--

Baekhyun didn’t think much of it when Chanyeol didn’t show up to class. Chanyeol hurried out in the morning while pressing kisses on Baekhyun’s lips, saying something about being late to class. He said they’d talk about what happened last night later, and maybe talk about getting back together again.

He checked his phone to see a text from Chanyeol saying he wouldn’t be in class because of an emergency. Baekhyun immediately got alarmed and asked him if he was okay. Chanyeol assured him he was, but Baekhyun was still left with a feeling of unease that hadn’t left him since he visited the house.

Speaking of which, he had to go out there again, but the feeling that Chanyeol wasn’t really okay was nagging at him, so as soon as class was over, Baekhyun went straight to Chanyeol’s apartment.

He banged on the door a few times, calling Chanyeol’s name before finally picking up the phone and calling him. It rang four times before Chanyeol finally picked up.

“Yeol? Where are you? I’m outside your apartment,” Baekhyun said, running his hand through his hair.

“Oh, I stepped out to run errands for a bit. Listen, I’m going to be a little bit busy for the rest of the day, okay? I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Baekhyun blinked a few times before letting out a sigh. “Oh. Okay. Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Bye.”

If Baekhyun weren’t so jittery, he probably would’ve noticed how strained Chanyeol’s voice sounded. He was far from okay, and at that moment, he wasn’t sure if he was even going to be alive tomorrow.

“Good,” Jongin said, hanging up Chanyeol’s phone and throwing it behind him onto the kitchen table. Chanyeol struggled in the chair he was tied to as Jongin sighed.

Chanyeol was on his way home when he was suddenly knocked out. When he woke up again, he was bound to a chair, gagged and tied while a man in a suit smoked a cigarette in front of him, eyes looking dark and deadly.

He’d tried to escape, but the cloth binding his arms and legs to the chair was tied too tightly, cutting off his circulation. “Who are you? Why am I here?” Chanyeol yelled, struggling in the chair again.

Jongin took a few steps forward and smirked at him before reaching out to grab his hair painfully and yanking his head back. “You are here,” Jongin said, tracing the veins on Chanyeol’s neck with his free hand, “because you touched and defiled something that belongs to me.” His voice was laced with something that sounded like poison.

“What are you talking about?” Chanyeol hissed, trying not to cry out in pain as his head was pulled further back.

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. And I’m going to teach you a lesson about playing with things that don’t belong to you.”

Chanyeol couldn’t even scream when he felt something pierce his neck.

--

Baekhyun was apprehensive about going back out to the house, but he didn’t like leaving jobs unfinished, even if he didn’t technically commit to doing this job. It didn’t settle right with him to leave something halfway, especially with how much he was paid for doing next to nothing the day before.

When he arrived on site this time, he hardly recognized anyone’s face besides the site manager’s. The manager saw him coming again and waved him over with his hand.

“I don’t recognize anyone here,” Baekhyun said, looking around again.

“Yeah. A lot of people bailed out on us because of the story behind this house.”

Baekhyun opened his mouth to ask about it but changed his mind. He wanted to finish this house and be done with it before something happened. Plus, he didn’t think his heart would be able to take anything else today.

“You’ll take the attic today. Just clean out whatever is there. The safety inspector said it was safe to go up there.”

--

Baekhyun headed up the stairs to see the trap door to the attic lowered. He was hit with a sense of déjà vu, staring at the lowered ladder. He climbed up slowly, just in case there was something wrong with the ladder, and when his head poked up into the attic, he glanced around at the boxes littering the room.

Baekhyun’s shoes kicked up dust with every step he took. He glanced around the room at the boxes, chests, and random objects. He made his way over to the broken window and saw some scaffolding set up so the painters could start painting the outside of the house.

He turned around and stopped, squinting his eyes and trying to remember something that was nagging at him. Then it hit him.

“Oh! This looks like...” It looked like the house he used to draw when he was a kid. His teacher told him to be creative with a project she sent him home with one day, to design a house just for him.

“It looked almost exactly like this,” Baekhyun said to himself, thinking about the floor plan. He was only eight, when he drew it, but Baekhyun could remember the idea behind it. “Huh. Figures, my dream house would have some creepy back story to it.”

--

When Baekhyun got back home, he was surprised to see Chanyeol standing outside of his doorway. He was pacing back and forth, trembling slightly. Baekhyun’s eyebrows furrowed with worry when he noticed how pale Chanyeol was.

“Yeol?”

Chanyeol nearly jumped when he heard Baekhyun call him, and stopped pacing. He stood nervously as Baekhyun approached him, and kept a good distance between the two of them.

“What are you-”

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

Baekhyun froze and stared at Chanyeol for a few seconds before a smile broke out on his face. “Yeol, you can’t scare me like that. Stop it. Come inside, you look ridiculously pale,” Baekhyun said.

“I mean it, Baekhyun. We can’t see each other anymore.”

Baekhyun stopped in the doorway and turned to give Chanyeol a weird look. “What are you talking about?”

“I was just using you. I wanted to have with you, and that was it. I don’t consider you a friend or anything, just a conquest.” Chanyeol’s heart burned as the words spilled from his mouth, but if he didn’t say them, then he would start to feel a cut forming on his body.

“... Just a conquest? What? Chanyeol, listen, we don’t have to be in a relationship together. I didn’t mind our friendship-”

“No. This is it. This is the last time we’ll see each other.” And Chanyeol left Baekhyun standing there in his doorway, completely dumbfounded.

You better not look back. Or there will be consequences. Chanyeol gritted his teeth and faced forward, resolutely not turning around, even when he heard Baekhyun calling for him.

--

It would be his luck that the one time he needed his friends, they would be unavailable. Baekhyun threw his phone down after he got Chanyeol’s voicemail for the third time and started to dial Kyungsoo’s number for the fifth time.

“The one time I actually need someone,” he said, staring at his phone. When he heard Kyungsoo’s voicemail, he threw his phone and covered his eyes. Baekhyun never realized just how many people were there for him until they were gone.

--