II

Abandonment

When Baekhyun wakes up the next morning, there’s two things that surprise him.

Firstly, he actually slept the night before. The second thing isn’t as pleasant— his whole body aches and he feels oddly uncomfortable. When he pushes himself up from the bed, his vision spins and there’s a pounding pain in the back of his head. His mouth is dry, and when he swallows, his throat burns.

The blankets feel uncomfortably hot and Baekhyun throws them off his body, although the air feels warm and also it’s barely enough to satisfy him. Disoriented, he stumbles to his feet. His ankle burns a little when he puts a little weight on it, but he puts the rest of his weight on his uninjured foot and the pain becomes bearable. When he looks down to examine himself, he’s still wearing the same clothes that Jonghui gave him the day before, and his back is the sorest when he stretches. Then everything that happened the day before comes raining down on him, and Baekhyun instantly feels angry and bitter.

He’s dizzy and uncomfortable when he finally makes his way out of the room, and he wants to snap at Jonghui. He has no idea where he’s supposed to go— he is probably going to have to leave soon — and all Baekhyun knows is that he needs to get his wings back and get back to heaven as soon as he can. The pain and discomfort muddles his thoughts.

Baekhyun tries to think of where to go next but the only thing that he can remember properly is Jonghui’s smile. It makes him scowl even harder.

By the time he’s in the living room, his legs are shaking and each step seems to tilt him dangerously to the side. Jonghui takes that moment to appear.

She sticks her head out of the kitchen door and the shock is too much for Baekhyun. He’s unsure of why exactly he feels so weak (it’s a horrible feeling, and he’s angry at himself for feeling weak), and he’s also unsure if it’s common within humans, but his legs chose that moment to give away.

“Hey!” Baekhyun’s head pounds. He feels like he’s burning now, and the wound on his back feels like it’s on fire. Despite the heat, however, he finds himself shivering.

Jonghui’s face comes into view. Baekhyun feels positively pathetic lying on the ground unable to get up, but by then, he feels as if he’d rather die than try to stand up again.

“Baekhyun?” Her voice is urgent and Baekhyun feels a tint of satisfaction that she isn’t smiling. She doesn’t exactly look as miserable as he feels, but at least she isn’t looking like the exact opposite of what he feels anymore.

That train of thought leaves his mind pretty quickly because Jonghui’s face blurs. By now, Baekhyun’s pretty sure that there’s something wrong with him, and it’s hard to not concentrate on the three sources of pain: his ankle, his shoulder, and finally, the pounding in his head that’s getting increasingly loud.

A cold hand rests on his forehead, and before Baekhyun can think, he makes a grab for Jonghui’s hand because it’s cold, comfortably so. He misses, or perhaps she pulls back. He’s unsure.

“You have a fever,” Jonghui announces, and he blinks sluggishly up at her. “It’s probably from staying outside in the rain for so long.”

Then she smiles at him again, and Baekhyun draws backwards, as far from her as possible. “I…” His voice sounds rough and incredibly hoarse and his throat strains painfully at the effort to speak.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell you to leave. You’re sick.”

That’s not what I was trying to say to you he tries to repeat, but the words come out muffled, and Jonghui promptly ignores what he has to say and pulls him upwards.

She’s stronger than she looks, or perhaps Baekhyun’s too weak to tell— but before long, Jonghui has him on his feet and he’s leaning against her.

Immediately, Baekhyun flinches away from her. “I don’t need your help,” he hisses, hoping to put as much venom in his voice as possible, though it comes out pathetically weak and small (not to mention it was cracking). “You’re a human.” It’s all he can get out.

Jonghui blinks at him, not looking at all insulted as he thought she would be (and Baekhyun’s positive that Jonghui has diminished a huge chunk of his pride and dignity already). “I think you’re getting delirious,” is all she says, “Let’s go.”

Baekhyun feel utterly helpless when Jonghui pulls him back to the bedroom. A faint memory resurfaces; about three hundred years ago, he was sent to fight one of the greater demons. He ended up facing three, and even after getting stabbed six times (then again, he couldn't actually feel pain back then) he hadn’t needed help. And now, he’s unable to do as much as pull away from Jonghui or even speak properly.

She doesn’t make any more comments when he shakes away from her grip and climbs back onto the bed. Jonghui stands there unmoving, and Baekhyun finally snaps. “What?”

“Blankets.” She looks positively confused. “Have you never gotten a fever anymore? If you don’t sweat, the fever’s going to remain high. I have Advil but it’s not going to work as well if you don’t use the blankets. I’ll make you soup, but…”

Baekhyun stares at her and decides not to answer her question because he can’t. “It’s hot,” he states instead. His voice cracks.

“I know it’s hot,” she replies, “but you’re not going to get better if you don’t bear with it. I’ll make you soup. And put on the blanket.”

Jonghui turns to leave the room then, but there’s something in her tone of voice that Baekhyun finds hard to ignore. The moment she’s out the door, he slowly pulls the blanket over his body.

***

Baekhyun drifts in and out of consciousness and though he tries to force himself to sleep, it’s hard to because the so-called fever brings too much discomfort with it. When he finally falls asleep, he’s managed to kick the blankets off of half of his body, and he’s too exhausted and spent to do anymore. He’s unsure of how much time has passed since Jonghui put him back to to bed, though his mind can’t differentiate minute from hour anymore.

He dreams for the first time in his life but they seem to be more like memories than dreams. Disoriented, blurry, and it’s frightening how Baekhyun can’t grasp onto them fully. It’s like his life as an angel was something that happened in the past, and now he’s looking at it through a foggy screen.

Images float by in front of his eyes and he struggles to remember when they happened. His memory of heaven seems to be fading quickly and Baekhyun isn’t sure if it’s caused by his half delirious state or if they really are disappearing. And somehow, the fear that accompanies the unknown is overwhelming.

When Baekhyun finally wakes up, he’s broken into a cold sweat and he’s shivering uncontrollably. His thoughts aren’t exactly any more lucid than they were when he was asleep, and his memories seem distant, separated by a translucent sheet, blurry but visible. They’re still there, but for a weird reason, he can’t access them. They're a fair distance away, unreachable, and Baekhyun almost feels himself deflate.

He lies on the bed staring at the ceiling, trying to calm his heavy breathing until the door opens. The headache has receded and he doesn’t feel half as bad as he did before, and for an unbeknownst reason, there’s no tinge of annoyance or anger when he sees Jonghui standing at the door.

“Hi,” she says. She smiles again, and Baekhyun finds himself getting used to her smile. It’s not quite as bothersome as it was in the beginnin. “I brought soup a while ago but you were asleep.”

“Okay,” he croaks. The word thanks rises up, but Baekhyun swallows it back down. “What’s soup?” he asks instead.

“Are you still delirious?”

“No!”

Jonghui eyes him, and mumbles something like definitely not Korean under her breath. Like always, though, she doesn’t question him twice and walks up to him. She’s holding a bowl in one hand and a mug of something (which Baekhyun eyes suspiciously — he can’t help but remember the burning hot liquid she gave him the night before, and then he begins to wonder if it were that exact liquid that had caused his fever).

She hands him the cup first and Baekhyun stares down in it. The liquid is clear and the mug itself is cool to the touch when he feels it.

“It’s water,” Jonghui supplies usefully, “And it’s cold. You’re not going to burn yourself.”

Baekhyun takes a sip, and to his relief, it is cold. He downs the whole cup in an instant and the cold water is a relief against his parched throat.

“Soup.” Jonghui sets the bowl down by the table, and then she pulls a chair from the side of the room and scooches over to sit beside him.

Baekhyun shifts under her gaze as he stares at the bowl. He’s unsure of how exactly to describe the soup, but it looks unappetizing and he doesn't really want to eat anything. The color makes him shudder and apart from the metal spoon sticking out, there’s pieces of things he can’t explain. He thinks that he prefers never eating over eating whatever the soup was.

“Chicken noodle soup,” she says, though the words don’t make much sense to Baekhyun, “is good to drink when you have a fever. It’s not poisonous or anything and I tasted it before giving it to you. It’s not at all that bad.”

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