(17) BREAKING FATE

It’s hard to breath when there’s smoke forcing its way into your lungs. You’d cough and gag, eyes tearing up from the taste of soot in your mouth and the way your nose drips. You just can’t breathe properly, no matter how much you try. Not only that, but being surrounded by flames more horrendous than a thousand suns doesn’t exactly help. Baekhyun tosses and turns in his sleep as sweat drips onto his bed from the severe visions flashing through his head.

He couldn’t move an inch from his spot, for if he did, he’d be burned alive. The flames circled around him like a ring of deadly sharks, slowly inching its way closer until he could feel the top layer of his skin sting, scorched by the unbearable heat. It crawls up from his legs and to his chest before spreading out towards his arms, particularly aching on his wrist area. The pain especially marked this area, and he can make out the blob of the scar just by how much it burned.

No matter how much he tried to scream for help, nobody came. He was always alone in his dreams that overtime, became nightmares. The flames would always slowly advance until finally consuming him whole, his entire body igniting into a giant ball of fire.

Then the figure would appear. The figure was always faceless and unknown, but his tall stature loomed ominously over Baekhyun’s tiny frame. The feeling made his heart pump faster, eyes growing more and more terrified the more smaller he seemed to get. It was useless to run, because his legs were bound by flames, and he was too scared to let out another shriek.

He couldn’t do anything.

Finally, before Baekhyun collapsed into a pile of ashes, the figure would always grab him by the shoulders, fingertips adding more pain to his charred skin. He’d feel his stomach churn from how roughly the mysterious figure shook him.

And then he’d be awoken by either a frantic Kyungsoo or a pissed off Sunny.

Kyungsoo was stirring some soup in the kitchen with Chanyeol eagerly peering into the pot by his side, the later completely oblivious to what was happening in the living room. Sunny was sitting at the dinner table, completely immersed in her phone while Baekhyun sat across from her, head tucked away into his folded arms as he dozed off. His light snores were barely audible, but to Sunny, it was like a barrage of chainsaws going off.

“If he can’t handle staying up late then he shouldn’t even bother staying up at all, damn kid.” She grumbled, using the tips of her fingers to rub her temples.

Baekhyun stirred once hearing his name, but only squinted once he saw Sunny glaring holes into him. “Well, I’m sorry that my insomnia bothers your headache. I’ll be sure to give myself a double dose of sleeping pills tonight.” He mocked back.

He was disoriented and not to mention very irritable, almost all the time. His lack of sleep really put a toll on his energy, and he barely has the strength to even get up and go to work. Luckily, Chanyeol has been covering his shift since their boss never checks up on them, only complaining about how lonely it was getting without him.

Sometimes, Kyungsoo would go to the shop with Chanyeol to help out, but after coming home to see Baekhyun and Sunny about to rip each other’s throats out, he opted on also staying home for the time being. Another thing that would bother him was Chanyeol. Since he no longer had Baekhyun to bother every five minutes, his replacement was Kyungsoo. He didn’t mind Chanyeol’s over friendliness, but the cold chill he’d get every time Chanyeol became a little touchy freaked him out. It was like someone was watching them, although whenever he searched around, no one was there.

Rewinding a little bit, it was an early Sunday morning when Kyungsoo was awoken yet again by Baekhyun’s whimpers in his sleep, the latter pushing himself away from Chanyeol who also stayed in a deep slumber. Seeing his discomfort, Kyungsoo went to Baekhyun’s bed to drag Chanyeol into his own bed, constantly trying to pry his arms off whenever Chanyeol tried to cling to him. Once he had separated the two, it was time to head down to the kitchen to make breakfast, only to find Sunny already downstairs with her forehead pressed against the refridgerator door.

“Sunny? Are you okay?” Kyungsoo inched his way over to see Sunny in a miserable state. Her eyes were droopy and the light green and purple discoloration around her eyes didn’t make anything better for her complexion. She looked more like a zombie than a human.

“Oh, Kyungsoo? Yes, I... “ She took a deep breath and sighed once making it to the dining room table. “I’m fine.”

Kyungsoo wasn’t stupid and he could tell she was in pain, swiftly making his way to the kitchen to make her some soup. After a while, the other two had joined them, but Baekhyun’s grumpy attitude was throwing Sunny off, leading to their little spat.

“Chanyeol, can you take these bowls to the table for them?” Kyungsoo said in a hushed voice, afraid that by speaking too loud, he’d manage to irritate them even more.

“Alright!”

Well, so much for trying to keep it down.

Chanyeol carefully took both bowls to the table and set them down in front of the two of them, slowly backing away until bumping into the shelf behind him. It teetered dangerously before swaying to a stop.

“I-I… Sorry…” He murmured, about to walk back into the kitchen when he saw the pictures of Sunny up on the shelf, all neatly aligned in a row. The first one that came across his eye was the picture of her and Jessica in front of the hospital she owned, their smiling faces drawing a little grin on his own face. The next one was a picture of her and Baekhyun. She was smiling, while he was not- rather, they looked like polar opposites. Baekhyun looked like he just really didn’t want to be there.

The rest of the pictures were odd and he couldn’t help but stare. They were all pictures of her before she met Baekhyun, when she still played sports on a national level. In each picture, her shoulders were perfectly squared and her posture was impeccable. Her expression looked blank as if she were made of tin, and no matter what place she took, whether it got her a small medallion or a giant trophy, did her eyes still remained dark and expressionless.

Eventually, Kyungsoo had brought his food and commanded him to start eating before it got cold, becoming distracted himself by the odd pictures. The Sunny in those sports pictures was a Sunny he had never seen before.

“Did you like playing sports, Sunny?”

Eyes turned to look at Chanyeol who indulged himself in dunking his bread into his bowl of soup before smashing it all into his mouth in one bite. “You don’t look happy that’s why.”

She began to ponder about his question while absentmindedly stirring the soup around with her spoon.

“Yes, and no. I loved playing sports, but not to enter competition.” She sighed, finally placing her spoon down so she could think clearly. “I just didn’t like being forced to do something I didn’t like because of the faction.”

Kyungsoo became befuddled by her sudden confession, keeping his confusion to himself. “Why would she have to do something because of a faction?” The question ran through his mind again and again as he tried to come up with a reasonable explanation.

As the meal progressed, Kyungsoo couldn’t help but worry. Sunny looked like she was having trouble eating by the way her hand returned to rub at her temple after every two spoonfuls of soup. He stood up to get a couple of pain relievers, but Sunny had stopped him before he had gone into the kitchen.

“It’s not exactly a headache that can be cured by medicine, uh, actually... Can you run an errand for me after breakfast?”

Before Kyungsoo could nod his head, Baekhyun let out a scoff before pushing himself out from the table, his chair squeaking loudly against the wooden floor. “Can’t you just get it yourself? Why can’t you ever go to do your own damn errands for once?”

Sunny’s expression dropped and her eyes averted everyone else’s’.

“I… I just-”

“You just what? You just can’t?” Baekhyun growled, not liking how pitiful she looked. Sunny was supposed to jump out of her chair and be ready to claw out his eyes, but right now, she looked like a wet kitten and it angered him.

“It’s okay, Baekhyun, really!” Kyungsoo stuttered out, holding his hands up awkwardly in between the two. “I can just take Chanyeol and go later, right Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol still hadn’t figured out why Baekhyun was mad and this situation wasn’t helping him in the least, fervently nodding his head until Baekhyun let out an irritated huff.

There he went again. Ever since Baekhyun’s been having his nightmares, Kyungsoo has been trying his best to help him out, constantly coming to his aid when the timing was just too good. It pissed him off, being treated like a kid. He was pretty sure he was a grown man by now and didn’t need a babysitter. It made him even more upset knowing that Kyungsoo was the one trying to calm everyone down when Sunny was his problem right now, not Kyungsoo’s.

She’s been so apathetic towards his life crisis, almost ignorant about how he’s been so stressed out lately. It was like she didn’t even care about him anymore. He was going to get left behind.

Suddenly something bright flashed into Baekhyun’s eyes and he was momentarily blinded before his vision went black and white. The scenes in front of him weren’t pretty. There was so much alcohol and cigarettes, something that didn’t even exist anymore, or to his knowledge didn’t. They ran through his mind like a cinema tape, the flashes growing brighter and sharper until he finally saw the back of a woman. She was standing in front of a door and didn’t look back before taking a step outside, vanishing and leaving Baekhyun all alone to be swallowed up by another wall of flames.

“-hyun? Baekhyun!”

Leaning over the table, Baekhyun tried his best to even out his ragged breaths. What he saw was something he’d never like to experience ever again. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but the feeling in his gut was eminent and the answer got stuck in his throat before he could say it out loud.

It was a part of his past. And a bad one at that.

“It’s nothing… I’m coming with you guys. I need to get out of this damn house.”

And with that he left the room, slightly disoriented, but still more functional than when Kyungsoo was trying to get his attention earlier. As he left, Sunny couldn’t help but worry about his wellbeing, returning to her room telling Kyungsoo and Chanyeol where to go to get her special medication. It was just another trip back to faction B so it wasn’t like they’d lose their way, but nevertheless, she told them to be careful before she too left the room.

Kyungsoo managed to get Chanyeol to help him clean-up, a little more anxious since Chanyeol’s bad luck always grew stronger once they were in the kitchen.

“So, what just happened?” He asked, body sitting backwards on the chair so he would watch Kyungsoo as he finished up with the rest of the dishes.

“Sunny has been having headaches, hopefully you realized,” Kyungsoo paused, waiting to make sure Chanyeol was processing everything. After seeing that he understood, he continued to speak.“ And Baekhyun’s been having nightmares lately. That’s why they’re fighting- because they’re so sleep deprived and in pain.”

“Ohhh…” Chanyeol hummed. At least he understood why Baekhyun hasn’t let him sleep in the same bed as him for a while. He’s always been staying in Kyungsoo’s bed until Baekhyun finally dozed off, signaling that he could make his way into the latter’s bed instead. “Are they mad at each other?”

After washing the last bowl, Kyungsoo wiped his hands on his jeans and made his way into the dining room, plopping down on a chair next to Chanyeol. “I don’t think Sunny is, she’s just in pain so she’s irritated. Baekhyun on the other hand, well. I’m not really sure.”

He’s noticed how worried Sunny would be whenev