hysterics.

“Go away.” The voice was startling, sudden, and cold. So cold a glacier couldn’t have hoped to compete. Rough and brittle, full to the brim with exhaustion.

“W-what?” Baekho stuttered, taking a step forward only to see Ren’s face contort with disgust and rage,

“You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere. Get. Out.”

“Ren –“

“You tried to kill me, and you managed it. And then you had to go and ruin it all! Why couldn’t you have left me be!” Ren’s voice sounded so anguished, broken, but still held a rage beyond belief, “I can only pray I never have to be cursed so badly as to ever see your face again. Why can’t you just do as you’re told?” The monitors began to beep and Ren began to tremble in a form somewhere between terror and anger and tears began to slip down his pale, drawn face. Ren was working himself into a frenzy before someone dragged Baekho out of the room.

This…this was never…never…never what? What he’d expected? True, that wasn’t what he’d hoped. Joy mixed pain of a sharp, nerve shattering, bone breaking kind. Baekho didn’t feel like he’d been slapped. Oh no. More beaten into the ground, to pulp, run over and over again and then obliterated under flame, only to be drowned by a passing typhoon. Guilt. Insurmountable, infinite. Baekho turned and ran.

~~

“BAEKHO!!” he heard someone shout in the distance, but he ignored them, continuing to stare down at the dark water of the Han river. Would he sink or float? Be fished out or devoured by curious creatures lurking in the depths?

Someone whammed into him, knocking him to the ground. Baekho looked up, dazed, to see Kai. Wonderful. One of the people who had also nearly killed Ren along with him. They should form a club. People most certainly going to hell for tainting an angel.

“Don’t you dare jump!” Kai ordered and Baekho’s brow scrunched in confusion before he realized what the other was getting at,

“Of course not,”