xxv.

the tree of life stood tall and proud, its silver branches adorned with a million golden leaves that seemed to have their own glow in this wonderland of theirs. sehun stood near its roots, back facing the shiny beauty, eyes set on the four males in front of him. he eyed them and they eyed him. someone was going to break the silence soon – sehun knew who. sehun knew by heart which words were about to be pronounced, too. he has lost account of how many times he’s heard them.

“so.. you’re the new guardian.”

baekhyun was the one breaking the silence. a friendly smile adorned his lips, although the hint of uncertainty remained. what was new to them was a broken record to sehun, playing over and over again – and the worst was that he has committed himself to the insanity of becoming an actor and pretending, every single time, that this is the first time he’s hearing these words.

“yes.” he agrees softly, a calm though small smile making its way on his own lips. as much as his personality has altered through his constant timeline resetting, the soft spot he holds for baekhyun has never died out. sehun doubts it ever will.

there’s a click of tongue and sehun knows very well who it belonged to, turning his head almost automatically towards jongin who eyed him with a scornful expression, bitterness and concealed pain dripping in his features. “if you think you can take zitao’s place-“

“zitao is dead.” sehun retorts coldly and it’s enough to shut jongin up, who sends off a piercing glare he’s all too familiar with. too many times, too many times. this cursed fate of his has trapped him in constant replaying, a beckoning life sehun wants to turn his back to. he wants to fall into oblivion, too, and be as innocent as the group standing in front of him; ignorance is bliss and sehun learnt it the hard way.

but he can’t be innocent, he can’t close his eyes. there is a reason, a purpose behind each time he winds back the clock; one he shall not fail for as long as he stands.

baekhyun looks hurt at these words and sehun knows it without looking at him, avoiding the sight of the aching in the other’s eyes over the mention of his friend’s death. sehun has learnt over the time that there are sights he can avoid,  things he can choose to not see anymore.

(whether or not it helps him sleep better at night, he doesn’t know.)

“it’s alright,” kyungsoo reassures an angry jongin, a whisper meant only for him although it was heard by everyone for this world was quieter than silence. his hand finds jongin’s arm to rub, giving him one last look as if to ask him to not pick up any more fights, before looking back at their team’s newest addition. “what’s your name?”

sehun eyes them. embossed in the back of his mind are memories of moments spent together; memories of kyungsoo’s cooking, of jongin’s encouraging words, of chanyeol’s laughter, of baekhyun’s care. he recalls, once upon a time, spending nights tracing the contours of his face, the curve of his small nose and the line of his thin lips. he recalls whispers of sweet nothings and hopes of better days, blissful and ignorant of what lied ahead.
but above all, he recalls holding them, all of them, in one timeline or another with tear-stained faces, bloody clothes and lifeless eyes.

and so he ignores the pain, he ignores the urgent need of comforting arms and reassurance and instead, he smiles.

“i’m sehun.”

“hi.”

a smile tugs at the corners of sehun’s lips, having been waiting for this greeting for perhaps the past ten minutes. he knows by heart the moments where he will be approached, by who, when, and for what motive. he has learnt to wait for them and expect them, to accept them fondly for this period of time – before their first major fights – is the one he embraces the most.
the time where he mentally prepares himself for what is yet to come.

and so sehun smiles, he smiles because everything feels so calm, so gentle and silent in painful contrast to burning cities and ruined lives. his gaze remains on the time gadget he had been polishing, attached to his wrist like a never-ending curse, and when he speaks, his voice is as soft as the boy standing beside him. “hello, baekhyun.”

baekhyun smiles – sehun knows –, and when he crouches down with a cheeky smile and hopeful eyes, sehun can’t help but smile wider to himself. there are many beautiful things sehun has witnessed throughout time, but he has yet to come by something more beautiful than the undying hope in baekhyun’s eyes.

“sehun-ah.” baekhyun begins, expectant, contained excitement clear in his features. “you spend a lot of time in this world. do you have a home on earth?”

sehun wishes to confess that no, he does not – he has a house, for home is wherever baekhyun is. instead, he continues smiling. “i do. i simply enjoy the silence in this world.”

(his gaze remains on the time gadget. he tells himself he doesn’t need to look at baekhyun to know by heart how pretty the boy looks. maybe sehun just doesn’t want to see such innocent hope.)

“ah. it is very quiet here.” baekhyun agrees, glancing elsewhere. sehun knows the rest of the group is watching them. “say, um—kyungsoo is going to cook for everyone. you know, like a big group lunch.” he fidgets softly, shy and perhaps a little nervous smile remaining. “his cooking is really great. and, well.. what i’d like to ask, is, if you’d like—if you’d like to join us?”

sehun glances upwards, towards the group, and back at his hands. “i don’t think kyungsoo likes me very much. nor jongin, for that matter.”

“oh, they do.” baekhyun reassured, brows furrowing together just the slightest in worry. “they were just.. upset about zitao. but they know it’s not your fault, so-“

“is it really not my fault?”

“no. no, it’s not.”

sehun presses his lips in a thin line, suppressing back a pained smile. baekhyun is naïve, so naïve.

instead he stands up, feet beginning to take him towards the group. baekhyuns softly calls after him, worry and perhaps a sense of rejection in his voice. unnecessary it is, for when sehun looks over his shoulder and points out, “they’re waiting for us, are they not?”, the smile that grows on baekhyun’s lips is enough to warm a thousand winters.

sehun wishes he could keep baekhyun’s life an eternal sunshine.

“walpurgis night. she’s the most powerful witch.”

“the most powerful, eh?”

“a witch that has grown from the combination of countless other witches. she has the destructive power to bring natural disasters powerful enough to blow away an entire town.”

“her mere appearance can cause hundreds of deaths.”

“that’s awful..”

“we need to fight.”

“sehun?”

tired eyes slowly move from staring at the foggy weather outside the window, meeting the conversing group whose eyes were all set on sehun now. baekhyun looked the most worried, gentle features writhen in ways sehun hated the most.  “you’ve been awfully quiet today.”

suppressing back a sigh, sehun merely turned his head slowly to look out of the window once more. his silence wouldn’t ever be understood – nor could he, in the first place, begin to express his knowledge of many deaths, many lost battles and many reset timelines. there was no possible way of expressing his sorrow in words for this is the strongest, the deadliest witch arriving the three day time.

and she is the only one the guardians never, ever managed to win.

“are you scared?”

an innocent question that earns a broken laugh in return, one that sounded more like a desperate exhale rather than a breathless chuckle. sehun lowers his head, hand brought to rub his aching temples.

sehun wasn’t scared. he was terrified out of his mind  for this was not going to be a fight at all.

this was only going to be a heavy defeat for them all, and sehun was the one who would have to bear it later on.

“it’s going to be okay.” sehun’s thoughts consumed him in such way that he hardly noticed baekhyun crouching down in front of his seat, small kind smile on his lips as he attempted to reach the taller’s eyes. “don’t be afraid, sehun-ah. we can do this.”

and sehun wanted to deny, he wanted to refuse and shout and maybe cry because baekhyun was innocent, too innocent in a sense that his wildest imagination couldn’t cover what was yet to come. as for sehun himself, he didn’t need imagination; he had his own memories creeping up on him every other second he found himself alone with his own buttons.

yet instead of asking them to not fight, instead of begging baekhyun to run away with him and leave others to deal with this witch so sehun could be selfish for once and be happy at last, he forced himself to show the smile he learnt to sew on his lips.

there are many miserable things sehun has witnessed throughout time, but he has yet to come by something more miserable than the undying hope in baekhyun’s eyes.

sehun has learnt to become one with the fight, movements and techniques engrained in his mind like a textbook learnt at school. he has become skilled, awfully skilled in fighting and he does everything with a lot more ease than he did at first. it’s easy to switch between weapons and dodge attacks of the witch’s minions, dodging them in swift motions of his own and using all possible hiding places for necessary cover.

he runs in between burnt houses and crumbling roofs, knowing the witch’s realm by heart like a map craved in the back  of his cranium. a sense of gravity and physics is lost underneath walpurgis’ powers and sehun takes advantage of the floating crumbled pieces of what had once been someone’s house to jump and gain a better view, a better aim at the quantity of creatures he has yet to shoot. he has lost the others already, in other battles with the exception of baekhyun, whom sehun demanded to stay out of the situation. sehun knew walpurgis night perhaps better than he knew himself, having studied the witch in enough timelines to know how to hopefully win her at last.

it was most likely a shot in the dark to attempt to win a witch this powerful on his own, but as long as baekhyun stayed out of it, sehun couldn’t care less for what would happen to himself.

but there is only so much damage sehun can do on a witch almost the size of a mountain herself with handguns and hand grenades, let alone dealing with her minions. it results in deep wounds, often being thrown against the crumbling buildings and bearing the pain of broken ribs, but sehun never falters in continuing to fight. as long as he can only stand, as long as he can keep baekhyun safe, he will not give up.

needless to say it leaves him exasperated when an arrow pierces through a minion that had caught sehun by surprise and the boy witnesses, much to his horror, baekhyun join him in battle. it’s not happened just once, nor twice, but more often than sehun can possibly count. no matter the timeline, no matter how much sehun stressed his demand on baekhyun to stay safe and hidden, the boy is way too stubborn to stay still and witness sehun be thrown across shattered buildings. sehun doesn’t know why he still tries to convince baekhyun to stay behind, but he knows this is how it starts.

and he knows this is how it ends: a battle almost won, a witch almost defeated, a glory almost reached – and then out of nowhere, out of sheer surprise, the sight of baekhyun being brutally impaled by one of the witch’s spikes.

when sehun resets the timeline for the nth time, he feels himself go a little madder.

xxxii.

“so.. you’re the new guardian.”

“yes.”

“if you think you can take zitao’s place-“

“zitao is dead.”

one, two, three, four, ten, twenty, fifty.

sehun has lost count to how many times he’s heard this, how many times he’s lived this.

memories of the past timelines remain vivid yet everyone else is so clueless, so naïve, so innocent. sehun is a broken record, a broken clock beyond repair. held by countless strings of a fate he did not ask for, forced to witness things he did not wish for. sehun was once a normal human being and now he is but a puppet in these fatal games whose entire purpose rests on assuring one boy remains alive – one boy who, if fallen to the pits of darkness, holds within himself the power of uttermost destruction. if sehun fails, the universe meets its end.

one task a tad too big for the shoulders of a nineteen-year-old to carry on his own.

a nineteen-year-old that has lost everything he ever had along the courses of endless timelines – including his own humanity.

 “what’s your name?”

 “i’m sehun.”

xxxviii.

sehun has learnt to walk in ruins as if walking at home, safe steps towards the protection of his mother’s embrace. sehun has learnt to accept darkness as his own shield of light, protecting him idly from further harm. sehun eyes destroyed buildings and crumbled towns and he doesn’t feel fear; he sees a routine, and one day, he hopes to see a victory.

his steps seem to echo in what has now become a ghost city, succumbed to ashes by the destructive nature of walpurgis night. his expression is stern although his fingertips still shake, neglected anxiety pushed off to the confined chambers of his lonely heart.

he’s searching, not finding. panic begins to creep at the graveyard he owns for a ribcage and it pulls at his veins, maliciously, painfully, silent mocking of his own fate that sehun tries so desperately to ignore. in his path, he finds jongin; bloodied body fallen in between the city ashes, legs stuck at odd angles. jongin reaches out for him, weak, suffering, a broken smile as a sign of last hope in his face stained by dirt, tears and blood – and sehun replies by putting a bullet through his cranium.

sehun feels as if the eyes of those who once fought with him, now dead in their own battlefield, follow him as he passes by them without a second glance spared. his humanity was tore from him many timelines ago, leaving no space for mourning over those who, in the end, don’t matter at all — only baekhyun does.

and when sehun finds him, head smashed beyond recognition underneath a crumbled building, it is not sorrow he feels, nor despair, nor misery.

he feels nothing but numbness as his fingers automatically so turn the clock wheels of his time gadget.

xlii.

the silence would have been heavy and black between them if only it weren’t for baekhyun’s unceasing sobbing, miserable and broken and pitiful in every way a person could be reduced to. sehun stood next to the kneeling boy whose body bent forwards and frail hands covered his own face, endless tears spilling from his eyes and each hurting sehun more than the last. the thing sehun hated most about resetting timelines was that there was only a certain period of time he could predict – the moment battles begin, it follows its own route and leaves him without a map. sehun never knows when he will end the day with a smiling or a broken baekhyun.

and only sehun knows how much it hurts to witness baekhyun succumb to despair and depression in which sehun has been swimming in for a long time now, over and over again.

“ing hell.” jongin was the first to break the silence in the group, a hand running hastily through his dark locks, teeth chewing mercilessly on his own lower lip. his breathing was hardly even, anger and despair causing his hands to shake in a terrific way despite his constant attempts at stopping them. “ing hell- she never told us. she never even told us about this.”

“it’s awful.” baekhyun choked out, voice tiny and body only trembling more. sehun wrapped an arm better around the smaller’s back. “i-it’s cruel. it’s too cruel, it’s j-just-“

“it’s all in vain.” yixing mumbled out, own eyes threatening to spill as he kept his gaze on the ground, as if unable to meet their eyes, as if unable to meet their fate. “it’s an endless cycle. we will never win—it will never end.”

and he was right – sehun knew it already. a guardian’s fate is nothing but darkness itself; an entire life of fight and loss only builds despair in one’s soul. despair such that takes the form of an opposite ideal of the own they fight for upon death – a witch.
a guardian must die for a witch to be born, and she shall feed on the deepest sorrows and regrets of the guardian himself.

for as long as guardians exist, witches won’t ever disappear. that is their fate – to one day, sooner or later, become what they try to save the earth from.

and if only witnessing junmyeon’s death hadn’t been enough, they had also to witness the birth of a new witch and fight what had once been one of their own.

“all of us— one day, all of us—“

the deafening sound that startled the entire group caught sehun absolutely off-guard and it was over as quick as it happened, echoing endlessly in his hurting eardrums. to say shock filled the room would be a terrific understatement, disturbance painting over everyone’s features as they witnessed, terrified and cold to the bone, yixing’s body drop lifeless, a bullet put through between his widened eyes.

and just like that, chaos was set.

“kyungsoo, what the —?!” sehun shouted out, gaze set on the haunting smoke ghosting from the just fired gun, held threateningly by the shaking boy. jongin and chanyeol were paralised in terror, baekhyun only cried louder – and sehun, sehun felt stupid not keeping an eye on kyungsoo, for he had always been the most unstable of them all. “do you have any idea of what you’ve just done?!”

“a test.” came kyungsoo’s reply, cold as ice and dark as the insanity creeping in his chest.

“a test—?!” it was jongin’s turn to shout, disbelief and horror washing over his features. “you killed yixing—and you call that a test?!”

baekhyun trembled miserably by now, hands gripping at his own hair as he cried out ‘stop’s and ‘don’t’s, unheard pleas for this insanity to stop – pleas that sehun himself has stopped voicing out long ago for the uselessness of it.

“s-see—?” kyungsoo choked out something akin to a sickened laughter, wide eyes fixed on yixing’s motionless body, pointing towards it with the gun he held. “he’s not turning—he’s n-not turning. you don’t become a witch if you die—you become a witch if you’re killed by one.”

“kyungsoo—“

“so i’m sparing us all from that fate.” he continued with his talk of insanity, twitching smile growing on his lips as he choked out mixes of sobs and laughs. “if we all die—we all die now, we won’t—we won’t ever turn into witches—“

“kyungsoo-“ chanyeol called out, at last finding his voice as he took a careful step or two closer to the shorter – stopping immediately once kyungsoo directed the weapon towards him, hands raising in the air. “kyungsoo, don’t do this—this is not- this is not the right way to—“

another gunshot. sehun and jongin jolted at the sound and baekhyun screamed, unbearable emotional pain causing him to curl up more in this miserable ball of shattered hope he reduced himself to. jongin was panicked, clear in his gaze, and sehun was starting to feel the cold sting of immense fear as well.

there are a lot of things sehun can control, a lot of things he can endure with mere rewinding – but his own death would mean absolute defeat at last, for all of them.

sehun stood up in a jolt, adrenaline rushing through his veins and anxiety poking at his ribcage, eyes fixed on that weapon of kyungsoo’s. but kyungsoo held no intentions of civilized conversation, he made it clear for before sehun could even open his mouth, jongin was shot the same way and now the gun was pointed towards no other than sehun himself.

“kyungsoo—“ sehun breathed out, voice shaky and exasperated in its own way as he feared not for himself, but for baekhyun. “kyungsoo, you don’t want to do this—“

“it’s the only way.” kyungsoo breathed out just the same, and the tears slipping from his eyes didn’t seem to trouble in any way his aiming right at sehun’s forehead. “it’s the only way, sehun—we—“

sehun stared, wide-eyed, as he witnessed life escape from kyungsoo’s eyes, an arrow piercing right through his heart. the weapon was dropped and so was the boy’s body, meeting the same lifeless end as the three other bodies in the room. cold sweat dripped down sehun’s forehead as he slowly turned his head to be met with baekhyun on his knees, arm stretched in a tight hold of another gleaming arrow – not in kyungsoo’s direction, but in sehun’s.

“baekhyun..”

“is it really the only way, sehun?” baekhyun sobbed out, and he was visibly broken, so broken. “i-is it really—is it really the only way we won’t become witches..?”

“baekhyun, put the weapon down—“

“i d-don’t want to become a witch, sehun..”

déjà vu hit sehun hard and he swallowed dryly, heartbeat loud and pulsing in his eardrums. “baekhyun, please..”

but baekhyun only pulled his arm further back, stretching the bow’s string as far as it would go. sehun knew, he knew very well that if only baekhyun hit him in the right place, sehun stood no chance of survival.

and baekhyun never missed a shot.

“i’m s-sorry, sehun—i’m sorry, b-but we can’t—i c-can’t let you, i can’t—“

it happened far too fast and before baekhyun could even finish, sehun pulled at his own handgun and shot the boy right through the ribcage.

there are things, awful things sehun has done that he will have to live with for the rest of infinity. things that will eat him up alive at night and spit him out in the morning, exhausted and lifeless in his own way. but there are things necessary to survival, not only of himself, but of the other guardians as well.

he has learnt that to save baekhyun once, there is a lot of blood that has yet to spill.

xliv.

sehun always thought kyungsoo looked most majestic fighting, in a continuous dance macabre of flips, twirls and flips smoother than silk itself. kyungsoo had always acted as almost an example for all of them, sehun included, on how fighting should be done. he never fails a shot, he never breaks a sweat.

it’s mesmorising the way his body moves so swiftly with a whole variety of gun weapons as his personal dance partner, appearing out of thin air with a mere flick of cape. he turns and moves and swings with the wind, firing a whole symphony of gunshots that grant them bulletproof victory against the darkest of witches.

kyungsoo is confident, secure, fearless. his presence isn’t as hopeful as baekhyun’s yet he emits within himself a faultless aura of safeness that draws everyone from the group in; kyungsoo longs for great deeds and he likes the taste of golden triumph in his tongue.

but greed consumes gold and the group watches in pure horror as kyungsoo’s body falls headless from a greedier witch’s mouth that proceeds to dine on his body, putting a gruesome ending to this orchestral melody of his.

xlix.

the raindrops feel almost refreshing as they fall on sehun’s freshly open wounds, messily washing away the blood in his clothes and stinging him in dreadful reminders he is still breathing. he can’t tell if he’s lying in a puddle of rain or his own blood, but something in his guts tells him it’s a hideous mix of both. everything hurt in a way that sehun felt numb, and above all, hopeless.

he counts the raindrops falling on his face and he wonders if the number matches the amount of times he has found himself in this same situation. another battle lost, another doomed timeline; sehun feels everything slip from him and for once, he wonders if he should wind back the clock once more or accept, at last, his defeat.

but as he glances  at his side, at the figure of baekhyun lying next to him, closed eyes and chest shakily heaving up and down in struggles of his own last breaths, sehun is reminded once more of why it’s still worth it to continue fighting. he remembers nights spent in each other’s arms in more than one timelines, he remembers the curvatures of baekhyun’s waist and the way the smaller’s delicate fingers would trace the veins of his wrists, he remembers the way baekhyun’s eyes reminded him of clouded galaxies scintillating unceasingly with stardust as they exchanged whispers of i love you’s.

baekhyun’s innocence at the beginning of each timeline reminds sehun of a newborn flower – one that instead of blooming ends up rotting away into decay and despair. sehun’s goal is to, one day, watch as baekhyun’s innocence remains and blooms into the most beautiful rose which sehun will care for until the end of time, safe from thorns that sehun shall cut before birth, thorns these that will only remain as forgotten memories in the confines of sehun’s mind.

but sometimes, before resetting the timeline, sehun likes to close his eyes and wish he could be as innocent as him again.

i.

the tree of life stood tall and proud, its silver branches adorned with a million golden leaves that seemed to have their own glow in this wonderland of theirs. sehun stood near its roots, back facing the shiny beauty, eyes set on the four males in front of him. he eyed them and they eyed him, set in a rather awkward silence that mainly left sehun nervous, anxiety-filled eyes observing these persons he had never seen before.

“so.. you’re the new guardian.”

one of them breaks the silence at first, and although there’s a kind smile on his lips, the hint of uncertainty in his voice is caught by sehun nevertheless. his hair is pitch black and his eyes are almost as dark, but the hint of rosiness in his cheeks adds to the picture in a way sehun found quite pretty.

“i- i don’t know?” sehun replies, speaking at last for the first time; his voice cracks a little, yet the sound of it seems to ease the threatening gazes of most of them. they soften, mainly the boy that first spoke; he looks understanding, gentle features easing sehun’s anxiety. “i don’t know what’s happening, i-“

but there’s a click of tongue that interrupts him and sehun’s attention drifts towards another one of the boys who eyed him with a scornful expression, bitterness and concealed pain dripping in his features. “if you think you can take zitao’s place, you can get off your high horse, you hear me?“

whatever ease the first boy had brought him was ruined by these hateful words, anxiety creeping up on his chest once more as sehun couldn’t help but feel helpless in return. lost was he, confused to the bone and hardly recalling how he got there in the first place. “i-i don’t- i-“

“leave him be.” a third voice joins in and it belongs to the shortest of them, soothing and calming as he directs himself towards the angered boy, a comforting hand rubbing his arm. “it’s not his fault.”

and sehun is confused, too confused, gaze jumping from one standing figure to another in hopes of answers to his unspoken questions. he feels threatened and he wants to demand them, yet common sense tells him to remain quiet and observe, wait for the answers to find him instead.

“say,” the same boy speaks once more and sehun almost jolts, pulled out of his thoughts by a demanding voice. “what’s your name?”

and so sehun ignores the anxiety, the fear and the unknown, and instead, he attempts a friendly albeit nervous smile.

“i’m sehun.”

“zitao was our friend.” the boy of tar black hair – baekhyun, he introduced – spoke, small distant smile on his lips. they sat by the roots of the tree of life, and sehun couldn’t help but notice how the mighty tree’s shine seemed to make baekhyun’s skin glow just the same. “he was part of our group, as a guardian, too. he had time control and that same gadget.” baekhyun points out, slim index finger poking the metallic gadget attached to sehun’s wrist. “he died when trying to save you, so i guess that’s why mama granted you his place.”

“he died?” sehun’s brows pinched in unease, a mix of worry and pity boiling in his stomach. “because of me?”

“mhmm. it’s natural you don’t remember, though.” baekhyun shrugs, smile remaining although the sadness dripping from it almost made sehun feel like drowning. “you see, there are these.. things, creatures we call witches. they are the reason behind every bad thing in the world. weaker witches are the reason behind nightmares. stronger witches manage to attach themselves to the mind of a person even when awake which leads to depression and, often, suicide. some witches don’t even need to take control over humans individually; their mere appearance can cause death and natural disasters.”

“so.. i was attacked by a witch?”

“yes. when a witch attaches to you, she takes absolute control of your mind and body, so you don’t remember your actions at all. guardians can sense when a witch is near, so our task is to fight them off and save people’s lives. i think it’s a very honorable duty, but.. sometimes it gets quite brutal.” baekhyun explained, unease clear in his voice as he rubbed his own arms for self-comfort. “witches are absolutely unpredictable. we are engulfed in this realm created by them and we are trapped there unless we kill them. sometimes, something goes wrong and they kill one of us. that’s tao’s case.”

silence sets between them as sehun thought, mentally chewing on baekhyun’s words and replaying them in his head for further understanding. “this means that.. now i am a guardian too?”

“yes.”

“and i have to fight?”

“if you want.”

“i don’t have a choice, do i?”

“well,” baekhyun smiles rather shyly although there was nothing happy about the stretching of his lips as he shrugs, glancing elsewhere. “you can’t not be a guardian now, you know? none of us had a choice. when chosen by mama, there’s nothing else to do. as for fighting.. it is our duty. of course, if you don’t want, you don’t have to join us. you can just close your eyes at what goes on with the witches. but a little extra help is welcomed nevertheless.”

sehun hums, thoughtful. “who is mama?”

“she is.” baekhyun replies, looking behind his shoulder as he moves a palm to touch the tree’s golden trunk. it seemed to momentarily glow brighter upon the touch. “the tree of life. she is the one that chooses the guardians.”

“i know it’s a lot to take in.” baekhyun continues after a short moment, understanding smile on his lips as he eyes sehun with gentle eyes. “i reacted a lot worse than you, to be honest. just take your time, and don’t worry. i’m always here for you, okay?” baekhyun smiles a little wider, a little brighter. “we all are.”

and with a lighter chest and a warmer feeling in his belly, sehun finds himself smiling back as he nods, “okay.”

“n-no—“ sehun choked out, blurred vision barely blocking the gruesome vision in sight. tears overflowed from his eyes in utter panic, adrenaline pulsing in his veins as his hands, shaking beyond control, attempted to press on the wound in baekhyun’s stomach. it was big, too big, and there was blood, too much blood. baekhyun was hardly reacting to it anymore, weak half-lidded eyes fixed on sehun’s face and the latter only took that as a bad sign, anxiety levels rising and consuming his whole being. “please—please don’t—baekhyun, b-baek, please—“

it was awful. it was cruel. days spent together, weeks of laughter and smiles and friendship that blossomed into something more. sehun looked at baekhyun, jongin, kyungsoo and chanyeol and he saw family. he was with them, and he felt at home. the battles fought together, the struggles surpassed in union; the bond between them all was too strong, too important to be taken away from sehun just like this.

he already lost the others, one by one, to this witch – this walpurgis night –, and now, he was losing baekhyun too. sehun knew he was next, sehun knew the witch was going to destroy everything in her way now, with no one to stop her, yet all that mattered to him was the dying boy in his arms.

“you promised you’d be here for me, always—you promised, baekhyun. don’t do this to me, please—“ he cried, yet no amount of tears seemed to make up for the fatal wound in baekhyun’s flesh; if anything, there only seemed to be more and more blood each second and sehun felt like losing his mind. he knew, deep down he knew, that no matter how much he asked, begged, implored for baekhyun to live, his wish wouldn’t be granted.

and it was killing him just the same.

“sehun—“ baekhyun’s voice was weak, soft and raspy all together and it almost went unheard underneath the sound of sehun’s incessant sobbing. a smile adorned baekhyun’s lips and the sight of it only made sehun want to cry harder for it was not the hopeful smile so characteristic of baekhyun’s – it was a goodbye smile. “sehun.. you can go back in time, right?”

confusion filled sehun yet he only wrapped his arms around baekhyun’s frail body in return, giving up on the useless pressing to instead hold the boy while he can. “y-yes?”

“then go back..” baekhyun plead, exhausted voice struggling to be heard. “go back, sehun. to the very beginning, and save us.”

“the beginning..?”

“yes.. go back to when we first met. help us. t-train us for this witch.” baekhyun’s face contorted in pain and sehun only held him closer to his chest, miserable sobs held back the best he could to hear the boy’s faltering voice. “we can do this, sehun—we can win her, i-if only we try again.”

and sehun could only nod repeatedly, teeth worrying his own lower lip as he choked back sobs, a hand finding baekhyun’s own to tightly hold. “i will—i will save you. i’ll save us all. i promise you, baekhyun.”

there’s a twitch of lips that is most likely baekhyun’s weakened attempt at a smile, the boy’s eyes falling closed and sehun hurries his shaky fingers to the wheels of his time gadget – not only to go back, but to stop this nightmare of a situation as quick as he only could.

“sehun..”

baekhyun’s voice stop him just before his fingers wind back the clock, tear-filled eyes finding the boy whose skin tone was turning more and more to an unhealthy shade of pale. his eyes are open again, his own share of tears spilling and there’s a smile back on his lips – but this time, a much more pained one. “i-i don’t want to become a witch..”

and it breaks his heart, oh it breaks sehun’s heart until it falls in unceremonious shards around him. the pain filling baekhyun’s shaky voice feels as hurtful as the pain in sehun’s chest and he wishes, more than anything, that he could save baekhyun from his terrible fate. “i’m sorry, baek.. i’m sorry.” he murmurs in choked sobs of his own, a trembling hand moving to wipe away the tears flowing from the shorter’s eyes. “t-there’s no helping it, baekhyun..”

“you can s-save me..”

“i can’t, baekhyun, i can’t—“

“y-you can.” baekhyun stutters, eyes momentarily closing as his breathing falters in pain. “y-you.. you only turn into a witch if you’re killed by one, r-right?”

“yes—“

“then.. i-if you leave me, i’ll become one.. but..”

“but..?”

baekhyun eyes him intensely, pleading eyes speaking for themselves. sehun eyes him back in confusion. it takes him one second, two seconds – before realisation hits him like a bucket of ice cold water. “o-oh god, no—“ his eyes close tightly as a pained sob escapes his lips and sehun bends his body forwards, forehead leaning on baekhyun’s shoulder. he doesn’t know how much pain one person can take at once, but he’s sure he has passed his limit a long while ago. “p-please, please don’t—don’t make me do this, you can’t—you c-can’t ask me that, baekhyun—“

“please..” baekhyun whispers back and he’s weak, so weak and sehun is sobbing hard, too hard. “don’t let this happen to me, sehun.. please.”

sehun only leans backwards to look at baekhyun and shake his head, sobs making him unable to even attempt speaking. the most cruel dying wish was this, one that sehun would have to live with until the end of time itself – and a pain he would have to live with nevertheless if he knew he left baekhyun in this timeline without at least granting him one last wish.

baekhyun didn’t have much time until his heart would fail him and his soul would engulf his sorrow and become darkness itself, which didn’t leave sehun much time for a choice, either; it left the pain profoundly unbearable.

“sehun…”

with a choked back pained sound, sehun’s shaky hand frantically searched the ground besides him to grab a hold of his earlier dropped weapon before the mouth of his handgun met the skin of baekhyun’s forehead. they eyed each other – sehun, trembling more than it should be humanely possible; baekhyun, looking peaceful at last. they eyed each other and sehun felt his courage leave him, shaky hand barely managing to keep a tight grip of the gun that would soon end baekhyun’s life and take sehun’s sanity with it. they eyed each other and baekhyun forced the weakest, most pained smile of them all, half-lidded and tearful eyes looking at sehun with the most endearing, loving gaze, and so his lips weakly part from where his last words escaped.

“i love you.”

sehun cried out and the immediate sound of gunfire sprinkled him with blood and the most haunting memory he would ever come to face.

l.

the tree of life stood tall and proud, its silver branches adorned with a million golden leaves that seemed to have their own glow in this wonderland of theirs. sehun stood near its roots, back facing the shiny beauty, eyes set on the four males in front of him. he eyed them and they eyed him. someone was going to break the silence soon – sehun knew who. sehun knew by heart which words were about to be pronounced, too. he has lost account of how many times he’s heard them.

“so.. you’re the new guardian.”

baekhyun was the one breaking the silence. a friendly smile adorned his lips, although the hint of uncertainty remained. what was new to them was a broken record to sehun, playing over and over again – and the worst was that he has committed himself to the insanity of becoming an actor and pretending, every single time, that this is the first time he’s hearing these words.

“yes.” he agrees softly, a calm though small smile making its way on his own lips. as much as his personality has altered through his constant timeline resetting, the soft spot he holds for baekhyun has never died out. sehun doubts it ever will.

there’s a click of tongue and sehun knows very well who it belonged to, turning his head almost automatically towards jongin who eyed him with a scornful expression, bitterness and concealed pain dripping in his features. “if you think you can take zitao’s place-“

“zitao is dead.” sehun retorts coldly and it’s enough to shut jongin up, who sends off a piercing glare he’s all too familiar with. too many times, too many times. this cursed fate of his has trapped him in constant replaying, a beckoning life sehun wants to turn his back to. he wants to fall into oblivion, too, and be as innocent as the group standing in front of him; ignorance is bliss and sehun learnt it the hard way.

but he can’t be innocent, he can’t close his eyes. there is a reason, a purpose behind each time he winds back the clock; one he shall not fail for as long as he stands.

baekhyun looks hurt at these words and sehun knows it without looking at him, avoiding the sight of the aching in the other’s eyes over the mention of his friend’s death. sehun has learnt over the time that there are sights he can avoid,  things he can choose to not see anymore.

(whether or not it helps him sleep better at night, he doesn’t know.)

“it’s alright,” kyungsoo reassures an angry jongin, a whisper meant only for him although it was heard by everyone for this world was quieter than silence. his hand finds jongin’s arm to rub, giving him one last look as if to ask him to not pick up any more fights, before looking back at their team’s newest addition. “what’s your name?”

sehun eyes them. embossed in the back of his mind are memories of moments spent together; memories of kyungsoo’s cooking, of jongin’s encouraging words, of chanyeol’s laughter, of baekhyun’s care. he recalls, once upon a time, spending nights tracing the contours of his face, the curve of his small nose and the line of his thin lips. he recalls whispers of sweet nothings and hopes of better days, blissful and ignorant of what lied ahead.
but above all, he recalls holding them, all of them, in one timeline or another with tear-stained faces, bloody clothes and lifeless eyes.

and so he ignores the pain, he ignores the urgent need of comforting arms and reassurance and instead, he smiles.

“i’m sehun.”