When Baekhyun was born, his mother knew he was special. Not of this world. He was too pure, too perfect. He was an angel.

And so, being a very special woman herself, she decided to protect him, really protect him.

Because angels need to be protected very diligently.

 

As Baekhyun grew, he was taught that he and his mother were the only people in this world, which consisted of twenty beautiful acres of spacious land and forest. No one else existed. There was no father figure, so Baekhyun grew up rather feminized, loving his mother's makeup and the color pink. His mother never scolded him, but simply let him be what he wanted to be. She worked from home, taught him at home, and ordered whatever they needed off the internet, even groceries. All this was done so that Baekhyun would never know of the outside world, because Baekhyun's mother lived in constant fear that the devil would snatch him away if he ever ventured beyond their property.

Because the devil loves to steal little angels away.

 

 

When Baekhyun turned twenty, still nothing had changed. He was very educated, since there were never any distractions from his schoolwork. He owned no electronic devices, because his mother was afraid that he might discover that there were other people in the world through social media if she allowed him to have one. The only thing of that nature in their house was his mother's computer, and she guarded it zealously, never allowing him to use it unless she was there to supervise. But one day, Baekhyun's mother ordered a tablet. It was supposed to have been so that their ancient desktop computer, which was always confined to one room in the house, might be given a little rest, but it proved to be a fatal decision. If it hadn't been for that tablet, none of this might have happened.

But then, it also might have.

Because the ways of fate are quite mysterious.

 

 

Baekhyun became curious when the tablet arrived. He loved the look of it; how slick and shiny and black it was, as opposed to the sickly sunbleached beige of their desktop. He loved the way it fit into his hands so nicely, loved the little hole on the top which his mother told him was a camera. He had never seen this type of camera before. The only camera he knew was his mother's Polaroid which printed pictures out immediately after they were taken. This tablet was a fascinating thing. "Mother, may I have a tablet too? One of my very own?" he asked the day it had arrived, after she had allowed him to play with it a little bit and see how it worked. The password of course, she kept to herself.

His mother turned pale. 

This was one of the questions she dreaded, one of the questions that threatened her protection over Baekhyun. The devil would most certainly steal him away if he were allowed unrestricted access to the internet. She had heard...stories. No, Baekhyun would definitely not be getting a tablet. "No, Light of Mine. Only Mother may have something like this. You know the rules."

Baekhyun pouted and sulked, as he was wont to do when he was told "no". But today it lasted longer than usual, even until bedtime. He was tired of being told "no". On his twentieth birthday, he had been told by his mother that he was a "man" now, and he felt innately that men do not need to be told no by their mothers anymore.
Feeling mutinous, he decided to break one of his mother's rules for the first time in his life, thinking that it would make him feel better.

 

Never go out after sunset, Light of Mine. The devil lurks in the darkness waiting to devour your soul.

He opened the door and stepped out under a sky full of stars.

At first, he was simply stunned by the beauty and stared upward, recognizing some of the constellations he had been taught about in science class. The moon was bright and full, illuminating everything in sight with an eerie bluish-white light. Everything looked so much different than in the daytime, so much more...intriguing.
It was different. It was new. Baekhyun loved it.

He ran around in circles, holding in the desire to shout for joy at how deliciously liberated he felt, until he fell to the ground panting and smiling his face off. He was really still a child, no matter how old his body was. After he had rested for a bit in the middle of the field behind their house, he decided to explore the forest, if only to defy another of his mother's rules.

 

The night's forest is the devil's playground. He sits in the trees and plays his song of death, hoping that someone will hear and follow it to their doom. He spreads his dark cloak over the ground and catches the souls of the innocent, like a fowler snares birds for his supper.

One step at a time, he ventured into the densely wooded forest.

The farther he walked, the more he was convinced that his mother was merely spinning fairy tales. He heard no song of death and saw no one sitting in any tree with a dark cloak spread over the ground.
There was nothing at all except pure, thick blackness.
The moon's light shone occasionally through the trees but otherwise there was nothing. Not even the animals were out tonight.
It should have scared Baekhyun.
It should have terrified him out of his wits.
But it didn't.
He was positively loving this.

Until he saw it.

A boy.

Or what he assumed to be a boy.

 

He was curled up into a very tight ball, shivering nonstop, his silvery hair sparkling in the sparse moonlight. Baekhyun stopped short and gawked at him, his mouth falling open like a trapdoor on a hinge. Was this another human..? It couldn't be.
His mother had told him that they two were the only humans existing in this world. Had she lied to him? Or was this the devil? He certainly didn't look sinister...rather, he looked as if he were freezing to death.
His skin glowed a faint blue and he shivered even more rapidly, burying his face further between his legs.
After the initial shock had ended, his first instinct was to help the boy...or whatever it was...like he had helped the bird with the broken wing when he was seven. That bird had grown well and flown away almost instantly, and his mother had said that he had the talent of healing. Maybe he could heal this boy.

So he sat down next to him and cautiously tapped him on the shoulder, holding his breath without realizing it. Would the boy respond? Would he attack him? Was he really the devil after all? Slowly, the boy looked up, and Baekhyun inhaled sharply, positively blown away by what he saw.

He was beautiful.
His eyes shone a bright aquamarine under the flickering shards of light cast by the moon, and his lips, a soft shade of pink, parted in question.
His features were sculpted as meticulously as if Michelangelo himself had been behind the chisel when he was made, and that alluring silvery hair gleamed like the freshly minted coins he'd seen in his history books. He spoke, and his voice was faint and wavering.

"Who...are you?" 

"...I...My name is Baekhyun." Baekhyun couldn't tear his gaze away from those eyes. They were so blue and crystalline and...deep, like a well where one couldn't see the bottom. There was also something in them that frightened him and excited him simultaneously, because he couldn't understand what it was...but it was akin to the feeling he felt when he grasped an ice cube with his bare hands, and it made him shudder.
"Baekhyun," repeated the strange being slowly, his body shivering a bit less as he spoke. "It is a good name. My name is Sehun." He held out his arms and promptly shivered violently for a moment before calming down again. "Will you...warm me?"
Sehun. Even his name was beautiful. Such a beautiful being deserved to live on in this world, even if there was something unexplainable in his eyes. Baekhyun nodded and hugged him tightly to his chest, and it was like embracing an entire sack of ice cubes. He gasped as chills flowed through his entire body, feeling as if he were being frozen alive. What....what was Sehun?
After what seemed like forever, Sehun gradually became warmer, and as he did, so did Baekhyun. The chills were almost nonexistent now and he was quite relieved. In his state of warmth, Sehun felt capable of pulling away from Baekhyun and looking curiously into his face with those impossibly blue eyes.

"Baekhyun..will you tell me about yourself? I want to know more of the one who saved me...of the angel who saved me." Baekhyun felt his cheeks heating up at the word angel, which he had heard from his mother before in reference to him. Why did they call him this? Wasn't he human just like them? 

"Will you?" Sehun repeated, and his eyes seemed as if they were gazing into his very soul.

Baekhyun began talking, almost automatically.

 

Baekhyun's mother woke up in the middle of the night, a cold sweat prickling her skin and open in a silent scream. She had dreamt that Baekhyun was encased in a sheet of ice in the forest, struggling for breath before he finally froze and was no more. And the devil had laughed beside his frigid coffin, his eyes as blue as the winter sea. 

 

 

 

Baekhyun found himself in his bed the next morning, although he had no recollection of how he'd gotten there.
The last thing he remembered was being with Sehun in the forest. 

Sehun proved to be quite charming and witty once they started talking.
In fact, it seemed as if he knew exactly how to make Baekhyun laugh and feel better about himself. Spilling his life story had proven to be easy around Sehun; everything just flowed out of him as if he'd been waiting to tell him for years. He told him of his life; how his mother had raised him, about the few pleasures that he considered to be a lot in his limited experience of the world, and Sehun just nodded with a half smile, drinking up the information without saying a word.

He refused to tell about himself, however, saying that it was a story for another time and that this night was all about him.
Baekhyun had liked that very much.
Nothing was ever all about him. 

 

 

He went to see Sehun again the next night, practically running through the forest in his excitement. This was the joy of making one's first friend, and he had never experienced it until now, in his twentieth year. It made him positively giddy.
Sehun was in the same location as before, although tonight he was not curled up in a shivering ball. Instead he was standing with his face to the stars, his eyes twinkling back at them and rivaling their brilliance. It suddenly struck Baekhyun that Sehun was taller than him and possibly taller than his mother. He seemed to sense Baekhyun's presence and turned his gaze on him, smiling softly.
"I knew you would come again," he said simply, and Baekhyun blushed from that mere statement alone.
"Come here, I feel myself beginning to chill." Sehun held out his arms, and his commanding tone was not lost on the other boy. Noticing the way Baekhyun seemed taken aback, Sehun's expression softened and he tried again in a gentler voice. "Will you please come here, Baekhyun? Light of Mine?" The nickname caused Baekhyun to visibly jolt.
"H..How did you know I'm called that..?" he stammered, a peculiar feeling welling up in the pit of his stomach. Sehun gave him a patronizing look. "You told me, of course." His arms were still open wide, and Baekhyun sank into them reluctantly, although in the back of his mind, he knew for a fact that he had never told Sehun anything of the kind.

All negative feelings were forgotten, however, once they were again on the ground side by side, talking. Sehun told Baekhyun everything he had seen of the world; all the amazing places and foods and sounds and exotic creatures, and Baekhyun ate it up eagerly with wide eyes, like a child at story time. "And people? Were there any other people?" he would always ask excitedly whenever Sehun's narrative of a particular region of the world had seemed to come to an end.

Sehun would always tilt his head to the side and blink owlishly, a sly expression on his beautiful face. "Do you think that there were other people, Baekhyunnie?" And Baekhyun would think long and hard about it for a while before deciding that no, there couldn't be any other people in the world. It just didn't seem possible.
Sehun would smile eerily when he told him that, and answer, "Then indeed, there were none. It was as empty and lifeless as the tomb." Baekhyun didn't like the way he said that, but he couldn't quite explain why.

Baekhyun's mother had the same horrible dream that night, and she sat up in bed shivering as though she herself had been forced into an icy grave.

It wasn't possible, it simply wasn't possible.

The devil would never get his hands on Baekhyun.

Not after all these years she had fought to protect him.

Never.

 

 

Sehun seemed to be more cautious the third night.
After their traditional hug, which was beginning to feel warmer every time, he did not say anything odd or questionable. Instead he talked about the weather in the tropics and how beautiful the palm trees were. Baekhyun frankly wondered how he could have seen so much of the world when he looked no older than he himself.

On the fourth night, when their hug had just about ended, Sehun's lips brushed lightly over the skin of Baekhyun's neck, and he yelped without thinking. It was a completely new sensation and he didn't know how to react to it at all. What was this...feeling?
Sehun seemed to notice his inner conflict and whispered ever so softly into his ear, "Do you like that, Light of Mine?" His breath felt icy and a chill ran down Baekhyun's spine, but he remained silent. 

He didn't know if he liked it or not.

He didn't know anything when he was around Sehun anymore.

 

The following morning Baekhyun's mother took his hands in her own after breakfast had ended, as her habit was when she felt that they needed to have an important talk. "Light of Mine.." she began, and Baekhyun instantly shuddered. Ever since Sehun had used that title in such a...strange voice the other night, it creeped him out to no end, even when it was only his mother saying it.
"Light of Mine, I've been having...dreams lately. Terrible dreams. My spirit tells me that the devil is closer than you think." Baekhyun's mother gripped his hands even more tightly, set in a grim line. "I want you to promise me to never go into the forest again unless I'm with you, understand?"
Baekhyun's breath caught in his windpipe. Did his mother know of his nightly trek into the woods? It didn't appear that she did; or else she would be much more upset...but then, why this sudden warning about the forest specifically? It didn't make sense...
"I promise, Mother," he replied anyway, and prayed that she couldn't see the lie in his eyes.

That night he actually slept in his room and did not go to see Sehun, but he dreamt of silvery hair and big blue eyes and a soft touch on his neck, and heard that voice slithering through his mind all the while, whispering "Do you like that, Light of Mine?" in the most disturbing of ways.
The next night he felt guilty and almost hurt himself running to go see Sehun. The boy looked at him accusingly when he arrived, the blue eyes merciless and frigid as they drilled into his very core.
"Where were you?" he asked simply, his tone as frosty as his gaze.
"I...I.." Baekhyun really didn't know what to say to that. How could he explain that he had just wanted to sleep in his own bed again for a change?
Sehun came close in an instant, his hands grabbing Baekhyun's wrists and gripping them tightly as he leaned into his face. "I needed you. Do not ever leave me hanging like that again," he hissed in a tone Baekhyun had never heard him use before.

He stared at him in pure terror, not understanding what had just happened. Sehun had moved so quickly that he hadn't even had time to react at all.

Apparently Sehun realized that he wasn't exactly being friendly right now and he quickly released Baekhyun, repeating apologies over and over.
Even after Baekhyun affirmed that it was okay he insisted on kissing the places that he had gripped so cruelly.
They looked raw and red in the moonlight, and Sehun kissed them slowly, languidly; as though there was nothing else he'd rather be doing.
Baekhyun again shivered, once more feeling things that he didn't understand, and Sehun smirked up at him. "Do you like that, Light of Mine?"

He still didn't know if he liked it or not.

 

 

 

Amazingly, Baekhyun's mother never questioned why he was so tired these days, which came as a major shock to him. Usually she was the first to notice anything that seemed off, even if it was the most insignificant thing...but then, she herself seemed fraught with troubles of her own.
Recently, she often locked herself up in her room during the day, and Baekhyun heard her reciting strange incantations when he put his ear to the crack of the door. Maybe she was trying to keep the devil away, he reasoned.

He wondered what the devil did that was so terrible in the first place.

 

That night, Sehun talked of love.

Love in itself was nothing new to Baekhyun, but the way that Sehun taught it was completely unheard of.
"You know what love is, don't you, Baekhyunnie?" he asked initially, staring at Baekhyun with his aqua orbs. They seemed to be filled with flowing water tonight, and sparkled in a peculiar way, almost as if he were saying two different things at the same time.
"Of course I know," Baekhyun answered without hesitation. Of course he knew what love was. He loved his mother, loved her with all his heart.
"Do you really?" Sehun hummed, flicking out his tongue serpentlike as he regarded Baekhyun with amusement. "There's more than one type of love, you realize. There's the love you feel for your mother, and the love you might feel for a pet if you had one or something else you own, and there's the love between lovers."
"Lovers?" Baekhyun had heard the term before but didn't quite grasp the entire concept. Having been taught all his life that he and his mother were the only persons in this world, and never receiving any evidence to the contrary until he'd met Sehun, he'd never had any opportunity to actually understand what "lovers" meant. He'd always thought it simply meant two people who loved each other, like he and his mother. They loved each other, so they were lovers. This was the definition provided by his child-mind.

Sehun seemed to read his thoughts and chuckled lightly. "The love between lovers is much different than the love between you and your mother, Light of Mine. Lovers are...special. A lover makes your heart beat faster and your face turn red. A lover is addictive, draws you to them without saying a word."
He paused and moved closer so that Baekhyun felt his frosty breath on the side of his neck. "And sometimes, Light of Mine, mutual lovers do things to each other, things that they think might make each other happy." His hand was snaking over Baekhyun's side, edging down to the hem of his shirt, and Baekhyun jerked instinctively, fear in his eyes. He didn't understand this, didn't understand the tingling sensation it brought to his skin, didn't understand the chills it sent coursing through his entire being.

Sehun's hand continued until it actually reached the hem of his shirt, and stopped. "Did you like that...Light of Mine?"
Baekhyun choked when he realized he had stopped breathing and struggled to inhale again, still not grasping what had just happened. "If you didn't, I won't do it anymore." Sehun's voice was suddenly gentle, and he pulled away and sat at a distance again. "It's only about what you want, Baekhyunnie."
Baekhyun relaxed, his shoulders slumping in relief. He sighed and dropped his head, looking down at the dark forest floor. Sehun had really scared him...but now things were back to normal. This was the boy he had befriended, he didn't need to be afraid anymore.

He looked up again and just missed the way Sehun had been staring at him predatorily, with unrestrained hunger in his soulless eyes.

 

 

 

At last the sleepless nights began to take their toll on Baekhyun's body and he fell asleep in the middle of the day, alarming his mother who for the first time actually noticed his severe exhaustion.
His nap lasted well into the evening, until about eleven at night, when he woke up on the living room sofa, feeling largely disoriented.
His first thought was to go see Sehun, but he was also reluctant in a strange way. Sehun had done so many unusual things that he still couldn't understand, and he wondered if he could trust him. He didn't seem to be quite as kind as his mother, that was for sure.
Maybe it was better for him if he never saw Sehun again. Maybe he ought to start obeying his mother again and stop going out after dark.

He stood up in the darkened living room and made his way to his bedroom, using his internal knowledge of how the house was mapped out. Once he opened the door, however, he stopped short and stared in unbridled horror. Frankly it was a miracle that he didn't scream right then and there.
For there, clearly visible in the moonlight that flooded his room, was his bed, completely encased in ice, icicles as sharp as daggers protruding from the part he would have lain on.

He turned tail and ran out of the house, straight into the forest, his heart beating double time.
The only thing on his mind was that he had to see Sehun. It should have seemed strange to him, had he stopped to think, that his mother was not the first one he turned to.
But in his current fear-crazed state, he only felt that he had to get away, and away was with Sehun.

Sehun had evidently been expecting him, as there was even a small dinner prepared for him that night. When Baekhyun came stumbling in, out of breath and overwrought, he almost stepped into the salad that Sehun had placed on the ground near the forefront of his little spread.
"S..Sehun...it was horrible....ice everywhere...my bed..could have died if it weren't for the moonlight...Sehun," he wailed, falling into the taller boy's waiting arms. Sehun hugged him comfortingly, whispering consolations as he slipped one hand downward and ran it up and down Baekhyun's thigh.
Baekhyun, in his hysterical state, was too out of it to notice or care.

Eventually Baekhyun calmed down enough to leave Sehun's embrace and noticed the meal for the first time. "Is this for me?"
Sehun smiled in amusement. "No, it's for decoration, I thought it would be nice to look at while we talked. Of course it's for you, Light of Mine. Go on, eat it." Baekhyun looked up at him with sparkling eyes, like a little puppy about to jump for joy. "Thank you so much."
Sehun merely nodded in response, adding, "I thought you might be hungry, considering that you didn't have any dinner yesterday."
Baekhyun paused in the middle of attacking the chicken. "How did you know I hadn't eaten any dinner?" he asked, that strange feeling reappearing in his stomach. Sehun's blue eyes flickered momentarily before locking on him again and he gave a half smile. "Just a lucky guess."
Sehun was an even better cook than his mother; Baekhyun couldn't remember when he"d ever tasted such delectable things in his life. "Please cook for me again," he begged when he had finished, and Sehun laughed and waved the request away, saying that he would think about it. Afterwards they stretched out on their backs side by side and watched the stars.
Baekhyun told Sehun all the constellations he knew and Sehun pointed out some of the planets. He seemed to have especially good eyesight; apparently the spot on Jupiter was visible to him while all Baekhyun could see of the so-called planet was a shining dot.

As Baekhyun was about to raise his hand to show Sehun Orion, Sehun grasped it in his own and brought it slowly to his lips before leisurely upward from his wrist to the tip of his index finger. Baekhyun shivered as usual, more of those sensations that he couldn't understand invading his body. "Delicious.." Sehun murmured, releasing his hand before looking back up at the sky as if nothing had happened, and Baekhyun remained motionless for a good five minutes, the feeling of Sehun's saliva on his hand like needles of ice piercing his skin.

 

Baekhyun's hand felt icy and numb in the place Sehun had the next day, and he winced as he put a bandage on it.
It tingled faintly as he stuck it into his pocket and prayed that his mother wouldn't see it and worry about him.
If she did notice, however, he was prepared to lie and say that a bee had stung him.
He rarely told her anything but lies anymore.

In the evening, as soon as his mother was asleep, he slipped into the kitchen and stole some food for Sehun as thanks for yesterday's dinner, stashing it in a small basket that he usually kept his books in. He wasn't sure what sorts of things Sehun liked so he just grabbed whatever and stuck it in without looking.
The forest seemed particularly dark that night and he felt afraid for perhaps the first time while walking through it. The trees loomed ominously above him, their branches seeming to reach out to him to strangle him with horrible black claws. Hugging himself, he bit his lower lip and edged onward. Sehun; that was the only thing that mattered right now.

Sehun. Sehun. Sehun...

He chanted it sliently to himself like a mantra, ignoring the unusually hostile atmosphere of the woods. Once he got to Sehun, it would all be okay..
But there was no Sehun. When he arrived at their usual location, he was nowhere to be found. Feeling a sudden surge of terror, he dropped his basket and sat down on the ground, hugging himself even more tightly than before and shivering in fear. The night was already chilly as it was and his state of panic wasn't helping matters.

And then, as if by magic, the moon appeared, emerging from behind the clouds like a radiant maiden from behind a veil. Baekhyun felt immensely relieved as the entire area was bathed in blessed light.

Including Sehun, who was in a sitting position with a serene expression on his face, frozen solid inside a transparent coating of ice.

Baekhyun's first instinct was to scream, to cry. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Was Sehun really...?! Generally when someone was frozen alive it meant that they were dead…. How had this even happened!? And more importantly, why? Why Sehun? Why the only friend he had ever had? Certainly, he had been a bit odd, and had done things that made Baekhyun uncomfortable, but still he had been his friend.
He was shaken to his very core.
As he was sitting there dumbfounded, deciding whether he should just outright bawl or not, the ice moved. Or more specifically, Sehun moved inside the ice. He stretched.
He opened his eyes.
And as Baekhyun watched in utter astonishment, he opened his mouth and the ice covering off of himself and swallowed it in one smooth movement. "You're early, Light of Mine," he remarked simply, standing up and stretching further as if it was perfectly normal for people to emerge from blocks of ice.

Although considering that Sehun was the first person he'd ever seen besides his mother, maybe it was.

His skin was bluish and his body vibrated with the cold that was evidently a side effect of just coming out of an ice coating, and he held out his arms in that old familiar way. By now Baekhyun understood what he wanted and hugged him, trembling from the intense cold in a way that reminded him of their first night together.

"Why do you do...that?" Baekhyun asked when Sehun had been significantly warmed and was able to sit on his own.
"Do what?" Sehun asked, playing with his silvery hair, which seemed shinier than usual tonight.
"That ice thing. I don't understand it.." Baekhyun's voice trailed off when he remembered the ice in his bed and he shook his head fervently, rejecting that thought instantly. Sehun could never have done something so terrible, not in a million years. "It's a bit of a strange disease, for lack of a better word. My body temperature isn't normal like yours, Baekhyunnie. Whereas yours ought to be 37° Celsius consistently, mine sometimes drops to -37°. When your temperature is that low, your body tends to freeze. Of course, it only gets that low when I haven't eaten in awhile." Sehun paused and looked at Baekhyun meaningfully, his eyes dipping over his body in a way that Baekhyun didn't quite like, although as usual he didn't understand why.
"I brought you some food," he said anyway, shaking off the uneasy feeling and reaching for his basket. "It's right....here?" Somehow the basket was completely empty. In reality, the contents had spilled out somewhere on the forest floor when he had dropped it in his state of panic, but he was unaware of this.
He stared into it, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. What was going on here? 

"Some animals probably stole it while you were gawking at frozen me," Sehun said in an amused tone, slipping his arm around Baekhyun's shoulders. "It's alright, it probably wasn't the sort of thing I eat anyway." His hand slid from the top of Baekhyun's shoulder downward over his arm, squeezing softly in places.

 

"I have a very special diet."

 

 

 

Surprisingly, the next night, Sehun was like a completely different person. He talked of the world as he used to, and this time was very considerate, asking Baekhyun first which place he wanted to hear about before he began his monologue. Baekhyun chose France, because Paris always fascinated him, and Sehun told him stories of the streets of Paris and the cathedrals, and the fields and mountains, and Baekhyun leaned forward and drank it all in with eager eyes.

He liked Sehun the best when he smiled, really smiled. The aquamarine eyes curled into upside-down crescent shapes and shone brighter than ever before, and his teeth gleamed like pearls in the moonlight. The first time he had smiled this way was when Baekhyun told him he was his best friend after the France story had ended.
"And you are mine too, Light of Mine," he answered, taking Baekhyun's hands in his own frigid ones and squeezing them with conviction. 

Baekhyun smiled for the whole day afterward.

 

 

It was a week later that they first kissed, a hesitant, jittery affair that lasted only a few seconds.
Baekhyun had never heard of this type of kissing before.
He had kissed his mother before on the cheek, but this was new and completely different. Sehun had informed him that best friends sometimes kissed each other to show affection, a concept which seemed to make good sense; however, he never expected the silver-haired boy to lean in and press his icy lips onto his own, his hands slipping quite naturally into his back pockets.
He was taken by surprise and jerked his head backward, away from the sudden contact that he hadn't been expecting at all. "I-Is that really what best friends do..?" he asked Sehun, still trying to rationalize the situation.

Sehun nodded, one hand leaving the comfort of Baekhyun's back pocket to swipe his unruly bangs out of his eyes. "Don't worry, Light of Mine, just try it again and if you don't like it we'll stop. You know it's only about what you want." Baekhyun relaxed at that and closed his eyes, waiting for Sehun to try again. It was a strange sensation, like pressing his lips against an ice cube, but it wasn't horrible.
Sehun smelled unusual; almost the way static electricity smelled. He took hold of Baekhyun's wrists and squeezed them periodically as he kept the kiss going as long as possible. It might have lasted longer if he hadn't brushed his tongue against Baekhyun's lower lip. Baekhyun wasn't ready for that and squirmed away, looking at Sehun questioningly. The action had reminded him on his bandaged hand and Sehun's former strange behavior, which he had hoped was gone for good. Sehun looked down at him with a little half-smile. "Did you like that, Light of Mine?"
Baekhyun thought about it for a minute before replying that he didn't know how to feel but it was okay for Sehun to keep doing it. When asked how he had liked the kiss, Sehun tilted his head to the side and his lips with an unusually bluish tongue, replying that it had been quite appetizing.

The rest of that night was awkward, and Baekhyun wondered briefly if he had seen barbs on Sehun's tongue or if it had just been a trick of the moonlight.

 

 

The dreams were worse than ever now, and Baekhyun's mother couldn't even sleep at night. She prayed fervently that they were only nightmares brought on by overwork and not harbingers of things to come, but being a very superstitious woman, she found that no matter how hard she tried she couldn't explain these dreams away. They haunted her and threatened to drive her to insanity as she unwillingly witnessed for the thousandth time her beloved angel being sacrificed to an ice devil, powerless to do anything to save him. It was quite literally hell on earth. She hugged Baekhyun spontaneously the next morning at breakfast and refused to let go, the tears suddenly flowing like water, and he hugged her back in concern.
"Mother, what is it?" he asked, and the sound of his voice alone intensified her grief.
"Light of Mine," she merely wept, and at that moment, the strain of so many sleepless nights and terrible visions finally hit her straight on, and she fainted in his arms.

Baekhyun stayed like a sentinel at his mother's bedside after she regained her consciousness, his heart filled with worry. He saw before him not the mother he had known from birth, but a woman broken by grief and fear, and it terrified him. He was also terrified, to a lesser degree, of what was happening to his hand; the one that Sehun had . It was slowly losing all feeling, and felt cold when he touched it with his other hand...but somehow it was still fully functional. He didn't understand it.

But then, when it came to Sehun, what did he really understand anymore?

That night, after establishing the fact that his mother was sleeping peacefully, he went to visit Sehun.
The boy had wild eyes tonight, bright and shimmering, as if they were reflecting the light of all the stars right back at him. He seemed particularly enthusiastic about something, and when Baekhyun asked him what it was, he answered that he felt that he might be eating very soon. He was very cryptic as to what exactly he thought he was going to eat, but said that it would hopefully be ready before very long. They tried to kiss later that evening, but it was awkward because Sehun seemed to be salivating over whatever he planned to dine on, so it was dropped.

When Baekhyun checked on his mother around six in the morning when he returned, he found that she had begun to run a high fever, and her complexion was very pale. Most unusual of all, the temperature of the room was so cold...as if it were the inside of a freezer.

 

 

Baekhyun did everything he could for his mother in following days, but her health only grew worse and worse.
The fever was dangerously high, and he was scared out of his mind. He couldnt imagine life without his mother...he loved her too much..
As it was, it was all he could do to simply keep her warm. Sometimes he would come in to check on her and find that the temperature in the room had lowered even further, in spite of the rest of the house and the outdoors being fairly warm. It was almost as if someone had turned the air conditioning on, but that wasn't the case. He had looked all over the room for the source of the cold and the fact that he couldn't find it was more frustrating than words could express.

To make matters worse, this was probably the only time he'd ever seen his mother sick in his life. Usually it was him with the sickness, usually a minor cold, pouting under the blankets and avoiding the bittersweet medicine he was always forced to take. He missed her firmness and no-nonsense tone, the tender way she called him "Light of Mine" (as opposed to Sehun's dangerously smooth voice when he said it), the way she obviously did everything she could to protect him. He realized that he had largely been taking her for granted all these years.
Sehun comforted him in the evenings, hugging him and telling him that it was okay and she would surely get better soon, so he oughtn't to worry, and he appreciated that. He appreciated someone who was there for him and let him cry on them, who comforted him and gave him a more optimistic outlook on the whole thing. He appreciated Sehun.

Once or twice, however, he caught Sehun looking off in the general direction of where his house would be if it were visible through the trees and darkness, and his lips, a rather ravenous look lurking in his blue orbs. He was disturbed by this and once asked Sehun why he was doing it. "Just wondering when I'll be able to eat, that's all, Light of Mine," he had answered breezily, but it didn't make sense to Baekhyun why he had to look in that specific direction every time he wondered...

"What do you eat, anyway, Sehun?" he asked a few nights later out of nowhere after observing him at it yet again. Sehun seemed taken aback by the question and looked at him with something akin to fearful rage in his eyes before laughing softly to himself. "...It is a legitimate question, I guess. But straight answers are boring, aren't they? I'd rather just make you guess. But I'll tell you this..." His teeth glinted in the faint light provided by the now waning moon as he smiled. "..I eat an animal. A very special kind of animal. One that talks. It's very rare around these parts, so I have to wait a long time before I get to catch it...but I think I'll have one very soon."
Baekhyun's face lit up in excitement. A talking animal? He hadn't learned about that in all his years of education...but then, he had never studied the supernatural. "Is it a parrot?" he asked after thinking about what it could possibly be.
Sehun laughed, his eyes crinkling in obvious mirth. "Sometimes, Light of Mine. Sometimes."

 

Baekhyun carried his mother into the living room and out of the bedroom the next day after realizing that there was nothing that could really be done about the horrible cold. It had gotten so bad that a thin layer of frost had formed on various surfaces. After moving her he gave her hot tea and smothered her in blankets, giving her a kiss on the forehead like she had always done to him when he had been sick as a child.
The normal temperature in the room seemed to help her tremendously and she gave him a weak smile of thanks; the first eye contact they had made in what felt like ages.

Sehun was sullen that night when he visited him and his mood did not improve when Baekhyun continued to happily repeat over and over that his mother might be getting better. Eventually he grabbed him rather roughly and kissed him to shut him up, and Baekhyun gasped at the clash of lips and teeth and a bit of Sehun's tongue, which tasted like bitter ice. It almost seemed like an angry kiss, with Sehun sinking his teeth into his lower lip and almost drawing blood, and it scared him. He tried to squirm away, but Sehun was chewing on his lip and holding him in a vice grip. There was nothing he could really do except hold still and be frightened.
And then, as suddenly as Sehun had started, he stopped and pulled away, apologizing constantly. Apparently he really had drawn blood, as his usually rose-colored lips and what could be seen of his teeth were smeared with redness. Baekhyun was still in shock and rather traumatized, but accepted his apology, and they hugged and made amends.
It was not lost on him, however, when Sehun the blood from his lips and smiled strangely to himself as he stared off into the distance, his aqua eyes unreadable. The entire picture caused him to shudder and he decided that maybe he ought to go home early that night. Apparently this was the right decision, as he realized when he had returned that the horrible coldness had come back with a vengeance and was now stationed in the living room. When he had the light he saw his mother sitting bolt upright on the sofa, her eyes deranged half with the fever and half with fear. "It's the devil," she shrieked dramatically when she saw him. "It's the ice devil, I won't let him have you! I won't! I won't!!" She broke off and began to cry, burying her face in her hands but still babbling to herself. "I...won't...there's evil in his eyes..those horrible blue eyes..."

Baekhyun froze in his tracks, the image of Sehun encased in ice flooding back all too clearly into his mind.

What if Sehun....? 

 

It was dreadful. It was horrifying. But it was plausible.

Sehun's association with ice and cold temperatures, his crystal blue eyes, his strange behavior at times...it all made sense.

And yet... It was Sehun. And Sehun was his friend. His best friend, his only friend.

He shook his head vehemently to himself, rejecting the conclusion as quickly as he had come to it. There was certainly something unusual about Sehun, he couldn't deny that...but there had to be another explanation for whatever was going on with him. Sehun was not an ice devil and he had nothing to do with this at all. He went over to comfort his hysterical mother and see if he could do anything about the cold.

The next day he simply became fed up and carried his mother outside before depositing her on the bench on the lawn. It was a warm day and he was positive that no matter what force was behind the freezing temperatures, it couldn't possibly hurt her out here. She seemed to feel better already with the sunlight shining on her face, and he smiled down at her. He wished that he could just heal her, like he had healed the bird with the broken wing, but if he was ever sure how he had done that in the first place, he certainly wasn't sure now. And then, out of nowhere, on a clear day in June, it started to snow, and Baekhyun fell to his knees and clenched his fists, such a mixture of sad and infuriated that he felt his heart would burst. This was it, it was on now. He wasn't losing this battle. He wasn't losing his mother.
As quickly as he could he transported her back indoors and the heater full blast, kicking himself for not thinking of this before. He gave her medicine and bundled her up, telling her it was going to be okay soon, and he vowed that he would remember how to heal again. Whatever this was, he wasn't letting it win. Not in a million years.

When he trudged through the snow to see Sehun that night, he felt slightly uneasy.
Last night's aggressive kiss was still fresh on his mind and his bottom lip was still torn and painful. He wasn't looking forward to a repeat of that experience.

 

Sehun was sitting crosslegged in the snow, his eyes closed and a very self-satisfied expression on his face. He looked even paler than usual tonight, and snowflakes were mingled with the silvery strands of his hair, making him look like some sort of ice prince from a fairy tale. He tilted his head backward, seemingly still not aware of Baekhyun's presence, and caught the falling snow on his tongue. Some of it came to rest on his eyelashes and dusted his cheeks, and he smiled serenely.

He was so beautiful.

Baekhyun couldn't understand why that realization hit him again after all this time, but it was true. Sehun was absolutely, positively, painfully beautiful. Could a thing of evil ever be so ethereal? He doubted it with every fiber of his being. At last Sehun opened his eyes and noticed Baekhyun staring at him. "Light of Mine? Early, aren't we?"
"I can't stay long." Baekhyun plopped down next to him in the purity of the freshly fallen snow and sighed a little. "My mother needs me, she's gotten a little better but I can't leave her alone for too long."
"You seem stressed, Light of Mine," Sehun hummed, reaching over and gently brushing his hair out of his eyes. "Shall I try to relax you? It's a special night; the first snow of the year; we ought to honor it."
"Relax...?" Baekhyun repeated, not getting his meaning. "But you always relax me when you tell me it's going to be okay, and when you hug me. How is that something special?"

Sehun pulled him into a hug right then, pressing him against his chest and running his fingers through his hair. "We'll see, won't we?" he murmured, kissing the top of his head gently, and Baekhyun sighed softly. He honestly felt better already, because somehow Sehun knew how to banish all his troubles..when he wasn't creating additional ones, at least. He felt Sehun's cold fingers exploring his side as before, only this time under the shirt, and let out a tiny squeaking noise that he hadn't known he had the ability to produce. "Sehun...what are you doing?" he asked hesitantly, not sure if he wanted this to continue or not. "Tonight, I'll show you a bit of what lovers do..." Sehun mumbled into his hair between kisses, "because you deserve something nice for taking such good care of your mother."

Lovers. Baekhyun wondered if that was what he and Sehun were now. He wasn't sure what they were anymore... He found himself making a different kind of noise when Sehun nuzzled at his neck, kissing it lightly as his hands slid further up his sides under his shirt; a wavering sound that rose and fell in pitch, and the silver-haired boy looked up and smiled at him knowingly. "You moan so prettily, Light of Mine," he said approvingly before returning to his task. Baekhyun didn't know how to interpret that, or why he felt his cheeks heating up more than ever before once he'd heard it.
Sehun ed his shirt from the collar to about halfway down his chest, and Baekhyun shivered at the snow hitting his bare skin as well as the frigidity of the air. In addition, Sehun was his lips as he took in the sight, and he felt a peculiar twinge somewhere inside him that he'd never felt before.

Slender fingers traced across his neck, sliding downward, sending little chills down his spine in their wake.
Sehun ghosted patterns across his skin and drew stripes with his tongue at his collarbones, evoking more of the sounds that were apparently called moans from his lips. He was slowly losing control over his body's responses and he became more needy, clinging onto Sehun and weaving his fingers through his glistening hair. It still terrified him but he found himself wanting more, and that increased his terror. This jumble of emotions tossed together in his heart...was this love? The lover sort of love?
He was almost afraid to find out.

The last thing Sehun did, before rebuttoning the shirt, was to trace his name over Baekhyun's bone, laughing under his breath at the way Baekhyun whined quietly at his touch. It was almost too much for him; he wanted to destroy him right then and there...but this foolish boy needed to be fully deluded before he would be able to finally sink his teeth into that milky skin and finish him off once and for all.

"You belong to me now…" he rasped, underlining what he had invisibly written with a final swipe of his index finger.
This was it, his fate was sealed. And again, it was all he could do to keep himself from attacking when he saw the look of combined fear and lust in the boy's wide brown eyes. He probably didn't even understand what was happening to him, or why his body was reacting the way it was. He looked up at the sky, at the never-ending snowfall of his own creation, and decided that it would be on a night like this that he took what was his and spilled Baekhyun's blood onto the white frozen ground.

 

After all, blood on the snow was always so beautiful.

 

 

"You belong to me now."

Baekhyun couldn't get that statement out of his head, or the tone of voice in which Sehun had said it. It had seemed so official, as if he were declaring something that would stand for all time.

It was unusual, but Baekhyun liked it.

He liked it very much.

 

He was more careful of his body these days, spending more time in the shower and experimenting with his mother's perfumes, because something deep down inside him had liked it when Sehun's lips and hands were all over him, making him feel so strange but so wonderful, and wanted it to happen again.
Of course, even during this new phase of his, he never forgot to take care of his mother. She was improving much more now that the heater was helping to banish the cold, and her fever had gone down significantly. She still became hysterical at times but they were few and far between, and Baekhyun hoped that soon she would be completely back to her old self again.

Sehun treated him a bit differently these days, reverting to his former unusual behavior, although Baekhyun didn't mind it so much these days. He liked it when Sehun slid his hands over his body and squeezed in places, looking at him with those crystalline eyes and humming approvingly at what he felt, telling him that he had such a "delicious figure". He seemed to have a particular fascination with Baekhyun's hips, as his attention kept wandering there, but Baekhyun didn't see a problem at all. Sehun had awakened his uality as well as his romantic love, and he only wanted more.

To put it quite frankly, he was infatuated with Sehun.

He came to visit him earlier and earlier, sometimes only a minute after the sunset, and stayed until the last second before sunrise. Sehun's low and smooth voice soothed him, and he would sit in his lap and rest his head on his chest as he listened to him talk about distant countries or other things. Sometimes they simply kissed and didn't do any talking at all. Baekhyun had grown to love the bitter ice taste of Sehun's tongue and the particular rhythm of his lips against his own.
Sehun still scared him at times though.
That had yet to change.
For instance, the night that Baekhyun made the mistake of falling asleep in Sehun's arms. He had grown too comfortable, and the nights of visiting the forest instead of getting proper rest had weighed heavily on him, causing him to simply pass out. When he awoke, he found that Sehun had removed his shirt and had bitten him in several places. One particular spot on his chest was bleeding more than the others, dangerously near his heart, and when Sehun had tried to smile at him reassuringly, he had displayed a row of teeth covered in blood. Needless to say, this had been very unsettling and Baekhyun had gone home immediately to treat his wounds and get away from his terrifying lover.

But he still went back the next day.

 

A lover is addictive, draws you to them without saying a word.

 

 

The fever disappeared completely a few days later. Baekhyun's mother looked so much better, her eyes finally rid of that glazed-over look, and Baekhyun was so ecstatic he didn't know what to do with himself. At the same time though, he was noticing a slight change in his own health. It wasn't really anything dramatic, just sudden chills that came and went at intervals throughout the day...also the skin on his collarbones, which had been very thoroughly by Sehun that first night they'd been intimate with each other, appeared to be losing its feeling; he would touch it and feel nothing except cold. His hand also had yet to fully recover from the treatment that Sehun had given it so long ago. It seemed that whatever Sehun turned cold and numb for some reason..

He asked Sehun about this when he visited him that night, and Sehun smiled cryptically, tilting his head to one side as he was wont to do when he was asked a personal question. "It has to do with my body temperature again," he answered simply. "I freeze whatever I . Just treat it properly and it'll be fine...it's nothing to worry about." He leaned in and Baekhyun's ear, on it a little and just barely biting down it, and Baekhyun let him, making soft noises when he felt the icy slickness spreading over his ear, followed by the now-familiar tingling sensation.
"You're always so vocal..." Sehun murmured in amusement, massaging his hips and laughing softly at his answering whimpers.
"I can't help it..." Baekhyun faltered by way of reply, and indeed how could he when Sehun was doing so many things to his body that he had never felt before? It was all new to him; he simply reacted before he knew what was happening.

Sehun seemed to enjoy testing his limits, going further and further every time, once scaring him when he tried to remove his pants for the first time. He would always soothe the conflicted boy then; kissing the top of his head in the way that he knew he liked and whispering, "It's okay, Light of Mine, we won't do it then. It's only about what you want, remember?" But he would always try again a little later, and Baekhyun would almost always give in on the second try, because he was so infatuated with his ice prince.
Sometimes he let Baekhyun do things to him too, although these occasions were few and far between because he liked being in charge and Baekhyun was also rather timid. But every once in awhile, Baekhyun would Sehun's stiff white blazer and shyly kiss down his neck to his chest, his lips becoming numb from the frigidity of the strange boy's skin.

The first time he had tried this he had noted Sehun's absence of a heartbeat when he had kissed over where the heart should have been. This had puzzled him to no end and he had put both of his hands over the area and felt around, eliciting a small moan from Sehun which had startled him almost as much as the lack of a heartbeat since Sehun was rather silent during these activities as a general rule. "Sehun, I can't find your heartbeat, where is it..?" he had asked, and Sehun had very calmly removed his hands from his chest and rebuttoned his shirt before pushing Baekhyun onto his back on the snow-covered forest floor and kissing him rather languidly, effectively making him forget the subject at hand.

But he never answered the question.

 

With good health returned the overprotective personality that Baekhyun's mother was famous for, and she started to monitor him more closely than ever because she was convinced that something was going on. She still had yet to discover that Baekhyun went out after dark, however.

 

Sehun loved to bite. Baekhyun was beginning to realize this more and more and wasn't sure if he appreciated it or not, frankly.
He bit whenever he could; mostly soft and gentle, with plenty of , which Baekhyun didn't mind so much because he liked the way it felt. (Sadly, Baekhyun had grown rather addicted to all the ways that Sehun could make him feel good, no matter how bizarre.)
There was another kind of biting that he tended to do more and more often, however; the kind that disturbed Baekhyun, the kind where he simply sank his teeth into the boy's skin and bit. Sometimes he took a tiny piece of Baekhyun with him when he released and seemed to swallow it, looking very pleased with himself. His favorite place for this kind of biting was Baekhyun's thighs, most likely because Baekhyun had very soft and meaty thighs, almost like a woman's thighs.
He couldn't exactly say it was painful when Sehun bit like this, because he felt such an overwhelming cold when it happened that all other sensations were canceled out...but there was just something that bothered him to his very core about his lover treating him as if...as if he were something to eat.

He bit Sehun once, very weakly, in retaliation while he was kissing his chest, and tasted the most horribly bitter substance that had ever entered his mouth. It was so strange in flavor that he couldn't even think of what to compare it to...but part of it reminded him of human blood, although he had never even broken Sehun's skin. When he looked up with a disgusted expression he saw Sehun smiling down at him in a patronizing way, his aqua eyes unusually cold and cynical.

 

Haven't you figured it out yet...Light of Mine? 

It was the devil. It had to be. Baekhyun's mother was thoroughly convinced in her superstitious mind that the devil was attempting to steal her little angel away. Maybe..maybe it was time for him to learn what he really was....maybe then he would be able to protect himself against whatever attack he might be under... It was a difficult decision, but a necessary one, and she made it with great determination.

Baekhyun was in the kitchen studying a cookbook when she approached him to have the talk; he still cooked for the two of them since her health had just recently improved. He looked up and smiled directly at her when he heard her footsteps on the tiles, and she froze and stared at him, wondering if she were seeing incorrectly. For there was her little boy, grinning as innocently as ever, a pair of crystal blue eyes looking back at her expectantly.
He shivered suddenly as she continued to gaze at him in horror and ducked his head, hugging himself momentarily as he let the chill pass. When he opened his eyes again, they were chocolate brown. Just like always.

Baekhyun's mother her heel and left the kitchen, deciding that if she was hallucinating she needed more rest before she would be mentally ready to discuss this subject with her son, while a bewildered Baekhyun scratched his head and blinked after her retreating figure.

 

Sehun was very pleased with the way things were going. His prey was falling quite nicely into his trap; so nicely, in fact, that he doubted there would be a struggle this time. Such a pity...he did enjoy a good struggle...
He smiled down at the bare skin of his pale body, remembering how Baekhyun had kissed down to his waist, all that disgusting love only too apparent in his eyes. Others of his kind, being cold and heartless, detested the very notion of love, but Sehun was amused by it. He enjoyed the way it made it so simple to obtain victims for the slaughter.
Baekhyun specifically fascinated him, perhaps more than any of his previous unfortunates. He was so pure, so untouched by any outside forces….it almost seemed a shame to reduce him to a jumble of bones and bloodstains on the snow. Almost, but not quite.
He hadn't eaten in half a century. That was far too long for such a one as him to hide away in a dark forest and shiver, waiting for some human to find him and allow him to hug them.

Now, in the wavering light of the detestable sun, he bathed in a heap of melting snow, ensuring that his body was perfect for his little angel, who valued purity above all else. He himself couldn't care less for it; he enjoyed his body best when it was spattered with the blood of his last killing...but who was he to contradict the preferences of his "lover"?

Sometimes, when Baekhyun looked into the mirror, he saw two aquamarine eyes, as translucent as Sehun's, staring back at him. Other times he would be combing his hair and notice that it was becoming silvery around the roots. At times like these he would simply stare at his reflection and wonder if he were dreaming or if he were actually turning into Sehun. But these moments came and went, and were so rare, that he finally decided it was his imagination. 

 

 

It was becoming harder and harder for Baekhyun to hide the truth from his mother these days, especially considering the way Sehun continued to mark up his skin with bites. Fortunately the uncharacteristically cold June weather gave him an excuse to wear turtlenecks, but sometimes a red mark still managed to be exposed, such as when he rolled up his sleeves to wash dishes, and he prayed his mother wouldn't see.
Come to think of it, he hadn't had an honest conversation with his mother since he met Sehun...

 

Sensual.

It was a new word to Baekhyun, one he had never payed attention to in the past because he hadn't even known or understood what the definition was referring to when it said "ual gratification", but he was quite familiar with what was meant by it now. It made him realize yet again, as he stared at the black text until it blurred before his eyes, how much he had changed since he met Sehun. He had been looking up the word "sagacious" after seeing it in a book he had been reading, and had gotten sidetracked by this word instead. Was this good? Was it a positive change? He was getting into things he'd never thought he would be associated with...learning things that he wished he hadn't, going through physical changes that he feared, and becoming estranged from his mother. And all because of Sehun.

But he loved Sehun.

He loved him to the point of insanity.

He loved him enough to die for him, in all honesty.

 

 

Sehun really had no interest in at all. It bored him, to be frank. They were all alike, these humans. He teased a certain area, they started emitting all kinds of absurd noises and clinging onto him, the scent of their blood and their flesh driving him wild and making him wish he could just finish them off right then instead of continuing to do the same thing every night. was a form of torture, therefore, in many instances. Baekhyun, who carried the faint otherworldly air typical of an angel who had not been awakened yet, was even more unbearable to him. He wanted all of him; especially that spirit, before it was awakened. As it was now, Baekhyun was a regular human for the most part, and Sehun was determined to devour him before his awakening.

He wanted to just eat him and get it over with.
He wanted the carnal thrill of watching his blood spill out over his alabaster skin when he took the first bite after he had killed him.
So what then, was keeping him back? The boy was right where he wanted him; his eyes were almost always blue these days when he came to visit and he let Sehun go farther and farther with him every time they were intimate, indicating that he was now drunk on the love he harbored for him and no longer in any state to resist.

So why had he not completed the task long ago?

He himself had no idea...

 

 

 

Baekhyun was always so cold as of late. No matter what he did, he couldn't control the chills that came more and more frequently and seemed to be taking over his life. His mother was frightened out of her wits when she found him on the sofa wrapped in blankets and shivering, his hair half silvery and his eyes a watery light blue. She took immediate action, transporting him to his room and reciting various prayers over him that he didn't quite understand, as well as tucking him in under the blankets quite securely. Once the chills seemed to have subsided, she left him, but locked the door from the outside.

The first thought that came to Baekhyun when he made this discovery, was, of course, Sehun. Realizing that he was trapped in his own room for most likely the rest of the day and, more importantly, the night, he panicked, wondering what would happen to him. It wasn't so much the withdrawal he would experience from not visiting his lover that he feared so much as it was Sehun's temper. He knew from past experience that Sehun could be rather frightening if Baekhyun failed to make his nightly appearance and he did not want to go through that again.

But on the other hand...maybe being stuck in this room wasn't such a bad thing. He hadn't slept properly in a long time and meeting Sehun every single night without fail was very draining on his system. His bed suddenly looked very inviting indeed and he sank back into it, away from his former post at the door, where he had been trying to figure out a way to sneak out. For now, he decided, the best course of action was to sleep. He would deal with the consequences from Sehun later. Although really, if he didn't want to, he wouldn't go again to see him at all. After all, Sehun didn't own him...at least not in his deluded mind.

Because the reality was, Sehun did own him.

Body and soul.

 

Around two in the morning he awoke to something soft and icy pressing onto his lips, sliding ever so slowly across them with velvety smoothness....almost like Sehun's lips when they kissed.
He opened his eyes, and there was Sehun, in his own room, in his own bed, on top of him; kissing him as casually as if he did it all the time. Which perhaps he did, but certainly not under these circumstances. His hands and lips and body felt so much colder here than they usually did in the forest, and Baekhyun felt his lips becoming numb from the mere contact with those of Sehun.
Something wasn't right here.
It was too cold.
Even for Sehun.
He sat up and pushed the frigid boy away, his eyes questioning as he looked up at him. "Sehun, what are you doing here? I thought you never left the forest.."

"Shhh, Light of Mine, your mother might hear..." Sehun murmured in reply, and there was frost coating his eyelashes and the tips of his metallic hair. He smiled, and his teeth seemed sharper than usual, like tiny icicles.

Something was definitely wrong tonight.

Baekhyun was genuinely afraid for the first time since he had become so infatuated with Sehun, thinking of him as his ice prince and worshipping him night after night in the forest; offering up his body as tribute to this arctic Adonis of the woods. But this was a different Sehun than the one he had grown accustomed to. This Sehun looked down at him with vividly translucent eyes, like two ice crystals that penetrated right through his heart. They seemed to glow with a strange emotion that Baekhyun couldn't quite place, but it reminded him vaguely of...hunger.

"You forgot about me, didn't you...Light of Mine?" Sehun uttered suddenly, in a dangerously soft voice that carried a biting undertone. "You forgot to come see me...that's why I decided I would have to come see you." He took a handful of Baekhyun's silvery brown locks and pulled him in by his hair so that their noses touched, and Baekhyun gasped softly from the sudden pain.
"Do you know why I came to see you?" Sehun continued in that same venomously gentle tone, his ice cold fingers uncomfortable against the skin of Baekhyun's scalp. "Because I love you."

It almost sounded mocking, scornful...bitter.
Sehun kissed him sadistically, biting as much as was physically possible, and Baekhyun let him, half afraid to struggle and half shocked out of his wits. Was this really happening? Or was it some bizarre dream?
"I love you," Sehun slurred again as he closed needlelike teeth over the soft skin of Baekhyun's stomach, and it was all the poor boy could do to keep from yelping in pain. This most certainly was not a dream; if it were, he would have opened his eyes long ago and put an end to it... Eventually Sehun seemed to have his fill of revenge or whatever he was after; he stopped with the strange behavior and merely sat crosslegged on Baekhyun's bed, leaving a rather battered and traumatized Baekhyun in his wake.
The frost on his eyelashes seemed to have become thicker, and his fingers were tipped with ice. Even his hair seemed to be turning white as snow instead of its usual shade of silver. The last thing Baekhyun remembered, before he fell asleep from his state of emotional overload, was Sehun's eyes, almost transparent and hardly blue anymore, like two ice cubes in his eye sockets with pupils frozen into them.

They had gazed straight ahead, unblinking, as empty as if the body they belonged to had been unoccupied. 

 

 

In the morning of the following day, all of Baekhyun's bite wounds were frozen; a literal layer of unmeltable ice covered each of them and made them numb and tingly, and he was confused. Sehun's bites had never affected him this way before...what exactly had taken place last night? What was happening..?

 

It was the beginning of the end; the first step of the final stage. Sehun had finally overcome whatever conflict he had been experiencing and was now executing the plan to consume Baekhyun's entire being. He was quite proud of himself, as well as quite hungry. The energy required to enter his true demon form had sapped most of the supply that he'd obtained from Baekhyun's former nightly hugs. He ran an ice-tipped finger over his teeth, pleased at how they had sharpened since his last victim half a century ago. Soon they would be put to proper use again...

His body was currently covered in a layer of frost to protect himself from the warmth of the day, and his eyelids felt heavy with the excess ice crystals that had accumulated on his silver lashes. He curled up into a ball as before and closed his eyes with a little sigh, deciding to go into a small period of hibernation. Baekhyun would be ready for him to finish off in a week or so; those bites he had given him would see to that. Nothing could melt that ice...nothing human at least... Baekhyun's mother wore a grim expression when she checked on him later and saw what had happened overnight. She said nothing but merely ran her finger across the iced-over bite mark on his chin, wincing when she felt the intense cold.

"Light of Mine.." she said finally in a deathly calm voice, "I want you to tell me truthfully, are there other people in the world?" The phrasing of the question caught Baekhyun off guard, but his blushing face betrayed him and he looked down, averting her eyes. "....One..." he said finally in a soft, barely audible tone, his gaze fixated on a icy gash in his arm. Baekhyun's mother sighed and took his hands, her eyes weary and her voice unsteady. "Where did you find out about this one?" Baekhyun bit his tongue and refused to answer, determined not to let his mother know more than was necessary. His silence evoked another sigh from his mother, and she shook her head sadly.
"Light of Mine...have you ever wondered why I call you that, instead of your rightful name?" she began, looking at him expectantly. Indeed, that was something that had always bothered Baekhyun; he had never understood where that nickname came from, he himself had nothing to do with light...or at least he thought as much...

"Once every thousand years, an angel's spirit is given to a human when they are born. It lives dormant within their body, overpowered by the human's natural soul...but one day, the angel's soul is awakened, and the human soul is usurped. The human becomes purely angel from that point onward. Light of Mine...you are that one in a thousand years. I cannot allow anything to happen to you before your awakening, hence why I protect you so carefully." Baekhyun's mother locked eyes with him earnestly, stressing the importance of her next point with her eyes as she continued, "Something has been attacking you, trying to destroy you and the angel you are going to become. It has been corrupting your mind and vandalizing your body, trying to take your life in any way it can. It is the devil, Light of Mine, or else something akin to him. I want you to cease all association with it, no matter what it is. In the meantime, I'll see if I can't do anything about this ice..." She released him and got up to go and busy herself in the kitchen, leaving Baekhyun alone with the bombshell she had just dropped onto him.

Me...an angel....? Did he dare to believe it?
His mother was often full of legends and superstitions, so he wasn't sure if he ought to believe her or not, frankly...

But still, what if.....?

 

In his state of hibernation, Sehun had frozen completely and the ice emanating from him had coated the forest floor around him for a good distance. He looked like a sculpture meticulously carved out of ice erected in the middle of the clearing.
But he still hungered. Even within the chrysalis of ice, he hungered.
At times he stirred from his slumber, wondering if it really had been wise to revert to his true form already and become dormant. If it were that Baekhyun was not in fact utterly deceived, he might recover in this time that he was away from Sehun. All the hard work, the self-control, the agony...would be for nothing.

The third night therefore, he broke through the ice and shook the frost from his hair. Powder-like crystals flew from him like mist, and he sighed, the sensation of their touch against his frigid skin light and refreshing. It was time to act.

As he prepared to leave the clearing however, a shape drew near in the moonlit darkness, slowly becoming more visible among the trees. When it became clear who it was, he smiled, thanking his good luck.

Baekhyun.

Baekhyun clad in nothing but a white nightshirt, his eyes vivid blue and his skin marred with icy scars.

 

 

Sehun looked so different tonight, his body enveloped in crystalline dust, his hair white, his eyes dark and malevolent.
And yet, even now, he was beautiful. Even now, as Baekhyun began to struggle for breath, the ice on his chest slowly piercing through his skin to his lungs, his body slightly shaky. It wasn't about angels or demons, good or evil, light or darkness; it was merely about love. And Baekhyun loved Sehun with all his heart.

His mother hadn't been able to do much about the ice. She had somehow melted down part of it on his neck, but it came back not long afterwards, worse than it had been before. It never spread however, but kept to its respective grooves in Baekhyun's flesh, only freezing deeper. She pleaded with him to use his healing power and heal himself before it was too late, but he couldn't remember how. He wasn't even sure if he'd had that power in the first place.
He had been forbidden to go back, but it was impossible to stay away. Sehun's allure pulled him like gravity...pulled him down, snared him and made him forget just how wrong this whole situation was.

He wasn't a fool; he knew that Sehun was at the very least partly if not completely responsible for this, and yet here he was, in his nightshirt, the frigid night air chilling him to the bone...for Sehun.

 

Sehun approached him, his expression almost murderous, but he never faltered. This was Sehun, his Sehun. His friend, his lover, his everything. He felt sure, in his strong delusion, that he would never intend to harm him.
"Sehun..I...this ice....why did you do it?" he asked, reaching out to his lover. He caught onto his arms, and a chill like a shockwave wrenched through his entire body. Sehun had never been this cold.

A smile.
That was the only answer he received from his beloved.
The meaning was unclear, the timing inappropriate. Why would Sehun smile at a time like this..?

"It was an accident, Light of Mine," he drawled, reaching out with an ice-clawed finger to tip Baekhyun's chin upward as he stared into his eyes. "You know how I am, with my body temperature. It's too low, it just keeps getting lower. I'm sorry, it wasn't done on purpose." His touch against Baekhyun's skin caused a wave of shuddering, and the ice on his neck seemed to penetrate more deeply, causing him to gasp. Sehun's smile merely widened. "I can take away the ice, if you'd like me to," he offered, raising a white eyebrow, and Baekhyun hesitated. There was something he didn't like about the predatory spark in Sehun's crystal eyes, and for the first time in awhile his instincts resurfaced and he wondered if he could trust him.
"...Can you really..?" he replied hesitantly after a moment, staring up at the taller boy and trying to interpret his mocking smile.
"Of course I can." Sehun leaned in and kissed him, and the ice embedded in his lips and chin dissipated. Baekhyun threw his arms around him in relief and returned his kiss gratefully, feeling terrible for ever doubting him at all. Even in this unusual state, Sehun would never try to hurt him. Their love was too strong. He was sure of it now.

Sehun's kisses continued, edging down his neck and erasing every last bit of the ice lodged in his wounds. Blood trickled out, no longer inhibited by the frozen barrier, and he seemed thrilled by it and swallowed it as if his life depended on it. His claws dug into Baekhyun's shoulders as he hung onto him and went further still, removing the ice on his chest. At last Baekhyun could breathe normally again, and he inhaled shakily, quietly at Sehun's lips grazing across the gashes he had created. The nightshirt had been ed completely and he felt so vulnerable there in front of Sehun, shivering and bleeding in the light of the moon that never seemed to wane. A single snowflake fell, hitting his chest, and he bit down on his lower lip, realizing that this was just like the night they had first done something like this.

Sehun pulled him in close, his lips gentle against his ear, his voice rasping and his breath frigid.

"You belong to me....now I claim what is mine."

 

It was so beautiful, so very beautiful.

Sehun relished every second of it, Baekhyun on his back on the snow covered ground, yielding unreservedly to him as he finished him off for good. He was sure that Baekhyun enjoyed it too, enjoyed all the little things he did to make him believe that this was an act of love and not an initiation to the grave. But..something nagged at him, nagged at a part of him that he didn't quite comprehend. He would miss this little wretch...this little halfling wretch...who had loved him, loved him purely. Somehow it had reached out and snagged him, although he was a heartless creature, the way he looked up at him with those adoring eyes...

Baekhyun stared at Sehun as he hovered over him, seemingly hesitant. There was something in the air, something electric, something passionate; and he interpreted it as their love. It didn't matter that he was slowly losing all feeling in his body, that a sense of numbness and frigidity was overtaking him as Sehun slicked his icy tongue over every inch of him. Sehun was pausing now, his face even with Baekhyun's, gazing down into his eyes. He seemed to be pondering something, and Baekhyun reached up with a hand that felt heavy as lead and caressed his pale cheek. "I love you," he whispered, and his breath came out as a misty cloud. Sehun's blue eyes flickered, and he leaned down to kiss him. Baekhyun could barely feel his lips anymore, but he still responded as well as he could, because his overwhelming feelings told him to.

This love was never going to end.

 

Baekhyun's mother unlocked the door to his room about an hour later, intending to check up on him and see if he were doing better. She hoped sincerely that the ice had not overtaken him by now..
But there was no Baekhyun. There was nothing in the room except an incredibly cold temperature, and an overwhelming stillness.
It was too late. She didn't need to see the bloodstained apparition who had carried her angel away, she knew who it was. The devil had won, and there was nothing she could do except stand stock still in the darkness and stare in shock at the empty bed.

 

 

Baekhyun awoke in the middle of the forest in the latter hours of the night, his vision blurry, his mind unstable. He felt so...unnatural, and cold. Everything was so cold. He sat up slowly and instinctively curled himself into a ball to keep himself warm, marveling at the fact that the snow surrounding him seemed warm to the touch. His skin was so pale now, and as he reached up to brush the snowflakes from his eyes, he realized that his fingers were tipped with ice.

Most unusual of all, he felt so hungry...so very hungry.

 

Sehun had moved on now, his desire fulfilled, his hunger extinguished for the current time. He went away, intending to find other victims, callously leaving Baekhyun to fend for himself in his new body. He was still a heartless creature...and yet, a spark of something had burned in him that night, when he had been about to take what was his for himself and had rejected it, opting instead to turn Baekhyun into one of his kind. Sometimes it bothered him that he had forfeited an angel's soul for the sake of a feeling that he didn't understand, but he dismissed it. There would be other opportunities. He was immortal, his existence eternally preserved in ice, he could wait.

 

A/N: I am working on the epilogue, this isn't quite the whole thing yet
Please tell me if you liked it ^^