XII

Pain

At night, Baekhyun’s sleep is turbulent and restless, and despite everything, he can’t fall asleep. The balcony window is open, and the weather is no longer hot. It’s a drastic change, but the waves lapping outside have become loud and there’s a cool wind sweeping through the room. On the other side of the pillow wall Jongdae has built, the other two are sleeping.

Baekhyun cannot.

Every time he closes his eyes, Jonghui’s face appears in his mind again. Her eyes are distraught and she doesn’t look straight at him. And despite closing his eyes the only way to sleep, Baekhyun doesn’t close his eyes because he doesn’t want to see that expression on Jonghui’s face again.

After a little while, he sits upwards and turns around. The air is filled with both Jonghui and her brother’s quiet breathing, the wind ruffling the curtains. When Baekhyun glances at Jonghui, he can see the faint outline of her body and the rise and fall of her breathing beneath the covers. She seems peaceful, looks peaceful, but his heart is not.

It was a mistake, Baekhyun thinks to himself, I shouldn’t of kissed her, but what’s done is done.

But what did that mean?

He can’t think of what it means. Because the more he thinks about it, the more impossible it seems. He knows for a fact that you don’t kiss anyone unless you like them, and he does like Jonghui (Baekhyun will admit as far as that) and she’s his friend, but he’s not sure if he likes her any other way.

Do I?

He stands up from the bed and walks quietly towards the balcony doors. Jonghui, his mind whispers, There’s something off about Jonghui.

Baekhyun thinks of the look on her face a bit bitterly. Is that a form of rejection? Did he just get… rejected?

The balcony doors slide open soundlessly, and he steps outside. It’s much colder there, the moonlight reflecting off the waves of the ocean. Clouds are beginning to draw together, flitting over the moon, though there’s still a hint of moonlight that shines through the clouds.

“Why are you awake?” someone asks behind him, and Baekhyun nearly leaps out of his skin.

A tall silhouette stands, leaning against the edge of the balcony and Chanyeol gives him a wry grin. “Happy to see me again?”

He glances down at the waves. “No.”

“It took me a while to find you this time, and I don’t know what you’re doing all the way here. Why are you awake at such a time?”

Baekhyun can’t remember the last time that he’s seen Chanyeol, and though Chanyeol’s visits are normally alright (they’re nice, but he’s not going to admit that), he feels too gloomy at the moment to talk much. I wish I weren’t awake, he thinks, glaring down the balcony and at the stretch of the beach. I don’t want to be thinking about so many things. I don’t want to be thinking about Jonghui. I don’t want to be worry—

“You look like you want to murder someone, which isn’t very angelic, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun turns to Chanyeol. “Have I changed?”

There’s dead silence for long moment, and Baekhyun scans Chanyeol’s face, hoping for a sign of anything. Finally, Chanyeol says, “Do you still want to stab me when you see me?”

Baekhyun lets out something that sounds like something between a laugh and a choke. “Jonghui says I changed, but I don’t know. I don’t really feel different.”

Chanyeol’s gaze is serious, though he manages a thin smile. “Well, I don’t know what’s bugging you, but just saying, you look pretty depressed. Though I do suggest you head inside and sleep now. It looks like it’s going to storm, and you won’t be doing much at the beach tomorrow in this weather. I can’t talk to you when you’re inside, but I’ll find you later.”

He turns to the sea, and then pauses. “And yes, Baekhyun, you have changed. Now go inside before the storm catches you. And close the balcony doors, too, or the rain will get inside.”

***

The next day, the wind is ripping viciously at the trees, and the waves are violent and turbulent. Baekhyun wakes up, still tired, though jerked out of dreamland by the nonstop pitter-patter of raindrops. Beside him, Jongdae is already out of bed, pulling on a sweater and yawning. Jonghui is nowhere in sight.

He sits up quickly. “Where’s Jonghui?”

“I don’t know, weren’t you responsible for her?” Jongdae asks drily, though he nods to the washroom. “She’s taking a shower. I was going to spend half the day at the beach, but the weather’s terrible and it’s best we go home now.”

Baekhyun stares outside. Chanyeol had warned him about the storm, but now that he sees it for himself, it really is bad. It’s hard to imagine that just yesterday night the sky had been clear and the seas calm.

Thinking of yesterday night makes him feel downright terrible, so Baekhyun choses not to and instead shifts out of the bed. “Are we eating breakfast here, then?”

“I’ll ask my sister.” Jongdae yawns again. “How was the walk outside? I wanted to go. I should’ve gotten you to do my work or something.”

Baekhyun’s jaw tightens, and he’s too busy trying not to get worked up about what had happened that to pay any attention to Jongdae’s last sentence. “It was fine.” Anything but.

He expects Jongdae to say something sarcastic, but the other gives a slight nod, eyes faraway. “That’s good, then.”

The door to the washroom opens, and Jonghui steps out.

Baekhyun’s first instinct is to freeze, because he really doesn’t know what to do. Jonghui also stands still for a second to long, eyes wide when they fall on him. Her hair is wet from the shower and she’s not wearing the summer dress anymore, but jeans and a t-shirt. She looks tired, as if she hadn’t rested well.

Then, she rips her gaze down to her feet, and Baekhyun looks away also. “Are we going today, then?”
 

Jongdae’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything about it. “The hotel has breakfast, so I thought we’d eat that here.”

“Okay,” Jonghui agrees quietly. “Let’s bring the luggage down, then.”

“We’ll eat breakfast first and then load the car, since I need to return the room card.”

Jonghui doesn’t give much of a response. Her gaze is absent, and she gives her brother a slight nod before turning towards the door. “Let’s go, then.”

She opens the door, and Jongdae takes a step forward, eyebrows furrowed. Baekhyun stands still in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do or say, before Jongdae turns to look at him. “Well?” he asks raising an eyebrow. “Unless you don’t want to eat breakfast, don’t just stand in the middle of the room doing nothing, Byun.”

Baekhyun’s not sure he has much of an appetite. With Jonghui avoiding him so blatantly and the look of obvious distraught after he had kissed her last night, eating is the last thing on his mind. And as he faces them now, he wishes that he can go back and change what he did. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have kissed her.

Before, he would’ve felt angry at Jonghui. But somehow, now, he can see that she’s not purposely ignoring him — it’s obvious how uncomfortable she is, and the only emotion is the tight squeeze of pain that has a firm grip around his heart.

“Come on,” Jongdae says again, this time louder, more forcefully, “Let’s go.”

***

The car ride home is filled with silence, and it’s so crushing that Baekhyun begins to feel suffocated by it. Jonghui still sits in the back seat with him and she’s still sleeping, but she looks much more tired than she had looked yesterday, as if completely drained. Baekhyun finds his gaze drifting off to her again and again, and while he also sees Jongdae glances at them through the rearview mirrors, he doesn’t make any sort of comment like before.

The storm is still going on. Rain beats down mercilessly on the windshield, and Jongdae is squinting, the windshield wipers to full. The sky is grey and gloomy, and in some parts of the sky, the clouds are so dense with rain that it’s almost black.