Part 21 ⧫ Pernicious

per·ni·cious

/pərˈniSHəs/

adjective

Having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way.

________
 

By the time I had changed into dry clothing and had phoned my grandma and fibbed about the situation to my grandma, it was already nearing to nine o’clock, and the weariness was beginning to kick in. Baekhyun had given me the smallest shirt and sweater he had, and we were about the same height, so I fit into it no problem. The sweater was rather large on me, going up to mid thigh, but Baekhyun seemed to have a thing for oversized hoodies so I didn’t question it. He also gave me a pair of sweatpants that I had to roll up at the bottom, and in the end, I walked around barefeet after we tossed our wet clothing in the drying machine. His clothes had the comforting smell of… freshness to them, and having warm, dry clothes on felt like it was a luxury.

When I had finally finished changing, phoning my grandma (which took an awful lot of explaining and consoling and holding-the-phone-away-from-my-ear-as-she-shouted), Baekhyun was standing in pajamas (consisting of pants that acted like socks because they were obviously too long and a hoodie that looked even larger than mine) over the stove, cooking what was looked like ramen. On the kitchen table was a glass with steam rising from it.
 

Baekhyun turned to look at me when I entered the kitchen. “Your face isn’t as pale,” was the first thing he said.

“Because I’m not being chased by your psychotic schoolmates whom you somehow managed to piss off? And there’s not people threatening to kill me anymore? And I’m not freezing to death?”

He snorted, stirring the noodles in the pot with the chopsticks. “Well, you’ve got your sarcasm back, so I’m guessing you’re feeling better.”

“Yeah,” I admitted, sitting down at the table because my legs still felt sore from all the running we had done. Crying was embarrassing -- crying in front of a boy one liked was worse. I tried not to dwell on the past hour, though it was pretty much impossible.

Then it occurred to me that I had just called Baekhyun a boy I liked. Granted, in my mind, not out loud, but that still didn’t stop me from wanting to backpedal a couple thoughts so that thought never happened. Embarrassed by my thoughts, I tried to change the direction of our conversation. “Nice… nice apartment by the way. It’s much… tidier than I expected it to be, really. Tidier than your locker, at least.”

Baekhyun snorted again at that, and truthfully, it made me feel better seeing him look calmer. His right hand, no longer trembling, was stirring steadily and his left hand was tapping some sort of pattern against the counter. His face had regained some of it’s colour; cheeks slightly pink, lips pressed into a thin line, something he did when he was concentrating or worried. “There’s honey water on the table for you,” he muttered under his breath, like saying that took a lot of his courage or something. “Someone once told me that it was efficient for preventing colds and honey is soothing. Careful though, the water’s kind of hot.”

I picked up the mug with both hands and cupped it; Baekhyun was right, it was hot to the touch -- but whether it was the heat radiating from the cup or from Baekhyun’s words, I felt warm all over. Besides, my hands felt cold and the heat of the cup was comforting. Tentatively, I took a sip of the water -- it was soothing, like Baekhyun said, with the slight tinge of lemon in it.

“Ramen is the only thing I can cook,” he muttered, not looking up from the stove. “And the only thing I have at home. Besides, I’m probably going to blow up the kitchen if I attempt to make something else. So ramen it is. Most of the time, really.”

“Eat healthy,” I mocked. “Ramen is not healthy.”

“Contemplating throwing a kitchen utensil at you right now.”

“I’ll throw it back.”

Muttering some sort of insult to my intelligence under his breath, Baekhyun folded his arms over his chest in a look of annoyance, not replying. Finally, after about ten seconds, he mumbled incoherently: “Did you explain everything to your grandma?” he questioned. “I mean, she probably thinks you’ve gone missing and stuff…”

“Yeah,” I replied, taking another sip of the honey water. It scorched my tongue slightly, but I ignored it. “But I told her that my friend and I almost got mugged and I was staying at her house for the night and that I’d be back in the morning.”

“Her house?!”

I raised my hands in a hopefully placating gesture. “She’d hunt both of us down if I told her you were a guy! She’s already suspicious enough. If she found out, she’d probably put me under a 24 hour watch.” I paused, thinking back the events of tonight. Before I could stop myself, I had blurted out, “Why did you kiss Minjoon’s girlfriend?”

Time seemed to stop for a second, and Baekhyun dropped one of his chopsticks onto the floor a moment later. He let out a shriek of surprise, before bending down, picking it up and rinsing the tip under the tap. “I wasn’t thinking straight,” he said in a surprisingly clear tone. “Screw it, I wasn’t thinking at all. I was drunk, Minjoon had beat me up before in my freshman year, and he began taunting me about my parents. I couldn’t take it anymore -- I don’t even remember what he said, I just had that urge to piss him off like he done to me so many times before. That’s really all I remember; and seriously, I haven’t drunk once after that ever again. I keep my promises.”

Promises. As in when I made him promise me never to drink again. The fact that I valued that promise made me undeniably giddy inside.

“Choi Minjoon seemed really mad at you,” I noted, squeezing the mug of honey water. “Does he really hate you that much?”

Baekhyun snorted yet again, standing on tiptoes and opening one of the higher cupboards, taking out a cup for himself. “Hate me is an understatement. If that kid became a hitman, I’d be his first victim. I’m pretty sure Jongin and I would’ve been screwed if we hadn’t transferred to your school. Anyways, I didn’t -- I probably shouldn’t had done what I did, but he was provoking me so much that I couldn’t take it, not even while drunk. That’s when he tried to attack me, and Jongin took the hit for me.” Baekhyun flinched slightly, as if reliving the unwelcome memory. “And I just ran. Anyways, that day, I guess I realized that I had to take responsibility for my actions, then. Jongin was hurt because of me, Chanyeol worried that I would do something stupid again. That’s why I promised you I would never get drunk again; it was more like promising myself. But…” the corners of his lips twitched upwards a bit. “Minjoon’s still mad at me. I’m sorry I got you into this mess and if there were any… misunderstandings.”

I shook my head, not quite sure what he meant about misunderstandings. Kissing Minjoon’s girlfriend? Did that count as a misunderstanding? “It’s alright,” I finally said, though that emotion was back -- jealousy?  

I tried to reminisce the events of tonight again. Everything had happened so fast that I didn’t have time to think about it when it was happening. We had been walking to the bus stop just a moment ago, and then Minjoon and his friends were chasing us and we were running for our lives. Then -- the one part of the night that I actually could say I wouldn’t try to reverse -- Baekhyun hugged me.

If it was one thing I remember clearly, it was the feeling of security when he pulled me against him. The fear that had been there a moment ago, enveloped by warmth. His voice when he assured me it was going to be alright.

“Iseul?” Baekhyun called. “You’re zoning out again. Did you hear what I said?”

I blinked, then shook my head. “Sorry. What did you say?”

Baekhyun seemed to be glaring at his ramen like he wanted burn holes through the pot. He stirred it vigorously, and I was pretty sure that ramen didn’t require that much stirring -- because it seemed to be the only thing he was doing. “Never mind,” he muttered. “It wasn’t that important anyways.”

Something told me that it had been important.

***

By the time we finished eating, it was getting really late and the couch in the living room was seemingly beckoning to me. The ramen Baekhyun made -- it was exceptionally good for ramen, though I wasn’t looking forward to see how he would ‘blow up the kitchen if he tried to make something else.’

We were sitting on the couch (with me on one end, pressed against the armrest, and him in the same position as me on the other end), and Baekhyun’s fingers flying rapidly over his phone as he texted someone. I quietly observed the whole room, and after five minutes, my eyes still brought me back to the photo of Baekhyun and Baekbeom that I couldn’t look away from. There were smaller photographs scattered around the room, too -- the one on the the tea table in front of me was a picture of young Baekhyun playing piano. I didn’t have the guts to pick up the picture to examine it, and without my glasses, I couldn’t make out the smaller details properly. However, I could guess that he was maybe twelve or thirteen in the picture -- he looked older than the one with Baekbeom in it. He sat over a grand piano, posture straight, fingers splayed gracefully across the keys. It seemed to be a performance of some sort, seeing the stage and the curtains, but I wasn’t too sure.

“Chanyeol asks if you’re okay,” Baekhyun suddenly piped up. I glanced over at him, slightly startled. He was sitting with his legs crossed, and he was leaning forward to the point that one slight shove when send him sprawling off the couch. It took a lot of self control not to shove him, because simply imagining the outcome was already hilarious.

“Tell Chanyeol I’m fine. Just a little shocked. And-” and you helped me through most of it and I’m really thankful. “-and…. that’s all.”

He nodded and turned back to his phone screen, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the disappointment I saw on his face was real or from my imagination.

When Baekhyun finally decided to put his phone down and stop texting Chanyeol, I was still in the process of examining one of his photos. This one included four people in it; Baekhyun and Baekbeom I recognized, and then a woman and a man who were smiling just as joyously at the camera. They were younger still, and the resemblance between the siblings was almost scarily similar. The man, what I guessed was Baekhyun’s dad, had the same eyes as Baekhyun, and his mother the same smile.

“I was six when that was taken,” Baekhyun said quietly from beside me, and I almost toppled off the sofa in surprise. “Baekbeom was fourteen.”

“Oh,” was all I managed, before I unwillingly turned my face up at the larger framed picture. I wondered why Baekhyun still kept it up if mentions of his brother hurt him so much. Before I knew what I was asking, the words were already out of my mouth already. “Do you miss him sometimes?”

The moment I realized what I was saying, I wanted desperately to backpedal and not ask him the question. I knew how hard it was normally for him to talk about Baekbeom; the topic usually made him upset or angry. I was completely expecting Baekhyun to lash out at me, but when he spoke, his voice so quiet it was almost a whimper. “All the time,” he whispered. “Everyday. But I can’t do anything about it.”

I glanced at him, and he was staring at the photograph too. His hair had just begun to dry properly, and there were strands of it sticking up in the air. “I was nine in that picture. Baekbeom was seventeen, almost eighteen. We-- I mean, mom and dad suggested we go out for a family day, since Baekbeom was normally too wrapped up in schoolwork to spend time with us together. So we went to Cheonggyecheon stream. It was hot that day, so mom brought us popsicles even though dad argued with her not to.” His eyes were glazed, staring into a scene in the distance that I couldn’t see, reliving a memory that seemed to still be freshly painted, though it was years ago. “I- I remember it so well.” He closed his eyes, wiping his palms under them so fast that I almost didn’t catch it.

Once again, I was completely stuck, not sure of what to say. Moments like these were things I dreaded yet appreciated; Baekhyun opening up for once, yet I was unable to comfort him. I remembered something he had said once; “If I had opened up to him, could I still be calling him hyung?” Seeing that photograph of him and Baekbeom together, seeming Baekhyun look so undeniably sad about it all -- that sentence simply struck me.

But instead, instead of saying anything remotely comforting, the only thing I was capable of doing was point a finger at the piano in the corner of the room. “You can play piano, right?” I asked lamely.

If Baekhyun noticed the not-very-discrete topic change, he didn’t show it -- in fact, he looked relieved. Rubbing his eyes once more, he sagged against the armrest, hugging one of the pillows tightly to his chest. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, I used to. I haven’t touched the piano in a year. Yeol made me play once last year, but… that’s the last time I have.” He frowned at the piano at the corner of the room, following my gaze. “The keys are p