Disclaimer:

I am in no way close with EXO. However, everything written here belongs to me. Please don't copy or repost and translate anywhere else without asking.

[listen to – when you can't sleep at night playlist on 8tracks / link in external link]

-✼-

» Chapter TWO; The Beginning of Questions and Confusion.

Baekhyun looked at the figure in front him, not really knowing how to react. Who would break into his girlfriend's house just like that? Most importantly, why? It took him a couple of seconds of processing what was happening before he spoke up.

"Who are you, and why are you trying to break into my girlfriend's house?" he spoke harshly, glaring at the person in front of him. Seeing that they weren't replying to him, he rolled his eyes and opened the door even further before grabbing their wrist and dragging them inside. Baekhyun ignored the feelings he got from being inside the familiar house.

"Can you please remove your hand?" the girl tried tugged her hand backwards, but Baekhyun wouldn't budge. "Okay, I'm not a robber or anything, so let me explain myself!"

Baekhyun turned around to face her, his eyes never leaving her eyes. He could barely see her face, though. He dropped his hand, waiting for her to continue what she began. He raised an eyebrow once he saw her hide her hands behind her back. The girl let out a sigh, before saying,

"I'm Yubin, and I came here to know what happened to my neighbor."

"Neighbor? I thought no one lives here anymore?"

Yubin let out another sigh and sat down on one of the couches, placing whatever she had behind her back on her lap. "Few people live here ever since what happened to Soo Ah, your girlfriend... well, no one is hundred percent sure why she disappeared randomly. She might have run away, but looking at few stuff here, I highly doubt so."

Baekhyun stayed still, listening to the girl carefully. He didn't want to sit down nor do anything else. He wanted to listen; he wanted to get answers. He looked around the living room, noticing the teared up walls, the crumbled up papers in the trash cans and floor, thrown Polaroids and pictures. It really was a mess.

"I started searching through her house for clues. Why? As the famous idiom says, curiosity killed the cat. Anyways, here is what I found. I guess you have to right to look through since you're her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend."

He felt his heart slightly break when he heard her last words, but his face showed no emotions, like a blank canvas. He turned around and looked down at the stack of papers in hand before taking it. Baekhyun thought he was going to do this alone—correction, he WANTS to do it alone. If anyone, he would rather do it with Chanyeol than a random stranger.

Placing the papers on the coffee table, Baekhyun sat down, looking through the papers. Some of them were ripped papers and cards, some of them were Polaroids, and some were highlighted text from random book pages. It was a huge pile of mess that would probably take a while to figure out.

How can he figure out such thing if he didn't figure out himself, anyways?

"Why are you still covering your face?" Baekhyun asked, not looking up at Yubin. She rolled her eyes at him and took off her hoodie, moving her wet hair behind her shoulders. She tucked some behind her ears, flinching from the pain she caused in her head. She reached out to the ripped paper and fixed it into its correct pieces.

"Look here, this is her handwriting, right?" Yubin asked for confirmation, even though she knew it was his (ex) girlfriend's handwriting. Baekhyun looked at it and nodded, waiting for Yubin to continue. "She wrote this, but it seemed she ripped it up."

'Have a happy Christmas! PS. Stop drinking, get help from someone.

Bad things happen to good people sometimes, but how you react to these things is what defines you.

❄[Sending warm and cosy wishes! ]❄

You always have a choice, there are better things ahead for you, but it's in your hands, it's your responsibility.'

Baekhyun reread the letter over and over again, his eyes never leaving it. He knew who she was going to send this to. He knew, but he doesn't know what caused her to rip it. It seemed very weird, too. Why some letters were not in bold?

"I think you've noticed how some letters are not in bold. They might contain a secret message, but it really doesn't make sense? Like, read them out," Yubin explained, pointing at the letters with her index finger.

"F.. E.. I.. Wait, why is your finger bloody?" Baekhyun stopped in his tracks, as he held Yubin's hand, inspecting it. His eyes slowly traveled up to her face, seeing bruises on her face and her right eyebrow damped in blood. Her hair was wet from the blood; it was a surprise, really. "What the ?"

Yubin let out a sigh and snatched her hand from his, hiding it in the depths of her sleeves. "It's okay... Let's figure this out tomorrow. It's really late right now," she suggested, standing up. Baekhyun didn't know how to react. He didn't know to react to anything, as if it took him years to process stuff in his mind.

"Wait..." he trailed off once he stood up, grabbing her wrist. He softened her grip in case she was hurt there. "Do you live in apartment 139?" It was sudden, I know, but Baekhyun was the type of guy who would go straight to the point. He finally realized what he heard earlier wasn't a part of his imagination. He was going to ask her, but seeing how she kept being silent about it made him stop.

He didn't want to go too far. He didn't want to bring it up.

Yubin covered her head with her hoodie, not wanting to show her face. She was in shock on how he knew, but she stayed silent, not answering it. Sometimes, silence means yes, due to not denying anything. If someone is accused on something they didn't, they would—most likely—disagree and deny it. If they did do it, they would admit it or stay silent.

"You have nowhere to stay, don't you?" he asked her slowly, dropping her wrist from his grip. He could've asked if she was going to stay in the apartment she broke into, but he stopped himself since he saw her get out when he wanted to get in. "You don't have to explain anything, but you can stay over at my house for the night... I guess."

"What? No, no, thank you," she quickly panicked, shaking her head. "I can sleep at a hotel or somewhere, I'm okay." Yubin didn't want to stay at a stranger's house, especially if she broke into his girlfriend's house. It would be awkward, of course. A part of her was scared, too. What if something happens to her?

In the end, Baekhyun convinced Yubin, somehow, and took her to his house. It was the same, old dark way. No difference happened in an hour and a half, but Baekhyun didn't mind. He knew it was going to change. He thought if the day and night can change, so can he. If the world and cities can change, to the better or worse, so can he. It's the smallest things that give hope to Baekhyun.

The two entered Baekhyun's apartment, welcomed by walls of white and memories of black. It always welcomed him to its cold arms, reminding him of his sleepless nights.

He used to live in his mother's house. Her house is a simple single-story home, firmly planted on a back-country road. There, the constellations breathe. Baekhyun left in September and moved into a second-story apartment. Here, the parking lot lights bleed into the night sky. They suffocate the stars. The howl of police sirens replaced the cry of the coyotes. And when he went back home, he found that it doesn't feel like home anymore. The rooms are too big, the silverware too thick. But he still can't sleep through the sirens. Nowhere feels like home.

"Wait a minute," he said and walked to his room, taking out his clothes. He could've gave her his (ex) girlfriend's clothes that she left behind, but he didn't. He didn't want to disguise her and blend her into his miseries. Instead, he took a pair of his clothes and went back to where he left her; the living room.

"You can change into these, and you can go take a shower," he offered, showing her where to go. Yubin nodded at him, not really knowing how to thank him. Baekhyun glanced at her semi-bleeding head before saying, "Do you think you'll be okay? That looks really serious."

"Yeah, I'm fine, but if I faint, don't come in," Yubin warned, as she opened the bathroom door and stepped inside. "Unless you want to see me or something." Baekhyun raised an eyebrow at her, slightly confused. So, was he supposed to or not?

"I don't get what you mean," he started off honestly, "but let me wash your hair at least. Maybe get you to the hospital or something."

Yubin looked up at him, seeing that he has no harmful intentions. She didn't know him properly, so did he, but he still took her into his house with no problem. She could've went to her friends, but what friends does she have if she excluded the fake ones? Yubin didn't want to faint inside the shower either. She might fall and die, or worse, break a bone.

She let out a sigh, before she accepted his offer. Baekhyun gave her a smile, even though anyone can tell it's fake and forced. But then, anyone can tell he was trying his hardest. He entered the bathroom and glanced at Yubin, who was taking off her hoodie carefully.

After she stripped down into her long black shirt and her underwear—her shirt covered half of her thighs, Yubin stepped into the bathtub and stretched her legs out. Baekhyun let out a sigh and went over to her, taking the hand-held, shower head. He made sure the water was lukewarm, not too hot, nor too cold.

The water hit her head, making her flinch. The whole bathtub got covered with blood and strands of hair. Baekhyun frowned, as he saw how much hair and blood she was losing. His free hand slowly massaged her head, making sure he got most of the blood out. Thankfully, it was a minor wound and didn't need any visit to the hospital.

After he rinsed out her hair, he turned off the water, not wanting to clean it with soap. He was afraid something might happen to her. Instead, he waited for her to clean her body as fast as possible. Baekhyun was sitting outside the bathroom, right beside the door. His knees were close to his body, as his hands rested on them. It took her almost ten minutes to get washed and wear the clothes Baekhyun gave her.

Yubin patted the bandage that was on her face, covering up her bruises and cuts. She was grateful for the time being, but she didn't know why he cared so much. It confused her really, but she decided to put it aside and lay down on the bed. Baekhyun brought in a mattress into the room and laid it on the ground. He didn't want to sleep beside her, due to multiple reasons.

He stayed in the same position for what seemed like hours—it was actually an hour—before he concluded that Yubin fell asleep. He turned around, knowing that he won't fall asleep like usual. Baekhyun glanced at his phone's screen, seeing that it's twelve and a half. Knowing that he won't wake up, he let out a huge breath and stood up from his place, making sure he wouldn't wake the girl up.

He took his notebook from one of his drawers and the lamp on his desk. His fingers flipped through the pages, as his eyes quickly skimmed in between. Till he reached an empty, blank page, he took one of his black pens and stared writing.

Whenever he couldn't sleep at night, he would open a book. Either write on the margins or read the book. There are times where he would write on an empty notebook of his. You might think he is one of his books; closed and in place, hidden from the world. But, he isn't. He is an open book and anyone can tell what he's been going through just through a glance in the eyes. Some people might think he is boring, since open books don't contain any secrets and adventures to explore. Somehow, Baekhyun was a different one. He kept rewriting himself within the margins—like how he writes in the margins of the books he reads. He would try to improve himself within the margins that it becomes interesting to see how much his mentality and conditions change. It got some people, for example Soo Ah, to look forward for an open book.

Baekhyun held his pen in his right hand, thinking of what to write. He glanced at the clock in front of him, but somehow his eyes stayed still on the red hand, indicating how each second passes by so quickly.

As each second ticks by, the present becomes the past and from that point on becomes history, a memory to be either forgotten or remembered with the most vivid detail. Every moment either shapes you, changes you, or falls into the black hole of time, but it is not gone forever. Simply search through the shelves of your mind and you will find every moment is perfectly aligned, waiting for the day it will be remembered again.

With a sigh, he started writing down on the blank pages. He simply wrote whatever his subconscious mind told him to do, and as usual, he ended up writing about the same topic.

' It is 12:37 a.m. and sleep escapes me.
Just as I remember the breath 
escaping your soft lips
against the flesh
of my neck.

  It is 1:22 a.m. and sleep escapes me.
Just as the words
"I love you," escape
my tender mouth each time
your body melts into mine.

  It is 2:09 a.m. and sleep escapes me.
Just as I wish to
never escape your embrace
on the nights I have
the privilege of lying next to you.

It is 2:45 a.m. and sleep escapes me.
I plead with my head
if only to escape my dreams
to avoid feeling the absence of you.'

"Baekhyun?" he heard someone say his name, making him drop his pen and look behind him. "You should be sleeping right now." Yubin stood up, sitting on the edge of the bed. She rubbed her eyes, waiting for Baekhyun to reply to her.

Baekhyun looked away from her and held his head in his hands, his fingers tangled in between his hair. He stayed silent the whole time, not wanting to answer her. He couldn't let himself cry, especially in front of her. There are times where the tears can't fall, but the heart cries instead. He never felt pain as hard as he does right now. Maybe it was caraphernelia, but he could've swore that he knew he was going to die due to a broken heart. It's possible, anyways.

"Heyy," Yubin first started, hesitating whether to rub his back or not. Slowly, but steadily, her palm was on his cold back, moving in circular motions. "It's okay. We will find out soon, and maybe, just maybe, you can move on," her words opened up his heart like a flower that only opens in the light of the sun.

"It's funny how I couldn't believe it at first," he muttered in a monotone voice, as Yubin sat down on her knees with her right hand still on his back. "I kept denying it to my friends, saying that she will come back. She can't leave me like that. But she didn't. I thought she loved me, Yubin. I thought. I cannot fathom my frustration and anger into words. I can't string all of the letters in the alphabet and string those hundreds and thousands of words into something that can describe what I'm feeling right now."

Yubin listened to him carefully, her eyes never leaving his face. She closed the notebook that was in front of him and placed it away. Baekhyun removed his hands from his face, not bothering to look at Yubin. However, she saw his bloodshot eyes, his teary eyes that convinced her it was going to take him time to move on.

"C'mon," she sighed, pulling him up from his place. Baekhyun walked by her side lifelessly and laid down on his bed. Yubin covered him up with the thick sheets of blankets and laid down on the other side. Baekhyun took out his phone and the music, knowing that he would most likely won't fall asleep.

Jonghyun's voice, from SHINee, filled the room, as the two of the stared at the ceiling. Diphylleia Grayi was playing. Somehow, his voice was comforting in a way, even though his songs were sad and a bit depressing.

"Why do we listen to sad songs when we're sad?" she asked. "Isn't it like a sonic twisting of the knife? An unnecessary compounding of sorrow?"

"Maybe people are just masochists," he replied casually.

"I think you have something more poetic to say than that." She chuckled, referring to his notebook she glanced off.

Baekhyun looked at her with an expression that was half annoyance and half amusement.

"People just want to know that they're not alone, I think. Even if it's just pretend. Kinda like the human race and its numerous gods."

"So religion is bad now?"

"I didn't say that. I just think that when it's quiet, you play music."

Baekhyun and Yubin woke up around nine in the morning, one of them wanting to solve Soo Ah's mystery, and the other wanting to sleep forever. Baekhyun wore a pair of black ripped jeans and a flannel with a black shirt underneath. Yubin stayed in Baekhyun clothes, since she didn't have any other clothes to wear and her older clothes were in the laundry. She could've taken a shower, but she didn't want to risk it.

The two of them let out a sigh once they entered the apartment, walking to where room 136 is. Baekhyun opened the door with a spare key he owns and went inside. He could smell her food floating in the air, reminding him every day that she is still around. A part of him believed that she isn't dead, but where would she be?

He snapped out of his thoughts and quickly went to the living room, where Yubin already was. She was writing down the unbolded letters from that ripped up letter they found yesterday. Deciding to leave her alone and work on her own parts, he went to Soo Ah's room.

The familiar light red room welcomed him, making him feel chills down his spine. He could see her bookshelf still stacked with books, with some even above the bookshelf due to overcapacity. Baekhyun walked further inside, his fingers touching the clouds and stars she hung above from the ceiling. Her walls were filled with notes and papers; from newspapers, to drawings, and to even notes she wrote. The whole room was filled with her scent and touch. Baekhyun felt as if he was live, actually. That's the closest thing he can ever get to her.

Looking around the messy room one last time, Baekhyun decided to place the blankets and unnecessary stuff away so it's easier for him to search. Like any other person, Baekhyun looked at her notes that she hung on the walls.

■ Buy a Latin Dictionary, a map, and a new calendar.
□ Finish reading The Book Thief.
■ Download new songs.
■ Write on my notebook.
□ Tell Baekhyun goodbye.

Baekhyun let out a heavy sigh, rereading the last to-do-task multiple times before moving on. Some of the notes were pointless, as in normal. Some contained some of their poem that they used to write when they couldn't sleep at night. However, when he reached to her bookshelf, he saw them all dusty, extremely dusty. Soo Ah was never the type of person who would leave their books to dust. She was the type of person to reread stuff over and over again.

He knew that there must be something hidden in between those books. As he thought of a smart idea, he quickly started skimming through the books, trying to find a non-dusty book. He might find something if he looks at the last book she read through. The Book Thief was perfectly clean with no spec of dusk on it. Quickly sitting down, Baekhyun grabbed the book and flipped through the pages.

'-he was one of the few souls that made me wonder what it was to live'

Baekhyun read the underlined line, his breath slowly becoming unstable. He's starting to notice how most of them had him as the main topic, as if he was the cause of everything. Of every destruction and disaster in the world, but the only destruction and disaster he brought to is his and her world.

"Hey, come look what I found," Yubin quickly dashed into where Baekhyun was, grabbing him by his hand. "Oh, my God."

Baekhyun wasted no time to drop the book, leaving it to land on a random page. He quickly followed Yubin before stopping in his tracks, looking at the teared down wallpapers. Beneath them was a bunch of writing a scribbling.

'EDICI US'

'NKJKP VUG'

'136.0'

'2←
⇆
L→E'

And these were a bit of what was written.

"Look," Yubin dragged Baekhyun to where she was trying to decode and understand the papers she found. She quickly picked up the Christmas note, which was all taped back together and had a pink sticky note on it. "These letters aren't normally unbolded. They're a secret message, Baekhyun."

'FEIOLCYRMWHIEH'

"I... Why would she do this?" Baekhyun asked speechless, tugging his hand away from Yubin's grasp, slowly backing away from her. He had tears in his eyes, knowing that he is in too deep to get out. The sickness in his stomach was back again, so did his trauma. Guilt was slowly fluttering in his body, like an unwanted caterpillar in a farm.

"I don't know, but all I know is we're doing this so you can move on," Yubin patted his back, before picking up the rest of the papers. "Let's continue this tomorrow. Let me get some stuff first."

Baekhyun nodded at her and sat down on one of the couches. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, trying to calm himself down.

While Baekhyun was waiting for Yubin, Yubin went to Soo Ah's room to bring a note that she thought it was interesting. Once she grabbed the pink sticky note, she looked at the book Baekhyun dropped before she dragged him out. Somehow, it ended up on one of the pages that caused Yubin to raise an eyebrow.

'I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty and I wonder how the same can be both.'

Yubin felt herself smile, remembering that the personification of Death—known as the Grim Reaper—said so. With a smile never leaving her face, she closed the book and placed it back in its place, knowing that she saw all of that in Baekhyun.

And with that, she left the room.