A/N: And so we draw closer and closer to the end.

Baekhyun blinks. It is rare of Kyungsoo to speak with such fire. 

“You can lie to yourself all you want. But your time is running out.”

“You are already thinking of our goodbye. But I’m going to live forever.” There is something feral in the look in Kyungsoo’s eyes and in the twist of his lips. 

“No one lives forever.” Baekhyun replies mechanically, he is too distracted by the glint in Kyungsoo’s eyes.

“I will.” Kyungsoo says, firmly. “I’m right there. Engraved in your heart. And I will live there forever.” *

This makes Baekhyun smiles, almost fondly, this sounds like something he would say to a Guest - minutes before he shattered their lives behind their eyes.  He bends down towards Kyungsoo, the ghost of that smile still clinging to the edges of his lips. “In case you forgot, I make the Guests fall in with me and not the other way around.”

Kyungsoo smirks at him, and Baekhyun leans back in consideration, it’s almost… almost as if Kyungsoo is flirting with him. He tilts his head, fascinated by this new realization. 

“More games, Kyungsoo?” he asks softly. A little part, a hidden quiet part of him wonders, and wonders sleeplessly at night what kind of love makes a man walk into hell. An even more quiet part of him wonders what it would feel like to have a man like Kyungsoo love him, him and not the Monster lurking beneath his eyelashes.  

“Only if you want it to be.” Kyungsoo’s reply is equally soft. 

Baekhyun feels his breath whoosh out in response to this. He feels jittery suddenly, as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. Baekhyun knows a lot of things, he knows how to look into someone’s eyes and learn their story, he knows how to make people fall in love with the illusion of him, he knows how to kill without killing, how to hurt with no blood spilling. What he doesn’t know though is how to turn the tumbling ball of fire in the bottom of his stomach in to coherent words. He turns abruptly on his heels and moves to leave the room. 

He stops with his hand on the doorknob, hesitating, before he retraces his steps back towards the bed. Kyungsoo looks at him, something flickering behind his eyes just beyond reach, his head titled up,  his lips slightly parted.

Baekhyun blinks down at him, eyes eyes running along the curves and edges that makes Kyungsoo. When he bends down, Kyungsoo doesn’t move away, he just leans back almost invitingly. Baekhyun lowers his face till his lips are grazing past Kyungsoo’s cheek past the exposed neck, before he rests his forehead ever so lightly on the very shoulder he had burned through weeks ago. “I’m sorry.” he whispers, his lips brushing soothing fire against the pained skin and he feels Kyungsoo lean his face against his, warm breath mingling with each other, a gesture of acceptance, a gesture of forgiveness.   

He barely remembers to put his mask on as he leaves the room this time. He presses a hand down on his ribcage as he hurries down the white corridor, a smile stretched across his lips hidden beneath the mask. Something thunders beneath his ribs, energy thrums beneath his skin and Baekhyun breaks into a run, disregarding the startled gazes of the Examiners walking primly past him. 

He bursts in to his lab, almost knocking into a chair. He comes to an abrupt stop thought when he realizes that someone sitting in his own chair at his desk. No one has access to the private labs of any other Examiner. The chair twirls around and there sits the General Examiner, his face stretched into an uneven smiles and his bright red hair sticks out from his head in every direction. The energy beneath Baekhyun skin turns instantly into fear. Fear. The kind you can smell in the air. For one horrible second he thinks there must have been a security camera on Room 412, but no, no that is not possible.

“Examiner!” says the General Examiner brightly. “I just wanted to drop by and see how everything is going for you.” 

Baekhyun tries to keep his voice neutral as his eyes frantically scan the room for anything that looks out of order. “First time you are doing that, General Examiner.”

Please log in to read the full chapter