XVII

Exhaustion

“Tell me a story,” Jonghui says.

“A story?” Baekhyun echoes dumbly, “Uh… what kind of story? I don’t… I don’t know many stories to tell. I…” He can’t think of any other excuse to cover up without making Jonghui more suspicious than she is already of him. “I’ll tell you one next time.”

She coughs. Again. “Promise?”

There’s something so painful about the way she asks about it that Baekhyun can’t help but nod, swallowing the lump in his throat and smiling as much as he can manage back at her. It’s not an easy task, but when the moment passes, he’s left to wonder what sort of story he can tell. He doesn’t really know any stories, not does Baekhyun think he even has the creativity to make up any. He glances at Jonghui again. “So,” he begins awkwardly, “When is Jongdae coming later on?”

“When he’s finished work.” Jonghui’s voice is hoarse. She doesn't talk much anymore, and while Baekhyun has never been much of a talker, it’s obvious that it’s painful for Jonghui to talk so he does most of the speaking.

“When is he finished work?”

Silently, Jonghui holds up her hand with five fingers. Baekhyun nods back at her.

She’s still attached to the machines and there are often times when the nurses come into the room to check on her, but she looks a little bit less tired and bad as she had the first time he had come to see her at the hospital. She looks more awake at least, and she reassures him that she’s mostly comfortable and free from pain because of the painkillers. Baekhyun wonders if it’s really true, because at times, Jonghui still looks like she’s in pain.

On the stand next to the bed lies her books. He brings one for her everyday and it piles higher and higher, but while he brings new ones, he doesn’t actually take them home. So the pile increases. From where he’s standing, he can see a couple books of the Narnia series, along with her favourite — The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. There’s also her laptop and headphones, but it looks as if she hasn’t really touched them. And while Baekhyun wonders why, he doesn’t ask her about it.

Everything about the room is white now. Things like Jonghui’s hair and her eyes and her books are splashes of color against the white, but they feel insignificant compared to the amount of white there is. The color is no longer something Baekhyun associates with angels and purity and innocence — it’s a color that’s horribly lonely. The only thing that Baekhyun sees in the color is loneliness, and he hates it.

Jonghui coughs yet again. Baekhyun turns to her. “Do you want water?”

She gives him a weak nod, and Baekhyun takes the cup of water from the table and passes it to her. She wraps both of her hands around it before bringing it up.

At times like this, Baekhyun is unsure of what to do and what to say. He’s not sure what he can bring up to start a conversation, because there isn’t much to speak about. But the silence is no longer companionable when neither of them are doing anything — it’s an awkward, empty space that he wants to fill but isn’t sure what to fill it with.

He spends the whole day with Jonghui — everyday Jongdae drives him to the hospital, stays for a little while then leaves for work, and Baekhyun stays with Jonghui the whole day. Sometimes it’s idle and they don’t do anything for hours, sometimes they read together or separately, and sometimes the air is blanketed with a tense silence which neither of them know how to break. It’s one of those moments.

“You know,” Baekhyun says, “I haven’t seen you write in a while.”

Jonghui pulls her legs up to her chest. “I don’t think I’m going to plan on finishing it.”

Baekhyun’s head snaps upwards. “What?”

“I don’t think… I don’t think I’m going to finish it.” Jonghui’s voice is wavering, unsure, and the smile she gives him is equally so. “There’s just no way I can write it into a happy ending, and… I don’t want it to end if it’s going to be something tragic. Do you get what I mean?”

Not really, Baekhyun thinks, but instead, he gives her a nod. “Y-yeah.”

Can not having an ending really count as a happy ending? Not in his book. That’s uncertain, and uncertainty isn’t a happy ending.

“You can always figure out a happy ending, can’t you?”

Jonghui shakes her head. “It doesn’t fit with the storyline that I wrote. There’s virtually no way to have a happy ending without something supernatural or like… a miracle of some sorts, and it’ll just ruin the whole story. So I think I’m going to leave it unfinished. That way… to me, that’s a pretty happy ending. There’s still room for the story to go on. They’re not tied to something and it’s free in a way. Maybe I’ll change my mind some other day and continue, but as of now, I think I’m going to leave it like that.”

Baekhyun can’t argue with her, because she looks content with her decision and there’s nothing more he can say to that. So instead of continuing the conversation about discontinuing or continuing her book, he leans forward. “What’s the book about?”

Something very much like a fond smile lifts Jonghui’s lips up. “It’s a fantasy story. I really like reading and writing those, because it’s always like you can create a world that’s a lot… well, for the lack of a better word, better than the one we live in now, with less restrictions on things. The main character’s a guardian angel who was sent from heaven to guard the girl he was protecting, but in the end, there’s a pretty crucial choice he has to make. That’s a really rough outline of what it is. I’m not really good with summing up plots.”  

Baekhyun’s heart positively skips a beat. “An… an angel?”

“Yeah.” Jonghui gives a sheepish grin. “I’ve always thought angels are cool. It’d be nice to have a guardian angel, you know? Someone to always watch you and protect you even if you don’t know they’re there. I wonder if they exist.”

“The main character’s an angel who’s sent to earth to protect a girl?”
 

“It sounds ridiculous, but it’s not nearly half as ridiculous when it sounds. The synopsis sounds more legit than that. I just can’t sum things up on the spot.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes at her. “Sure. You've been writing it for months and you still give me a proper summary?”

“I’m serious!”

He can’t help but smile at the half determined and perhaps slightly frustrated look on her face. It's become so endearing — everything in general about her has. “Yeah,” Baekhyun says, “I know you are. What’s the story called?”

Jonghui perks up. “On Angel’s Wings.”

On Angel’s Wings. Baekhyun repeats the title to himself in his mind, and even when they move onto a different topic, he’s still thinking about it. Even when Jongdae comes to pick him up and see his sister again, he’s still thinking about it.

On Angel’s Wings. It’s a pretty title, but in some ways, awfully lonely too.  

***
 

“Will you tell me a story now? I really don’t want to talk too much today, so…”
 

Baekhyun blinks at Jonghui. She’s not sitting today but lying down, white blanket pulled up to her chin and eyes closed. She looks asleep, and the only thing that tells him she isn’t is the fact that she’s still talking. “Tell me a story, Baekhyun. You promised.”

There’s no way he can reject the request because he did promise her to do so, and Baekhyun doesn’t want to break a promise, especially when she looks like this. The only problem is that he genuinely doesn’t have any sort of story to tell (the only thing he can do