Chanyeol hates needles.

 

He despises the way it pierces through his skin, slipping into his bones, leaning onto his veins as he weeps at the sight of red gushing out and into the small bottle. His mother, along with a few nurses, holds him by his hands and legs when he tries to escape. The nine year old boy trashes against their arms, screaming out for help to his father, who stares at him in pity. The doctor sighs pitifully, finally pulling the needle out of his forearm and gently pats the injured skin with a damp cotton pad.

 

“There, there,” Doctor Lee coos, soothing his cries by rubbing his arm. “It’s all done now.”

 

Chanyeol whimpers, slumping against the chair. This has been the third time of him being forced to go to the hospital this month – after a few times of not being able to breathe properly and constantly fainting at school. Being only nine, he does not exactly know what was happening to him, but going to the hospital meant that he was sick. He was ill. He hates it.

 

“Good job, Chanyeol.” The doctor pats him on the head and his heart fills itself with warmth when she smiles at him. “You can go and play at the indoor playground for now. I need to talk to your parents for a while. Can you do that?”

 

Pain and injuries forgotten, Chanyeol grins widely, side tooth missing. “Okay!”

 

The smile on Doctor Lee’s face falters right after Chanyeol replied; perhaps she thinks that he could not see the anxious look on her face when she switches her attention to his parents. Chanyeol adjusts his glasses on his face, walking slowly to the small yet crowded playground beside the dispensary counter. He whines softly, watching in jealousy as the other children giggle, sliding down the baby blue, plastic slide that was too small for him to fit in. “I want to play, too…”

 

“You’re a little too old for that slide,” A boy voices out beside him. Chanyeol flinches at the high pitched tone, surprisingly coming from a boy – a pretty one, at that. Said boy flashes him a teasing grin. “What’s your name?”

 

“My name is Chanyeol,” He murmurs, gazing down to his hands, shy. “My full name is Park Chanyeol.”

 

Judging by the fact that this boy is wearing the patient’s robe, oversized and too big to cover his exposed shoulder, Chanyeol figures that the boy is a patient of this hospital he hates. Pretty boy has a mop of brown, uncombed hair, messy and tousled. He wears the ugliest slippers in the whole world and walks with an IV drop attached to a stand. Chanyeol stares at the water dropping slowly, into the tube, to the back of the small boy’s palm. The water is dripping. Drip, drip, drip.

 

The boy smiles so wide and broad that Chanyeol thinks it’s blinding his eyes. “Well, Park Chanyeol, do you know what day it is today?”

 

“It’s Wednesday,” Chanyeol remembers. He checked the electronic calendars back at the house. He checked twice. “Why?”

 

The boy remains smiling. “What date is it today?”

 

“It’s May 6^th,” Chanyeol grumbles, annoyed. “You didn’t answer my question. Why should I answer yours?”

 

“Be patient,” The boy advices, “Now, what year is it?”

 

“You’re annoying! And—and you’re stupid!” Chanyeol clenches his fists, whining at the unfazed boy. “You don’t even know what year it is! It’s 2094!”

 

The boy flinches harshly, startled by Chanyeol’s tone. His pretty eyes brim with tears as his bottom lip juts out to form a small pout. “I-I just wanted to make sure…”

 

Chanyeol’s heart swells with guilt. The boy standing before him wipes his eyes with a small fist, his other hand still holding onto the IV stand. Is he crying?

 

“It’s my birthday today,” With a small voice, the boy whispers. “I’m 10 years old now.”

 

“Oh…” Chanyeol awkwardly replies. “Happy birthday… I don’t know your name.”

“My name is Baekhyun,” The boy sniffles, wiping the last bits of tears on his cheeks as he smiles. “My full name is Byun Baekhyun.”

 

 

By the 9^th of May, Chanyeol is rushed to the hospital.

 

He does not know what had happened to him, but yet again, he experienced the worst. Sometimes he just wonders why the universe hates him so much that he has trouble breathing at random moments. Thus by the 9^th of May, Chanyeol fainted. Deep inside, he finds himself enjoying it – the shutdown, then the eventual attention of people surrounding him. He still hates hospitals, though. He would have to leave his pet ferret alone at home, without him suffocating it.

 

“Ma,” Chanyeol murmurs, his chubby fingers grip on the red toy car sitting on his lap. “Do I have to stay here for the rest of my life?”

 

His mother sniffs, and Chanyeol, for a while, is taken aback by her expression. His mother had been crying.

 

“No, sweetheart,” She coos in adoration and sympathy, “Just until you get better, which you will, soon.”

 

Chanyeol’s eyes twinkle in anticipation. “Does this mean that I don’t have to go to school?”

 

His mother frowns. “No, but that is not something you should be happy about, sweetheart.”

 

The hospital is a lonely, lonely place.

 

When the electrical clock strikes nine in the evening, his mother and father bid him goodbye. Chanyeol feels a tug at his heart when the woman kisses him by his forehead, telling him that they would come and visit him again tomorrow – but are they really going to leave him alone?

“I hate you, mama,” He thrashes against the bed, in his stupid, ugly patient’s gown, while the two other children in his ward stare at him as if he was some kind of lunatic. “I hate you, I hate you and papa! Both of you don’t love me at all!”

 

“Sweetheart,” His mother swipes her thumb against his thin hair. “We love you very much, but we can’t be staying here, too. We’ll come back tomorrow, okay? Be good.”

 

His father stares at him with an odd look, before nodding and walking out of the ward – his wife hastily trying to pick up with his pace.

 

Chanyeol’s eyes burn with tears. He sulks, and pouts, and screams, and shouts, but his parents never returned. The only two coming towards him are boys, both looking at him curiously and slowly stalking over him. Chanyeol’s constant sobs reduce to mere whimpers; he grabs his blanket and pulls it closer towards him so he could hide himself from the world (particularly those two boys) and disappear.

 

“Oooh,” The hitched voice beside him erupts, “Look, Jongin! He has toy cars!”

 

Chanyeol peeks through the small holes of the sheet, his visions blurring for less than a second before he clearly sees a boy towering over him on his bed. Is he going to steal his toy car?

 

“Psst! Come on, Kyungsoo, take it away from him!” Another boy, Chanyeol suspects, named Jongin, whispers back – this time, rather loudly. “Steal it!”

 

The smaller boy wheezes. “I can’t! My wheelchair is hitting against his bed – shh! - he could hear us…”

 

The door opens with a slam, revealing an awkward-looking, tiny boy in an oversized hospital gown along with his glorious IV stand beside him. There he is; Chanyeol’s little savior.

 

“Kyungsoo! Jongin!” The boy exclaims, “Look what I found when I was in Sehun’s ward!”

 

The boy in the wheelchair, the one who nearly stole his precious toy car, spins the wheels of his wheelchair towards the door. Chanyeol no longer covers himself with the blanket, curious enough to sit back and watch as the three boys stare at a rare-looking gadget, fascinated.

 

Kyungsoo jumps up and down from his creaking wheelchair. “Let me see it! I wanna see it!”  

 

“Be patient,” The familiar boy says – he said that to Chanyeol, once, too. That was him. “Let’s look at it together, with our new friend there.”

 

Chanyeol shudders in excitement, flattered for being noticed. “H-Hi…”

 

“Hello,” The latter smiles. Chanyeol could literally feel the warmth of his wide grin. “I remember you; you’re Chanyeol. Your full name is Park Chanyeol.”

 

“And you are Baekhyun,” Chanyeol giggles. “Your full name is Byun Baekhyun.”

 

Byun Baekhyun flashes him the prettiest smile ever. “That is correct.”

 

Kyungsoo and Jongin decide to ruin their little petty conversation by making weird noises, resembling whales and Baekhyun bursts into a fit of laughter before he skips to Chanyeol’s bed and climbs up. Chanyeol, however, tries to push him off. “What are you doing?”

 

Baekhyun tilts his head to his left. “I want to sit with you.”

 

“Why?” Chanyeol hugs his knees nearer to his chest. This boy might be contagious. They are in a hospital, after all.

 

“Because,” Baekhyun hands him a worn, old looking…just what in the world is this? “I want to read this with you.”

 

“Baekhyunnie!” Kyungsoo fumes, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Jongin eyes his movement before copying him, following the exact expression Kyungsoo made. “You were supposed to show it to us first!”

 

“We have to share, Kyungsoo-yah,” Baekhyun – Byun Baekhyun – Baekhyunnie – pats the space beside him on Chanyeol’s small bed in their shared ward. “Come here and join Chanyeol, full name Park Chanyeol and I, Baekhyun, full name Byun Baekhyun.”

 

Kyungsoo shakes his head, stubborn and disobedient. Jongin, quite the mature one, pats Kyungsoo’s arm as he pushes the latter’s wheelchair towards Chanyeol’s bed. “Come on, Kyungsoo.”

 

“Fine,” Kyungsoo huffs – or is it a scoff? “But I will not become friends with Chanyeol, full name Park Chanyeol.”

 

Baekhyun laughs lightly as he opens the old, nameless thing, dust flying around the room, making Jongin sneeze. Chanyeol gapes in amusement.

 

“Woah,” Kyungsoo points at the foreign object. “What is that creature?”

 

“This—” Baekhyun holds the object with both his hands, showing it off to the other three curious boys. “—is a thing called a book. People in the old days used this to read and write stories.”

 

Jongin snorts. “They’re dumb people. We have tablets for a reason.”

 

Chanyeol takes his sweet time to eye the “book”; it was deep black in colour, front and back pages ripped and torn. It smells funny, too. The book seems rather boring and dull to him, but seeing Baekhyun’s eyes shining brightly makes his heart feel warm and comfy, so Chanyeol settles on leaning back against the hard pillows. “Can you…Can you read what’s in it?”

 

“I can’t,” Baekhyun pouts. “The words are very different. I don’t understand any of them…”

 

The nurses barge into their ward immediately when the clock stated that it’s already half past nine, making Jongin whimper. None of them were sweet, unlike those nurses Chanyeol watches in dramatic TV shows. The four nurses turn to look at them with stern faces, holding bottles of two white pills for each of them. The chunky-looking nurse clicks on her tongue in annoyance when she calls out on Chanyeol’s little savior. “Baekhyun, return to your bed.”

 

“Okay, Ms. Hong,” Baekhyun softly replies, getting off from Chanyeol’s bed and the owner of said bed has to chew on his bottom lip to prevent himself from erupting a desperate whine for the loss of warmth.

 

“You too, Kyungsoo,” The other nurse demands, “Take off your slippers so we could get you on the bed and get this over with.”

 

Kyungsoo bows with a sigh, leaning down to take off his slippers – with Jongin’s help, of course. Chanyeol is starting to think that both of them are siblings, being so close with each other like that.

 

With this, Chanyeol hurriedly lies down properly on his bed, despite how uncomfortable it is, and he pulls the sheets over his whole self, avoiding the nurses’ evil gazes. He peeks at the plump nurse who is currently shooting daggers towards Baekhyun who keeps on smiling at her.

 

“Ms. Hong, are you okay?” Baekhyun reaches his hand out to touch the nurse’s cheek. “Did the evil doctor shout at you again today?”

 

The nurse, Ms. Hong, completely softens at Baekhyun’s words as she nods her head. “Yes…”

 

“You are very special,” Baekhyun says, both hands now cupping the nurse’s cheekbones. “You are my favorite nurse. Please smile, my favorite nurse.”

 

And she does, surprisingly. She breaks into a gentle laughter, ruffling Baekhyun’s hair. “Goodnight, kid.”

 

The nurses walk out of the room, one of them walking with a smile, all thanks to Baekhyun and his words. Once the lights are turned off, Chanyeol immediately hears Jongin’s soft snores and Baekhyun’s hums. It’s not bad, Chanyeol thinks – for a first night in the hospital, with Baekhyun humming to children’s song and Jongin snoring, Kyungsoo whining, Chanyeol still thinks that it’s not that bad at all.

 

“B…Baekhyun, full name Byun Baekhyun?” Chanyeol whispers at the small lump on the bed beside him. He pushes the thin curtain that hasn’t been allowing him to see Baekhyun’s face properly. “Are you sleeping?”

 

“No, not yet,” Baekhyun whispers back, “What’s wrong, Chanyeol, full name Park Chanyeol? If you can’t sleep, the nurses have prepared pills on the table for you to sleep better.”

 

“I—I… I’m sleepy, but…” Chanyeol stammers, “—but my mama is the one who puts me to sleep. She tells me stories.”

 

Baekhyun’s eyelids flip, open and closing gently as he stares back at Chanyeol. “Do you want me to tell you a story, then?”

 

Gulping, Chanyeol says yes.

 

“Okay, then,” Baekhyun starts, “Once upon a—”

 

“No, u-uh… Can you come here?” Chanyeol weakly begs, smoothing out the crinkled sheets on the small space beside him. “Can you sit with me and tell me stories?”

 

Baekhyun snickers lightly. “Okay, Chanyeol, full name Park Chanyeol.”

 

 

 

 

“Baekhyun, full name Byun Baekhyun,” Chanyeol exclaims, smiling brightly when Baekhyun’s eyes start to open slowly. “Wake up! Up! Up!”

 

Baekhyun groans, shoving his boyfriend’s head away from his bed. The ward reeks from the stench of medicine and Baekhyun lies to his side to see Jongin pushing Kyungsoo and his wheelchair to the bathroom door. He does not question why Jongin carried two sheets of towels with him into the bathroom. Huh. “Gosh – , my head hurts. What time is it?”

 

Chanyeol sits up on Baekhyun’s small bed, careful not to tangle their IV tubes together, before he holds onto Baekhyun’s hand closer. “It’s…2 in the afternoon. Now let me ask the questions.”

 

Baekhyun rubs a fist by his eye. “What questions?”

 

“Well, do you know what day it is today?” Chanyeol grins teasingly, stupid smirk appearing on his face.

 

“Not again, come on, mine, it’s been 7 years, get over it,” Baekhyun grunts, although the corner of his mouth twitches upwards. “It’s Friday.”

 

“Hmm, and what is the date today?” Chanyeol presses on.

 

Baekhyun leans up to peck a kiss, Eskimo, on Chanyeol’s nose. “It’s May 6^th.”

 

“And what year is—”

 

“It’s 2101,” Baekhyun yawns, “Now can I go and take a shower?”

 

Chanyeol pouts. “But Jongin and Kyungsoo are in the shower.”

 

“I’ll just take a shower in Junmyeon’s ward, then,” Baekhyun’s robe is slightly hunched when he tries to get off the bed, revealing his pale skin. Chanyeol’s face  feels warmer. “His shared ward with Lu Han is pretty neat, too. Unlike our ward; oxygen masks everywhere.”

 

“That’s because I feel breathless every time I see you,” His tall boyfriend pinches his cheeks.

 

Baekhyun snorts. “You just have lung cancer, Chanyeol, full name Park Chanyeol.”

 

Chanyeol’s pair of brown eyes softens when he listens to Baekhyun’s teases. “Happy 17^th birthday, Baekhyun.”

 

Staying in the hospital for seven years straight; growing up, learning new things, meeting new friends, falling in love and the worst of all, losing their friends – all the decent and gruesome memories Chanyeol has had in the same hospital his parents had abandoned him a few years ago. If anything, it was rather cruel, really. Once a child is identified as ill, severely ill, said child would be hospitalized for the doctors to take care of them. Chanyeol has never seen his parents ever since; neither did Baekhyun, neither did Kyungsoo, neither did Jongin, neither did all of their friends who are fighting cancer.

 

“Sehun has been crying lately,” Baekhyun says, tapping his spoon on the bowl of cold chicken porridge. Lunch has always been boring, although sometimes they tend to sneak into the nurses’ café and steal packets of ramen.

 

“Why?” Kyungsoo blows soft air into the lump of rice on his spoon before telling Jongin to open his mouth, and Chanyeol just stares at them awkwardly. Is Kyungsoo seriously feeding him?

 

“After the chemotherapy, he’s going through a serious case of hair fall,” Chanyeol replies. “And he’s gaining a lot of weight, too.”

 

“That’s normal. Remember when I was bald once?” Jongin runs his fingers through his thin locks of jet black hair, chewing on his porridge that Kyungsoo had the decency to feed him. “Kyungsoo hyung still loves me even though I literally did not have any hair.”

 

Kyungsoo nods, “And Jongin still loves me even though I can’t walk. So what’s the problem?”

 

“His girlfriend – well, ex-girlfriend – dumped him because he’s sick and she told him that he couldn’t be cured.” Baekhyun sighs. “Poor baby; remind me to set him up with Lu Han or something.”

 

“Are you seriously going to let everyone in this hospital to date each other?” Chanyeol laughs.

 

“Why not? We’re all stuck here, and we’re all going to rot here and die.” Baekhyun shoves a spoonful of bland porridge into Chanyeol’s frozen mouth. “We might as well just die together.”

 

Jongin shrugs. “True.”

 

Chanyeol raises a brow at Baekhyun’s statement. “So, you’re saying that you’ve been dating me just because we’re going to rot and die?”

 

“Nooo,” Baekhyun denies, “I’m dating you because you’re handsome.”

 

“Good enough.”

 

Baekhyun continues, “And you’re my soul mate.”

 

“Soul mates, huh,” Jongin laughs sarcastically. “You really believe in that bull, Byun?”

 

With no hesitance and reluctance, Baekhyun says yes. “Of course I do. I mean, think about it! What if we were someone, in our past lives?”

 

Chanyeol doesn’t really understand what Baekhyun is trying to say, but he settles on gulping down his cup of plain water as he listens.

 

“I don’t get what you mean, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo rips off the packaging of the strawberry pudding, grabbing the small plastic spoon from his plate. “Our past lives?”

 

“Yeah, l-like, what if – Kyungsoo, what if, seventy or eighty years ago, you were someone else? Like your soul, has lived a life in the past?” Baekhyun excitedly questions, clapping his hands. “What if you were a rich bachelor? Or you were a famous singer!”

 

Kyungsoo blushes, “I…I do like to sing, though…”

 

“That’s right! Guys, we have lived before, and now we’re just living life all over again. It’s like a cycle…so if we die, soon, who knows? We might live again in the next, I don’t know, ninety years or so…” Baekhyun finishes off, gasping for air after he has spoken quite swift.

 

“Boyfriend, you’re talking crazy,” Chanyeol nervously laughs, smacking Baekhyun by his thigh. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

 

“It kind of does, though,” Jongin voices out. “I have a feeling that I was a really popular guy in school or something.”

 

“You’re daydreaming,” Chanyeol sticks his tongue out to the younger man. “And Baekhyun, I think you’re saying all these things because you haven’t taken your daily medicine. Go on now. Swallow those god damned pills.”

 

“Chanyeol, full name Park Chanyeol,” Baekhyun sternly says, “What is your ambition?”

 

“…I want to be a football player.” Chanyeol whispers.

 

Baekhyun grins. “Then I’m sure you were a football player in your past life.”

 

“That still doesn’t make sense,” Chanyeol shakes his head, “Come on; let’s go to Sehun’s ward and try to cheer him up. We don’t need to sit here and talk about past lives.”

 

 

A sight of a weeping Sehun is not something rare.

Being the youngest among all of them, Sehun, despite being fifteen, is treated like a baby – especially by Baekhyun. Chanyeol does not know what it is with that boy; what kinds of charms he has or what sort of attractive vibes he reeks off for Baekhyun to be so attached to him, but Chanyeol, more than anyone, finds Baekhyun’s attachment towards the youngest boy on their hospital floor more than adorable.

 

Not always, though. At least not now, because Sehun is crying his eyes out in Baekhyun’s embrace. “A-and she left me, just like that…”

 

“My baby, my poor baby,” Baekhyun pats Sehun by his head. “How dare she hurt my boy like this? That wrenched witch, I’ll find her and tear her apart,”

 

“You can’t even win at hand wrestling, what makes you think you can fight a human being?” Chanyeol teasingly chuckles, earning quite a painful slap from Baekhyun, to his knee.

 

“I’ll hurt anyone who dares to hurt my friend,” Baekhyun glares at Chanyeol’s direction. “And that includes you, Chanyeol, full name Park Chanyeol.”

 

Chanyeol scowls. “Who’s going to date you if you hurt me, then?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Baekhyun sing-songs, “Maybe Doctor Wu can help me with that—”

 

“Don’t you dare, Baekhyun, full name Byun Baekhyun,” Chanyeol points an accusing finger towards his boyfriend. “Don’t you dare say that ugly name in front of me.”

 

Baekhyun pokes Chanyeol’s deep dimples with his fingers, “Doctor Wu, Doctor Wu, Doctor-handsome-kind-attractive-Kris-Wu.”

 

Chanyeol whines, “You’re such an !”

 

“Will you two just stop quarrelling?” Sehun sobs, his cries getting more and more pathetic as time goes by. “You both are making me feel sadder.”

 

“Oh, sorry, Sehun,” Baekhyun rubs a hand by his nape, grinning sheepishly. “Cheer up, okay? I’ll tell the nurses to prepare some healthy cake for you or something.”

 

Sehun giggles. Chanyeol decides that it sounds terrible in his ears. “The only one who should be getting cakes is you, birthday boy!”

 

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Baekhyun waves at Sehun when Chanyeol pulls him out of the ward. “You know how I don’t like to celebrate my birthday – bye, Sehun!”

 

After all those years of basically living together in the same ward, Chanyeol has grown to acknowledge that Baekhyun really does not like to celebrate his birthday. But this was his boyfriend, and Chanyeol would do anything to keep his boyfriend happy. Hence, Chanyeol silently takes Baekhyun’s hand and curl it over his IV stand – Chanyeol doing the same with his. “Come on, now, boyfriend.”

 

“Where are we going?” Baekhyun blows air into his cheeks. “It’s about tea time, now. I want to eat those butter biscuits.”

 

Chanyeol ignores him, for once, bringing him to the balcony of the 3^rd floor – the one where patients are supposed to go out to in order to breathe in fresh air or see the world. Chanyeol, though, has other plans.

 

“Is this a birthday surprise for me again?” Baekhyun guesses and he guesses correctly. “Chanyeol, you did the same thing when you confessed to me last year.”

 

“I know, but that was in front of Kyungsoo, Jongin and practically everyone else in the hospital.” He guides Baekhyun towards the small chair in front of a table with tea and biscuits he had stolen from the nurses. “Today, it’s just going to be the two of us.”

 

Baekhyun wastes no time to dig into the biscuits and crackers he loved most, chewing on them like his life depends on them.

 

Chanyeol smiles, his hands coming up to wipe the crumbs settling by Baekhyun’s upper lip. “What were you going on and on about, just now? Past lives?”

 

“Yup,” Baekhyun swallows, “I think we were friends in our past lives.”

 

“Really,” Chanyeol rests his chin on his knuckles, looking back at his boyfriend who is still busy chewing on pieces of biscuits. “We were only friends? Not even more than friends?”

 

Baekhyun whistles. “Probably; I don’t know. We could’ve been enemies for all I know, since you’re such a jackass.”

 

“Maybe I wasn’t a jackass in my past life,” Chanyeol swipes his thumb by Baekhyun’s lips, although there were no crumbs on those cherries in the first place. “What if I was a really kind guy?”

 

“What if you were straight?” Baekhyun pretends to bite on Chanyeol’s thumb. “What if you had a girlfriend, and I was that one best friend who was completely in love with you? Ooh, unrequited love.”

 

“My, my, you’re really enjoying this past life thing, aren’t you?” Chanyeol presses his thumb lightly on the small, faded mole above Baekhyun’s upper lip. “I don’t really believe in it, but if it’s what you think, then I respect it.”

 

Baekhyun puckers his lips against Chanyeol’s fingers, brushing onto them ever so slightly. “What if the past was just the same?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“What if, in the past, we were diagnosed with cancer, too?” Baekhyun wonders, but there is no hint of seriousness in his voice. “From then, until now, no one could actually cure cancer.”

 

“That’s sad,” Chanyeol pulls on Baekhyun’s lip, the older boy complaining in response. “Why is my boyfriend thinking about sad stuff on his birthday?”

 

Baekhyun raises himself up from his seat, opposite Chanyeol’s seat in order to slant his lips against Chanyeol’s cold ones. “Sorry.”

 

“Let’s go,” Chanyeol pulls on Baekhyun’s oversized patient’s robe, “Let’s steal more ramen from the nurses’ cafeteria.”

 

Chanyeol hisses in pain when his assigned nurse injects foreign substances into his body, from his arm and she clinks her fingernails against his IV tube before excusing herself. Chanyeol sits up on the bed, sighing when he turns to look at Baekhyun, who silently laughs at his pain. “Get used to it, Chanyeol, full name Park Chanyeol.”

 

“It still hurts, okay,” Chanyeol rubs a hand by his arm. “You’re not helping, either.”

 

“Come here,” Baekhyun widens his opened arms, welcoming Chanyeol who gets out of his bed to join his boyfriend on the small cold bed. The wires of his heart monitor tangles with the tubes of his oxygen mask, and Chanyeol struggles to walk towards Baekhyun’s way but when Baekhyun smiles and waits for him patiently, the beeping of Chanyeol’s heart monitor skips one beat.

 

“It’s almost midnight,” Baekhyun’s rests his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder. “What kind of story do you want to listen to tonight?”

 

Jongin, sleeping by the bed opposite them, interrupts. “I want to listen to horror stories!”

 

“How about you just talk to me, about anything,” Chanyeol closes his eyes as he listens to Baekhyun’s steady breathing. “I just want to listen to your voice; it doesn’t matter what kinds of stories you would like to tell me about.”

 

Baekhyun shifts beside him. “Can I talk about past lives, then?”

 

“Sure,” Chanyeol yawns, sleep overtaking him so soon. The nurse must have made him swallow the sleeping pills without telling him what kind of medicine it was, again. “Anything you want to talk about, Baekhyun.”

 

“I had a dream.” Baekhyun says; his voice sounding soft and sweet.

 

Chanyeol hums. “What did you dream about, angel?”

 

“I dreamt about myself,” Baekhyun’s voice turns into a quiet whisper. “I only had 10 days to live – wait, was it 10 days? I think it was 7 days. I don’t quite remember.”

 

Chanyeol wraps his arm around Baekhyun’s waist. “And then?”

 

“And then there was this guy, an , really,” Baekhyun sleepily whimpers, “He made a bet of 10 days to fall in love.”

 

Chanyeol laughs. “Falling in love within ten days? That’s impossible.”

 

“I know, right?” Baekhyun yawns against Chanyeol’s hair. “But still, to be having ten days to live and betting on ten days to fall in love…”

 

Chanyeol intertwines his fingers along with Baekhyun’s under the sheets – and he hears the beeping of their heart monitors, Jongin’s snoring, Baekhyun’s heart beat, Kyungsoo’s soft whines – Chanyeol smiles.

 

“It’s the perfect combination.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

Annnd it's done! Basically, Chanyeol and Baekhyun are still dating in the future lmao but! they were supposed to die, in this fic, but I figured that I killed them off too many times so hurr ;u; 

Thank you so much for the upvotes, for the upvotes on Endeavour, too! You guys are amazing huhu

Now that this is over and done with, see you on my other fic: E4SE! It's infidelity, though. Hahahahah