Baekhyun is too nervous, to wound, to tell his legs to slow down. The tension is bleeding adrenaline into his veins, pumping into his legs and spurring his body forward where his mind cannot. He ends up arriving early, though he knows Junmyeon was probably earlier.

Baekhyun corrects himself when he slides into the quiet cafe. Them. Three people have come for him. Baekhyun considers turning around, running away as he has for the past twenty years, but he can't resist Junmyeon's pull. Junmyeon is leader, his leader, and when he calls Baekhyun always comes.

“Baekhyun.” Junmyeon says softly as he gingerly slides into the seat across. Jongdae, seated on his left, moves to his hand ij comfort but retracts it when Baekhyun twitches his hand away. Baekhyun almost felt sorry when he saw Jongdae's face drop, and small lines of electricity began jumping across his hands. Chanyeol keeps his lips pursed and his arms folded, and Baekhyun slightly appreciates how hard he's trying not to glare.

“My answer is still no by the way.” Baekhyun begins.

“Saying no is your right.” Jumyeon agrees, and he opens his mouth again, to say something passive that would have eased them. But Chanyeol interrupts, like a sudden burst of fire.

“Your side is two people short of being completely gathered by now.” He growls. “We'll have to fight soon.” He continues, and Baekhyun's stomach churns. He turns to Jongdae for confirmation.

Jongdae has paled, and his fists are curled tightly against the table.

“Oh,” Baekhyun breathes. “I see.”

-

Baekhyun barely manages to leave with his resolve intact. He almost took back his refusal when Junmyeon's face fell, when Jongdae's fists tightened (because he did not look up again for the entire meeting) and Chanyeol had left with mechanical movements and stinging words.

Then I guess we die.

Baekhyun resists the urge to snap, because Chanyeol's opposite in their never-ending war had always been him, a battle of phoenixes, but Baekhyun remembers that if it won't be a phoenix who kills him, it will be a dragon and jesus christ Chanyeol after all these years you still love him-

Baekhyun is jolted out of his thoughts when the door clicks open under his palm. When did he reach home? He's lucky his muscle memory's good.

“Baek? You okay?”

Baekhyun banishes his guilt. There is a reason he says no, over and over again.

“I'm fine. What's wrong?”

“You're being quiet today.”

“Is that so?”

Baekhyun laughs, slipping his shoes off. He can smell the familiar scent of kimchi pasta and follows the scent to the kitchen. Kyungsoo would greet him when he can, but leaving the stove unattended is a big no in his books so Baekhyun has to be the one to come up behind him, wrapping long arms around a shorter chest and stealing kisses.

For you, Baekhyun thinks as Kyungsoo's full lips press into his. I'll never give you to them.

-

Traditionally, there are twelve.

The tale is etched deeply into Baekhyun's mind, a prophecy that spirals from his genes and bleeds into his dreams. There was a tree, the tree, the great tree of life. It was the brightness thing in the universe, the pillar to which all gazed upon in reverence.

And there were, on each of twelve branches, one fruit. Each fruit was one aspect of the tree's power, one facet of life. Water, air, light.

One day something dark began to eat at the tree. Black and red and rotten evil. It took hold of the tree and threatened to poison it, to poison all that existed. The tree them made a choice.

It split, and the twelve became two sets of six. (Tearing, aching, blinding pain as he became hollow and incomplete-)

It threw it's rotted half to the darkness, keeping it away from the light and left six of it's fruits, it's children, to their doom. Fire became less a phoenix and more a destroyer, and lighting deteriorated into a creature of raging storms. (He had cried, Baekhyun remembered. He had heard him, all the way from his half. I don't want to hurt anyone, he had screamed, in ragged sobs.)

But most importantly, the earth became weighted down, and he had sunken into the depths of his kingdom and he was no longer the person who swept across fertile lands but he who wrought the ground with tremors.

He became the underworld.