Baekhyun attacks his congee with undue violence the next morning. He is shaken, he admits, all his time in the Center, all of his little games with his little guests and he doesn’t know what it is like, to have someone challenge him, anger him on purpose. Kyungsoo is really living up to his words of having nothing to lose. Maybe that is why his Story is so hard to get at, maybe it’s because he has so little of it. But then there were the dead roses and the loneliness too. 

That morning Baekhyun finds Room 412 full of a little pleasing tune of piano and Kyungsoo lying on the ground trying to make a paper crane with one hand as the other hands lies uselessly at his side, bruised and skinned deep enough to show his veins, full of red red blood. 

Baekhyun sits down next to Kyungsoo’s prone figure, folding his legs neatly in, reaching out to smooth out edges of the paper that Kyungsoo can’t quite get right with his one hand, helping him finish the paper crane. Kyungsoo only looks up when the paper crane is completely done and Baekhyun wonders with detached interest about how and when Kyungsoo learned to bear with so much pain. Kyungsoo blinks at him, looking almost sleepy, looking quite different to what he did yesterday with his smirks and knowing eyes. He looks so disarmingly at peace, even with Baekhyun there, even with his hand being the way it is. 

Maybe that’s what makes Baekhyun do it. Maybe that’s why, Baekhyun tells himself. 

“You are right. I’m a little different to what you are used to. The Reality Factor. That’s what I do. But with a twist.”

Kyungsoo’s sleepy eyes sharpen but he says nothing, so Baekhyun continues. 

“I creep into their hearts. I creep into their hearts and flip them over and break them down and swallow them up whole. And they love me for it.” it feels almost like a confession, a little secret that no one but Baekhyun knew and cherished - now out in the open. Love is such a powerful thing. Even when fabricated. He looks down into Kyungsoo’s eyes and sees that for the first time since they met that Kyungsoo is truly shaken. Even as he registers this in surprise, the whiteness behind Kyungsoo’s eyes waver and flicker and he is in. He is in.

He is looking at the world through Kyungsoo’s eyes, sitting in a quiet corner of Kyungsoo’s  memories. Music plays in the background, a door opens and  slams close and voices and clinks of glass drifts towards him. Kyungsoo is looking up at some kind of road sign, a shop sign? he doesn’t really know, he doesn’t remember what the World out there is like. It’s old and creaking, little red letters spread across the white in English. “WE MEET BY ACCIDENT” it reads. And Kyungsoo is feeling a little lost, and a little found. 

There is a sharp pain in Baekhyun’s elbow and he looks up to find himself thrown backwards on to the floor and Kyungsoo pushing himself up from the floor on one hand. He gets up laboriously and walks as far away as he could from Baekhyun and stands with his face pressed to a wall, his back to Baekhyun. It’s almost…. childish, his action and Baekhyun blinks at him, suddenly at a loss. He takes a few steps towards Kyungsoo, and stop, are those… tears on his face? Unshakeable, unflappable Kyungsoo and tears? A small part of his mind is almost screaming in victory. Even the unbreakable can be broken, after all. It just takes a little time and patience. 

He walks up to Kyungsoo turning him around and pushing his back against the wall and yes, those were tears in his eyes. Kyungsoo looks up at him almost rebelliously, through the haze of tears in his eyes. Baekhyun bends closer. 

He is now looking at the world through Kyungsoo’s eyes, feeling what Kyungsoo felt, seeing what Kyungsoo saw. And Kyungsoo is standing out beneath a gentle moonshine looking over the….a river? It’s not something he feels he knows. But he has seen it many times through his guests who love to go for walks by this certain river. He can feel the comfort Kyungsoo felt in that moment, the soft worn clothes against his skin, the wind in his face. There is a slight movement to his side, as if someone is fidgeting, and Baekhyun feels Kyungsoo’s whole body moving in response towards it ever so slightly. 

Someone leans their face against Kyungsoo’s face and even Baekhyun rewatching Kyungsoo’s past shivers in response.  “Someday, I’m going to destroy you.” The voice whispers, lips moving against his cheek and the same cheek lifts in response to this. 

“You can’t do what you have already done.” Replies Kyungsoo and Baekhyun feels the body next to Kyungsoo’s folding itself over, breaking, breaking into a million little pieces that nestle against the curve of Kyungsoo’s cheek, to rest there, finally.

Baekhyun blinks as he comes back to himself. This is the most vulnerable he has ever seen Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo meets his eyes steadily for a second but then shakes his head. “No.” Kyungsoo says firmly. “No.” he shrugs off Baekhyun’s hand and walks over to the bed. He sits there with his head in his hands, looking for the first time since his arrival, defeated, tired. 

Baekhyun fixes back on the mask he removed when he entered the room, smiling to himself. He leaves Kyungsoo to his misery alone and walks out. He is almost there. Almost. There is no need to rush now. He finally has a Story.

He is almost eager to return back to Kyungsoo’s room the next day. He doesn’t remember being so eager to go back to a guest since Sehun. Sehun had been so easily broken but had been so thrilling to play with. Kyungsoo was so much difficult and he wonders whether he is going to miss this… this chase. Maybe he is a little disappointed in Kyungsoo for giving in too easy. He has a Story, a little more detail, just a little more of that voice, maybe a face to go along with it and his work with Kyungsoo will be no different to all the others. 

When he steps into Room 412, however, it is already bustling with activity. Examiners, Assistants, Junior MindSets gesturing and talking and filling in little pieces of white paper. Kyungsoo sits in the hub of all this activity, hand bandaged, his face back to its neutral dead mask. He lifts his eyes up when Baekh