Chapter fourteen

04- 08-15

Secrets are hidden

Time will be giv-

‘’Baekhyun.’’

-be saved

But when time is lost

Secrets will-

‘’Baekhyun, please wake up.’’

 will be on the lawn

‘’Hey.’’

Baekhyun weakly swatted the big, warm hands away from his sweaty forehead and cracked one eye open. It was dark for once, much to his liking. He was in his room, drowning in the thick, and comfy bed sheets.

Chanyeol was right next to him, sitting on either a chair or the ground, Baekhyun didn’t bother to find out why.

‘’How are you feeling?’’ It wasn’t Chanyeol who spoke, but Kyungsoo, standing behind the bed with a concerned expression on his face. The room was lit up by nothing but a few candle-lights.

‘’Amazing.’’ Baekhyun said sarcastically, his voice sounding not only extremely hoarse, but also extremely tired. His head was faintly throbbing, not hurting him as much as it did before.

He closed his eyes and heard a sign coming from Kyungsoo. Baekhyun laid in his bed like a shrimp. He wanted to stay in bed forever.

‘’What happened?’’ Chanyeol asked. Baekhyun kept his eyes closed and started murmuring against the pillow.

‘’I felt sick, went to restroom.’’ He shrugged, not remembering much after the last one.

‘’Kyungsoo found you passed out in a toilet stall after all the lights turned off. You should’ve said that you weren’t feeling well. You should’ve gone to bed.’’ Chanyeol started to scold him, but the words all entered Baekhyun’s right ear, and left through his left one. He honestly didn’t remember a thing Chanyeol had said to him just now.

‘’Sorry.’’ He said, stopping Chanyeol from talking any further. There was a short moment of silence before Chanyeol’s hand touched his forehead.

‘’Rest some more.’’

And Baekhyun did.

¬

‘’How’s he feeling?’’ Jongin asked after Chanyeol closed the door to his room. Kyungsoo stayed with Baekhyun for the moment, in case something bad happened. Chanyeol shrugged as they made their was downstairs.

‘’The same, I think. His fever hasn’t dropped yet and he was half asleep just now. But he’ll live.’’

Jongin smiled. ‘’Good to hear, .’’

Chanyeol grabbed a candle from the ground and lit it up as they made their way through the pitch black house to the kitchen.

It was Baekhyun who had control over all the lights.

So when Baekhyun passed out, all the lights turned off.

No one had been able to turn them back on. Min had to apologize for the inconvenience, but no one really minded it and went home with a happy heart. Chanyeol had panicked and immediately ran off the stage to find Baekhyun. After a few minutes, Jongin came to tell him that Kyungsoo had found him.

The lights being off wasn’t really a big problem. It was half past four in the morning and everyone was sleeping. The reason Chanyeol was upstairs just now was because Baekhyun began to act weird in his sleep all of a sudden. Sweating, frowning, heavy breathing.

It was kind of odd, but it was over.

Chanyeol poured two glasses of coca cola for him and his friend before he grabbed a glass of water for the friend upstairs.

‘’Could you bring this one to Kyung?’’ He asked Jongin, not waiting for his reply as he shoved the glass into his hands.

It was going to be a long, dark night. But they didn’t have school tomorrow so Chanyeol didn’t mind it at all.

¬

Baekhyun woke up a few hours later. It was still dark, in- and outside the building. He wasn’t feeling anywhere near the old Baekhyun, but at least better than before. Soft snores filled the room.

Snores that came unremarkably from Kyungsoo – because Chanyeol’s were louder. Baekhyun wanted to sit up, but restrained himself when he heard the door close. Baekhyun closed his eyes again.

He heard a snort. ‘’, you’re gonna get sick as well like that.’’ He heard Jongin speak. He heard soft rumbling before heavy footsteps made their way out of the room. However, the footsteps stopped right in front of the door.

‘’Oh, and Baekhyun. If you’re awake, could you by any chance turn the lights back on? They shut off completely when you were out. Thanks.’’ Jongin spoke quickly and smoothly as if he had either practiced the sentence over and over again in his head, or knew he was awake.

Baekhyun decided to grand his wish. He felt how a piece of him left him when he returned the control of the lights to the building itself. It was an odd feeling, as if something was getting ripped off you and you knew it would never return.

The lights started flickering softly before they dimmed.

Baekhyun heard a shout in triumph and chuckled before he closed his eyes again, welcoming the wanted sleep.

He didn’t miss the blanket around the sleeping Kyungsoo, who sat on the chair across the room.

¬

A few days went by; everyone went back to school, and so did Baekhyun. He recovered from his fever after another two days of sleeping the whole day and only getting out to go to the bathroom or to eat.

The festival was a great success. Even after a week, they were still talking about it, wanting to do such thing again. Baekhyun thought the same, but he wasn’t going to be the ‘main’ organiser again. Never again, no matter how much ‘fun’ he had.

As the week went by, Baekhyun hadn’t seen a trace of Lee Chaelin and the others, which he was happy about.

He didn’t learn much new stuff, actually he learned nothing the whole week – which wasn’t really a surprise. The only thing he had learned to improve in was illusions. Now, Baekhyun never really liked making illusions, but that was until this one day were Baekhyun decided to prank his dear roommate. See it as a sort of payback for the former events.

It was five am, pitch dark outside for everyone, except for their room. It didn’t even take him a minute to create a bright, clear sky around their windows, making it look like they both had slept through their alarms.

Chanyeol reacted just like he wanted him to react; shocked and stressed, rushing through the house to get everything he needed for school. It wasn’t until Baekhyun – who still wore his pyjamas – grabbed his arm when he was about to open the door, tears in his eyes from laughing too much as he told him it was a prank.

Chanyeol was mad.

Baekhyun thought it was the best thing ever.

Now that he was thinking about it, – sitting in class with his head in his hands and a smile on his face, casually dreaming away – there actually was something useful they had learned. It was called ‘minding’ or ‘to mind’. Since no one had a phone, and sometimes you really need to reach someone, you could do it through their mind.

There was a difficult trick for and it requires a dozen of headaches and a lot of concentration, still, a lot of them still had no idea how I worked. It was basically connecting through you mind.

Baekhyun was okay with it. He could make clear but long sentences.

Chanyeol was okay with it as well. He could make long and... difficult to understand. Like a few minutes ago, Baekhyun suddenly received: ‘Ki--got’ from him...

A minute later the apologizes started flooding in. Chanyeol’s last period renounced and the boy had forgotten his key, thus the eighth message was ‘Forgot key’.

As soon as the bell rang, Baekhyun jumped off his seat, grabbed his untouched backpack from the ground and was the first one to leave the room. He wasn’t running, just walking fast. It was Chanyeol’s own problem for forgetting his keys, he could wait a bit longer.

He was one of the first ones to exit the building, feeling happy that he didn’t have to deal with all the students in the school. They were like a herd of animals, they would all follow each other mindlessly, and if something happened in the hallways, they’d act like a bunch of chickens, released from their hutch.

It was always funny to watch, but highly exasperation whenever he needed to walk through it.

He was about to enter the dorms when a tall boy suddenly bumped into him, causing Baekhyun (being the weightless one) to stumble backwards. He was about to fall when a strong arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him back up again.

‘’Wow, are you okay?’’ Baekhyun frowned at the unfamiliar voice. It wasn’t Chanyeol, although he really did feel like him. He looked up at his rescuer. It was Im Dabin, the latecomer. Baekhyun recognized his green stands. He was just as tall as Chanyeol, but a lot slimmer, a lot paler as well. Actually, he looked too pale. ‘’Are you sick?’’ Baekhyun asked, moving out of the boy’s grip.

‘’No, just pale.’’ The other replied, probably having been asked a lot.

‘’Oh, okay. Thanks for not letting me fall.’’ Baekhyun thanked him and was about to walk away when the boy grabbed his waist again, pulling him back.

‘’I’m Im Dabin.’’

‘’I know, you’re the latecomer.’’ Baekhyun started to feel highly uncomfortable when he pulled him closer.

‘’Yeah, what’s your name cutie?’’

Baekhyun looked up, giving him the stink eye before he pushed himself away from the boy. He was about to walk away when his name was suddenly called out. He turned around and saw a teacher running towards them.

‘’Baekhyun! Dabin! Wait up!’’ He yelled and Baekhyun wanted to hide his face in his palms.

‘’So Baekhyun is the name.’’ He saw a smirk forming on the taller boy’s face.

‘’Yes, guys, great to see you here. Baekhyun, now that you’re here anyway, could you do me a favour and show Dabin the school?’’ The teacher asked, grabbing him by the arm to prevent him from running away.

‘’Wait, he has been here for what? A week? and still nobody has showed around?’’ Baekhyun frowned.

‘’Exactly, that’s why you may do it now.’’ The teacher said and patted his back before running off again, leaving Baekhyun in exasperation and Dabin smirking. Baekhyun let his shoulder hang low as he looked up in annoyance. He sighed and walked past Dabin again.

‘’Wait, don’t walk away now. You still need to show me around.’’ Dabin stated. Baekhyun ignored him and walked further. He never liked players, and Dabin certainly acted like one.

‘’I’ll do that later okay, I really need to get my bag and drop off the room keys to my roommate.’’ Baekhyun said and opened the door, but before he could get inside, a rather big hand grabbed his wrist – overlapping it – and pulled him back once again.

‘’Can’t your roommate just wait?’’ Dabin pulled him closer.

‘’Can’t you just wait?’’ Baekhyun replied indignant. ‘’My roommate has been waiting for almost an hour already and he’d like to have the keys.’’

‘’Then he should’ve bought them himself.’’ Dabin pulled him even closer, leaving almost no space between their bodies.

‘’Dabin, let me go.’’ Baekhyun grabbed the former boy’s hand with his free hand and tried to pull it off his wrist, but of course did Dabin grab that wrist too and pulled him fully against his chest, making him look up since the boy was so tall. He didn’t even understand how there was no one passing by or anything.

‘’I swear Dabin, I’ll burn you if you don’t release me now.’’ Baekhyun threatened, his innocent, dark eyes turning pale, but Dabin didn’t seem to notice.

‘’No, you’re too cute.’’ Dabin leaned his head downwards and bumped his nose against Baekhyun’s forehead. So Baekhyun stepped on his toes and burned his hands before he walked away without looking behind, not giving a if he actually hurt Dabin badly or not.

That’s how to end an unwanted conversation, Baekhyun-style.

¬

‘’Baekhyun!! Little live-saviour you are!’’ Chanyeol exclaimed once he saw Baekhyun emerging from of the staircase of the building.

‘’I know.’’ Came the cocky reply as baekhyun opened the door and walked in first.

‘’What took you so long? I thought your last lesson finished at three?’’ Chanyeol inquired, looking at his wrist watch to see it was already four. He threw his bag on the table and walked to the kitchen to get himself and roommate a nice glass of water

‘’This guy was hitting on me and I couldn’t get rid of him.’’ Baekhyun explained himself as he let himself fall on the couch.

Chanyeol snorted at the thought only. ‘’What’d you do?’’ He handed Baekhyun a glass, who took a big gulp. ‘’Burned his hands, stepped on his toes, ert.’’ He said and Chanyeol laughed. ‘’Why does it sound like typical ‘you’?’’ He laughed. Baekhyun grinned.

‘’Yeah... hey, how’s your minding progress going?’’

‘’Bad˜’’ Chanyeol stressed the ‘d’ as he leaned his head back on the couch. ‘’Lie, the only thing I can say is probably key and forget, which sounds a lot like .’’ Baekhyun chuckled.

‘’Yours?’’ Chanyeol asked.

‘’It’s okay.’’ Baekhyun pursed his lips. ‘’Could be better.’’

‘’Bull, mind me.’’ Chanyeol ordered and Baekhyun thought about what to say.

‘You look like a giraffe.’ 

 ‘’Bull, you sound amazing.’’ Chanyeol said after hearing the words clearly in his mind. It actually creeped him out a bit. ‘’And I heard that.’’ He said afterwards, seeing how his roommate was chuckling on the other couch.

‘’Hey, have you finished what we had for magical history already?’’ Chanyeol asked him after he calmed down.

‘’Yeah, should be either in my bag or upstairs.’’

Chanyeol pushed himself off the  couch and searched for his bag. ‘’Where’s your bag?’’

‘’On the table.’’

‘’No it isn’t’’

Baekhyun frowned and stood up. It wasn’t on the table, indeed. He wasn’t stupid. ‘’, I left it outside.’’ He groaned and grabbed his jacket.

‘’You’re getting it now?’’

‘’No tomorrow.’’ Baekhyun sighed and checked if his keys were in his pocket before he went off. ‘’I’m back in a few.’’

¬

As expected, Baekhyun found his bag outside.

What was unexpected, was that a certain Im Dabin was holding it with a smug smile on his face.

Baekhyun’s face dropped immediately. ‘’Give me my bag.’’

‘’No, first you need to show me around here.’’ He said, twirling the bag in his fingers. Baekhyun knew that if he was going to try to grab it, Dabin would only hold it up higher; and Baekhyun definitely wasn’t going to jump.

‘’So, what will you do?’’ He asked. Baekhyun hated the smirk he had on his face, it reminded him of Chanyeol before he ’changed’.

‘’I’ll burn you.’’ Baekhyun threatened and took a threatening step towards him, but Dabin didn’t step back.

‘’If you burn me, I’ll crawl into your mind. Do you want to know what I’m capable of?’’

‘’We are no match for each other.’’

‘’And what’s that supposed to mean?’’

Baekhyun sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The conversation wasn’t getting anywhere and it only worsened with each spoken word, each spoken sentence.

‘’Look, can’t you just give me back my bag? Like, what’s the use of all this? Why do I need to show you around when there are so much more people?’’ Baekhyun asked, getting irritated.

‘’Because,’’ Dabin began honeyed, ‘’you’re a cutie, and I want a cutie to show me around.’’

‘’You’re gross.’’

Dabin shrugged. Baekhyun was certain he wasn’t leaving without his bag. He was also sure Dabin wouldn’t leave without his tour.

‘’Look, you’re a rare one, I’m a rare one. Maybe we can be palls you know, we could even take over the school!’’ Dabin exclaimed. Baekhyun raised a brow. ‘’We just need to have a good start, and that might be this tour, so-‘’

‘’Look, I know where you’re heading; it’s not gonna happen.’’ Baekhyun said and with one swift motion, grabbed the bag from Dabin’s loose grip, startling the boy with his speed. ‘’So just search for a new victim and leave me alone.’’ He said before he walked off.

He didn’t notice the smile on Dabin’s face. ‘’He likes me.’’

¬

‘’Him again?’’

‘’Yup.’’

‘’Do you want me to do something?’’

‘’You can’t, he’s a crawler.’’

‘’That means?’’

Baekhyun threw his bag on the table after he made sure he had locked the door, definitely not wanting the boy to come in. He kicked out his shoes and got rid of his jacket before he took the same position on the couch as earlier that afternoon.

‘’That means he can get into your mind and not only see or read whatever’s on your mind; he can also control you. You’re no match for him, I am neither.’’ He explained.

‘’Then who is a match for him?’’ Chanyeol asked.

‘’Someone who is able to control his emotions, basically shield himself from any mental harm. Someone who has gone through so much that it doesn’t hurt him anymore.’’

‘’Someone like you?’’

Baekhyun tilted his head with a frown. ‘’You don’t even know my past.’’ He said,  unconsciously shaking his head lightly.

‘’It sounded like it was bad last time we talked, feel like telling it?’’ Chanyeol asked, his brows slightly up. All Baekhyun’s emotions seemed to float away, and he didn’t know why.

He felt like the same boy he was when he was in the other school, emotionless, withdrawn, dead. Chanyeol wanted to know, curiosity was drawn on his face. But the question was, was Baekhyun able to tell him. Did Baekhyun want to tell him?

No.

No, he didn’t.

He didn’t want to tell anyone.

People would judge him, either in a bad way, or a good way. Baekhyun remembered the first time he told someone, he was still so shocked and exhausted and... dead. He was always dead.

Baekhyun remembered the reaction when he told what happened. He remembered the shocked faces. Fear, shock, alert faces. No one trusted him, no one actually believed he was telling the truth. There was only one person who trusted him; and that was Lia, his buddy. She was there, she believed him. She was the only one ever.

Baekhyun didn’t notice he was spacing out. It was only after Chanyeol had snapped his fingers in front of his face he came back to reality, looking up with his emotionless expression. ‘’Uhm, no, sorry.’’ He curtly said as he stood up from the couch, feeling like he wanted to be alone.

Baekhyun went to his room.

Chanyeol knew he was back to square one.­­­­­