Introduction

Hey everyone! Welcome to the second completed story I have ever published on the internet! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧   And, if you're wondering, I have changed the name, so don't be confused!

I have written this as part of a writing competition! If any of you read the forward, you'll know I joined so I could procrastinate and postpone by BAE fic which is in need of some major TLC but I'm just not in a nurturing mood right now muahaha ~  If you want to join the competition, click the link below!

2017 Spring EXO'tic Writing Contest

This is only a short oneshot. The total word count is 14,265 words, however this will fluctuate slightly when I come back to fix any typos or alter some sentences where I think "Ew this one is gross" etc etc.

Edit 170304: I have now gone trough and checked for spelling errors etc. NEW WORD COUNT: 14,511 words. If you come across any other sneaky typos that I might have missed, please tell me in the comments! (ᵔᴥᵔ)

Here are the warnings again from the forward:

     Warnings: Violence, theft, language, very very very breif vague fleeting reference to noncon that we never ever see or hear about, fem!Baekhyun, mention of death of parent, and Chanyeol is mean to a worm (poor thing) ~

Anyways, I don't have much else to say on this, so I'll let you get to reading! I hope you enjoy it, and if you do please leave me a comment and tell me what you thought! 

~Amy 

A Maiden so Fair

“Well, hello there. Just stay still, that’s it. Stay right there.” Chanyeol pulls his bowstring taunt until his curled fingers are brushing against his mouth, an arrow poised in position, directly aligned with the eye of an unsuspecting wild rabbit munching on the undergrowth of the forest floor. That’s dinner right there, unless Jongdae leaves the fur on again and unwittingly sets it on fire, something which has been known to happen on several occasions. Chanyeol hates sleeping on an empty stomach.

And it looks like that’s what’ll be happening, as before the outlaw has even thought about releasing his pinewood arrow, the rabbit is bounding off through the trees after having sat back on its hind legs and twitched its ears out for a wee bit, clearly hearing something that Chanyeol quite unfairly cannot.

He allows himself a little moment to sulk, jutting out his lower lip as he half-heartedly kicks at the sallow oak tree leaves beneath his feet. He hasn’t even been to the market today, so he and Jongdae don’t exactly have any substantial vegetables back at camp that they can dice into a subpar soup. The sun is also already going down, the world now painted in greys and muted blues, thus meaning that there would be no point in lingering around to try and catch something else. Even if he were to find a badger or a squirrel, they would probably scarper too. Sod’s law is cruel, after all.

Suddenly, a flash of white zaps into the corner of his eye and Chanyeol jumps to the right, alert and ready, to see a figure running through the trees. His heart comes up in his ears and he can taste metal in his mouth from nerves as he darts behind an oak to cover himself, gripping onto the arrow shaft for self-defence; if push comes to shove, he can just throw it at someone and make a run for it.

In total, he’s about fifteen feet away from the approaching stranger – the person who rid him of his dinner, no doubt – and upon closer inspection, said person looks to be a young woman. All she wears is a long white dress – an undergarment, most likely – with no shoes or cloak, not even a bodice. She runs frantically over the thriving undergrowth, bare feet against the flatland as she whips her head over her shoulder multiple times to glance behind her.

Chanyeol straightens his posture, commanding a sense of duty as he realises that this poor maiden is probably being followed, and is now within the boundaries of his (not really his) forest. As the self-proclaimed sovereign of the place where nature thrives, responsibility smacks him in the face.

The woman comes to a breathless stop in the small clearing before him, bluebells drowning her feet up to her ankles. The sinking sun reflect crystals in her perspiration as she looks fearfully in the direction she has come, the terror on her face strikingly apparent despite the distance. Her flesh is almost as white as the skin-tight dress she wears, a stark contrast to the ebony tendrils rolling down her back all the way to her waist. Chanyeol can hear her panting from here, can see her lungs inhaling and exhaling every breath within her ribcage, and strengthened is the feeling of obligation he has obtained. This woman needs protecting, and protect her he shall.

Deftly, he stores his arrow in the quiver slung over his left shoulder and puts his head through his bow, freeing his hands so that he can raise them in surrender as he reveals himself to the fair maiden that has stumbled upon his modest abode. Out he steps, feet adorned with knee-high leather boots laced up on the outer faces and dressed in a simple set of black hose and a leather doublet. As a man of humble beginnings, he means to have a humble end, too.

The maiden lurches when she notices him, her gasp so piercing that Chanyeol’s ears complain, yet he does his best to smile in what he hopes is a friendly manner and says, “Hi.”

Yes, a nice and simple greeting should make her feel at ease.

Or not.

“Who—Who are you?” she stammers, terrified, and even starts to shrink away from his presence despite the distance that already prevails between them. Subsequently, Chanyeol tries to smile even harder in a way that he hopes is harmless, but because he’s thinking so much about it he looks half-confused and half-crazy instead. He realises this when the girl puts her palms out before her in defence, and he quickly drops whatever mangled simper he was trying to pull off. So much for that. What’s Plan B?

“What are you doing out here in the woods?” Chanyeol asks, ignoring the girl’s question. He is a little irked by it, in all honestly, because he thought he was famous; clearly he needs to do some more thieving and outlandish things to get himself noticed. “Are you being followed?”

She opens to reply but before she can get a word out there is angry shouting echoing in the distance. The gruff voices of men rumble between the trees, shaking the blackbirds from their nests in the highest branches and sending all potential food running for the hills because yes, Chanyeol was still foolish enough to hope that he might happen across a fox or something on his journey back to camp. He’s too optimistic for his own good, really.

“Come with me.” Chanyeol holds out his hand to visualise his offer, trying for a third time at that smile and praying that they can skedaddle before whoever’s coming comes and realises that he’s the man on all those wanted posters. The girl doesn’t reply to him, though, doesn’t even reach out to take his hand, so he clenches his fist and springs his fingers back out again as he shifts uncomfortably on the spot. “Do you want to get caught?” he hisses, exasperated and well aware of the men growing closer. He can even hear horse hooves now, and that means that whoever is coming after this seemingly insignificant little girl is someone not so insignificant; only those with money have horses, and those with money have power, judicial power.

There are blurs through the trunks now, flits of movement every other second as the chasers come galloping closer. The girl seems hesitant to accept his help, even when he adds on a sincere: “You can trust me, I won’t hurt you.” But what really gets her to move is when the snippets become previews, and she finally decides that she hasn’t really got another option, let alone a better one.

Chanyeol’s first thought is: wow, that’s a nice looking hand; and his second is: . He gives her a good yank to get her moving and then guides her through the forest, dragging her along behind him as he uses his long legs to their full capacity. He’s leaping over the ground a little like a gazelle, bouncing over bluebells and ferns while avoiding tree roots and rabbit holes; regardless of his long build and slim layers of muscle, his feet don’t make a single sound. It’s a good trick he’s learned over the years for sneaking up on supper, a trick that has helped to keep him fed.

The maiden is wheezing behind him, flagging with her steps until she’s stumbling along in his footfalls, trampling through every single specimen of plant life and has her skirt unbecomingly gathered up in a free fist around her thighs. There’s a little blood on her feet, Chanyeol notices when he looks back, but that’s not a priority right now. The priority is to get her to the bush, out of sight and hopefully out of the minds of the others, so he’ll tend to her wounds later.

“Where are we—” wheeze “—Where are we going?”

“We’re hiding.”

“Wh—Where?”

Chanyeol sees no need for a response because they’ve already arrived, and he drags her through an imperceptible hole in the towering whitethorn hedge and turns to quickly shield the entrance with the branch of a weeping willow that lollops down from above. He tugs her down into a crouch so they can peer through the slim leaves, watching the surrounding forest for any signs of life, his hand still keeping hers a prisoner.

Her form is tense, but Chanyeol supposes that that is to be expected. After being chased and dragged into the home of a stranger who may hold an ulterior motive, it is unlikely that she is feeling particularly balmy. To quell her nerves and anxiety, Chanyeol slackens his hold on her hand ever so slightly before giving her palm a reassuring squeeze. Clearly, it takes her off guard, as she turns to him with wide doe eyes like she’s expecting him to snap her neck in two.

When the men on horses go racing past like a cavalry, she whips her head around and gasps so obscenely that Chanyeol is afraid they might hear, so he clamps his hand over to keep her quiet – probably not the best thing to do when trying to convince someone that you’re harmless, but it does do the trick. Once he’s sure the men have coursed by without suspicion, he lets her go, and she sags with relief, falling towards the mossy ground in a splay of white cotton.

“What’s your name?” he asks as he releases , staring into the most pretty set of delicate onyx eyes he has ever seen. The fair maiden certainly is fair, and Chanyeol is taken aback at the amount of beauty only a single face has been able to encompass. A soft button nose, a slender jawline, a slim and pouty set of lips. Chanyeol almost asks her when it was she fell from heaven.

“Baekhee,” she breathes, visibly exhausted from her evening escapades as she places a palm to her heart and rubs her tender chest, so much alabaster skin exposed that Chanyeol feels like reverting back to the cavemen days.

Instead, he smiles. “Nice to meet you, Baekhee,” he grabs her hand and shakes it firmly, “I’m sure you already know who I am, you must have realised by now.”

She blanks. Chanyeol winces.

“Haven’t you heard of me? The outlaw of the forest? I steal from serpents and deliver to the worthy mice?”

Ever so slowly, she warily shakes her head.

Chanyeol gives up, albeit begrudgingly, and reveals what name he goes by. “I’m Chanyeol.”

Oh well, at least she knows who he is now; she can tell all her friends.

“Why were those men following you?” He looks out through the willow leaves again to make sure that none of them are looping back around, and is calmed to find his view completely clear. The girl, Baekhee, sighs and slots her hair behind her ears, accompanying Chanyeol as he rises to his feet and starts to lead them towards a mossy hole in the ground, encased by gloriously flowered common privet and marked with the robust trunk of a major oak which has it cast in shadow at this time of day.

The hole in the whitethorn hedge has led them into a secluded area of the forest, normally overlooked by travellers and search parties alike simply because they assume no one would be on the other side. Guarded away in a circular perimeter of tree, shrub and bush, Chanyeol deems this to be the safest place to bring a maiden running away from her life.

There are bluebells scattered over the mossy woodland ground, mingling with the tree roots of neighbouring oaks, ashes and horse chestnuts, and there, just at the base of that major oak, is his front door.

“After you,” he says politely, gesturing to the hole while looking at her expectantly, and she double takes before looking at him as if he’s gone mad. “My camp’s down there, I’m not trying to lure you into a hole to kill you, I told you that you could trust me, right? We even know each other’s names now.” He’s probably being too light-hearted about all of this – again with the optimism.

She smiles awkwardly, just trying to be polite, and tiptoes cautiously towards the hole as if she’s afraid of the floor caving in.

The hole is neither insanely large nor ridiculously small, and judging by the fact that her frame is tiny, she should have no trouble getting in.

Eventually, after some fierce hesitation, she shimmies her way below ground, Chanyeol following with a brisk drop, and he gives her a mini house tour of his modest cavern in the dirt. The walls are carved with muscular tree roots from the being above, the wood winding like snakes in and out of the earth to create a natural cavity with sturdy walls and a solid roof. Chanyeol remembers first finding the place over a year ago. It had been nothing more than a claustrophobic hollow at its birth, but with himself and Jongdae nurturing it, it has grown up into a strapping young shelter, ready to protect, conceal and mother. There are candles secured on makeshift scones burning along the walls and a fire lit in a circle of stones, tended to by his trusted friend Jongdae who regards the two of them in surprise from where he sits on a small log. “I thought you were catching squirrels, not girls,” he says flatly, the stick in his hand, blackened from poking the fire, jabbing the aflame kindling and sending sparks towards the crevice between several oak roots overhead where slits of light shine through.

“Well, unexpected situations arise and it is our job to adapt to them.” Chanyeol shrugs, sort of trying to impress the girl with his philosophy. He used big words, so he should get bonus points, right? “This is Baekhee. She was being chased by some men in the woods and is just about to tell us why. Baekhee, this is Jongdae, my partner in crime!” He grins, sitting down on the log by the fire beside Jongdae and eagerly patting the space next to him.

“Wait—Hold on, does this mean you didn’t catch anything for dinner?” Jongdae interrupts as Baekhee gingerly sits down, repositioning her skirt around her ankles afterwards. When Chanyeol shakes his head, Jongdae curses and crosses his arms, swivelling around to Baekhee and bluntly saying: “Right, this story had better be good.”

Jongdae has always been an impatient soul and is perpetually irritable when hungry. His untameable black curls mimic his personality, as does his sly smirk, and he prefers to dress more boldly than Chanyeol, opting for burgundies and greens to clothe himself, accessorising with one small hoop earring in his left lobe and a leather coif to tidy up his appearance, the hat flattening down his feral curls and squashing the front section against his forehead. He looks a little like a puppy, Chanyeol thinks offhandedly.

Baekhee blanches at the sudden pressure, and Chanyeol swats his friend on the arm for being so inconsiderate, even though he’s a bit excited to hear it himself. The maiden looks ambivalently between them before she in a big breath and decides to start her tale, entrancing both men instantly just because of how smooth her voice sounds. It’s like honey, and marzipan, and all things sweet.

“Well, um… The county governor realised that his wife was barren earlier this week.”

It could just be a trick of the light, a fiery reflection in her eyes, but Chanyeol swears that she is starting to tear up.

“So he had her hanged for fraud or—or treason, I don’t know. His castle is near here, so he sent some men to our village to find him a new wife and they chose me.” A shuddering breath jerks through her body and Chanyeol belatedly grasps that this isn’t going to be a happy tale at all. He even berates himself for thinking it would be, for being so foolish as to assume; she was running away from men in the woods, for Christ’s sake, of course it wouldn’t be anything good.

She quickly wipes her eyes, voice getting fainter with every word, and Chanyeol scowls now at the mention of the governor. He and that pig go back to even before he moved here. The fat man has been after his thieving arse for years now, yet so far he has managed to elude all confrontation and consequences.

“They said the wedding was tomorrow, but that I needed to have dinner with him tonight, so I went with them and ate in his castle. I was just trying not to get into trouble. When we were done eating, he told me that it was too late for me to go home and that I would have to stay the night there, so he took me to a room and told me to sleep. I really didn’t want to stay but I didn’t know what else to do and I was so far away from home, so when he left and shut the door I started to get ready for bed and I took my shoes and dress off, but then he barged back in and tried to—he tried to—” She chokes, tears casting trails of glimmering firelight gold on her cheeks. “So I just grabbed a candelabra and hit him around the head with it, and then I ran and they all started chasing me and—”

Chanyeol grimaces at the joyless recount and is overcome by a new sense of maturity as he wraps his arm around her shoulder to pull her in for a hug. To his muted and inward delight, she doesn’t recoil from him, though she does cry into her palms and not his chest.

“It’s alright now, you’re safe here,” he tells her in earnest, rubbing her arm comfortingly before giving her a little squeeze. “Your home is my home for as long as you need it.”

Jongdae looks a little troubled when they exchange glances, but he says nothing in consolation as he doesn’t really do feelings.

“What—What do you want in return?” she asks when she pulls her puffy face from her palms, eyes still glassy as she looks up at him gratefully.

“Nothing.”

Spluttering, moves like a fish for a moment. “N-Nothing?” she stammers, disbelieving as she stares at him with wide, befuddled eyes, and when Chanyeol nods to assert himself her jaw goes slack. “But I—I can’t just give you nothing—”

“You are a worthy mouse,” Chanyeol smiles, “therefore, it is my job to protect you.”

Jongdae pretends to throw up in the background, but Baekhee smiles, so it’s alright.

The night runs quite smoothly, to Chanyeol’s surprise. He lends Baekhee a pair of his boots and one of his shirts to wear over her dress, and he and Jongdae scrounge around in their dwindling supplies to see if they can scrub up anything for dinner so that their new guest doesn’t go hungry – even though she has already eaten dinner, a fact that Chanyeol fails to acknowledge in his bid to impress. She is, after all, a very pretty lady.

Jongdae is busy fanning the smoke through the gaps in the tree roots when Chanyeol helps Baekhee prepare for bed, providing her with extra blankets and pillows to deliver maximum comfort, albeit some are not in the best of conditions. The trouble with living underground is definitely the bugs – Chanyeol learns that Baekhee screams like a banshee when she sees a worm – and the damp washed in from rainfalls. Most times, their ceiling drips with water, and anything they leave unprotected against the walls or ground is at risk of going mouldy. It’s tough, but it’s all they have; it’s no skin off Chanyeol’s nose anyway, as he has always rather fancied himself a challenge.

In order to give Baekhee the most room on the bed – nothing more than one end of the cavern padded out with blankets and pillows – Chanyeol squashes up next to Jongdae who does nothing but whinge at him the whole time about not being able to breathe. He’s only over exaggerating, though, so Chanyeol decides to hug him and really take his breath away by squashing his lungs. His best friend knocks him away by the face, naming him a dung beetle before giving him the cold shoulder. Jongdae has always had an affinity with words, namely insults.

Morning comes, night having passed at the expense of Chanyeol’s spine, and over a lacklustre breakfast, Chanyeol brings up a thought that had been bugging him in those lonely moments before sleep. “Perhaps you should stay here a little longer,” he chirps as he pecks the mud out from under his fingernails, subconsciously wanting to make himself look more attractive, “to try and convince the governor that you’re dead.”

It’s a sound suggestion, if he may say so himself, and Baekhee takes a moment to think before she nods easily in agreement. And thus, life cohabitating in the forest begins.

He starts by teaching her the ropes, showing her how to go about basic daily activities while being safe and careful. Proudly, he tells her all about how she should make water behind a bush for privacy, and if she needs to do something a little more solid, a hole is required for it to go in. Around midday, he escorts her to the nearby stream that they wash in and demonstrates how to carefully ascend and descend the muddy bank, and in the evening he brings her hunting, Chanyeol successfully acquiring a badger for dinner. His man-pride definitely peaks when he kills the animal with a single shot to the head; Baekhee had seemed impressed.

“So this is how you live,” the maiden murmurs into the quiet, hugging her arms around her torso and rubbing her skin to bring warmth to it. Her eyes watch her feet as she strolls back to camp with Chanyeol on her left, the outlaw walking on an angle as the dead badger over his shoulder weighs him down on one side. “It’s very peaceful, but,” she laughs lightly, “a little dirty, too.”

Chanyeol smiles, glancing at her with satisfaction. Baekhee is a very adaptable woman, a being that will mould to best fit her circumstances, and Chanyeol finds it extremely admirable. Not once has she complained or refused to do anything and it makes her all the more beautiful, as beauty is not just about looks.

“You get used to it,” he chuckles, enjoying their peaceful stroll through the brush.

She nods to show her understanding, clearly appreciative of the nature around her, and they exchange a gentle smile with one another just before they squeeze through the hedge and disappear into the dirt. Chanyeol’s stomach turns unexpectedly, yet he cannot fathom why.

“I’ve remembered who you are now,” Baekhee speaks up later on when they’re back below ground, wedges of badger meat sizzling over the fire by Jongdae’s skilled hand. “You’re that thief.”

Chanyeol grimaces, scratching at his temple. “I prefer the term ‘hero’, really.” The warmth of the fire chases away the goose bumps running up his arms and down his legs, and he shudders appreciatively from the beacon of light in their dank cavern.

Once again, Baekhee laughs, and Chanyeol is enamoured. “I suppose so,” she nods, pushing some hair back over her shoulder. Chanyeol suddenly wants to reach out and caress it, but doesn’t because that would be weird. He doesn’t want it to be weird, though. “You’re quite famous around our village, actually, it just took me a while for your name to click in my head. We see you as our guardian angel. We know that if anyone is in desperate need of help, you’ll come along and provide it. It’s nice, and it makes us feel safe. Safety is hard to come by these days because of the governor.”

With his elbow to his knee and his fist to his temple, Chanyeol looks across at her and beams like a madman. “That’s me,” he waggles his eyebrows, “your guardian angel.”

Her laughter tickles his chest and he’s winded for a moment, only recovering when Baekhee asks: “Is it not compulsory to sing a campfire song whilst in the presence of a campfire?”

Jongdae looks up, horrified, from where he’s turning the meat. “We don’t sing.”

“I do!” she admits bashfully, smiling all giddily before she clears and straightens her posture. She sings then, voice as sweet as a siren, and Chanyeol is heading straight for the rocks of a stormy shore, about to ground his ship and submit to the ocean. He forgets who he is and where he is while he listens to her, enraptured, and hearing such splendent notes pouring from a becoming smile is probably the closest he’ll ever get to heaven.

That night, even with Baekhee’s melody running circles in his head, Chanyeol struggles to get to sleep. Not only does Jongdae’s breathing sound like the gusting wind, but there’s also a lump of dirt pressing against his shoulder blade that hadn’t been there before and he thinks it has something to do with Jongdae stealing his blanket as some kind of unwarranted revenge for the one-sided hug they had shared last night. He shuffles again to try and get comfortable, wiggling around in an attempt to find an adequately flat spot, but it is all to no avail. Sighing, he gives up, and is about to close his eyes in defeat, about to grin and bear it, when he hears rustling on his right.

“You don’t have to sleep all the way over there, you know.” It’s Baekhee, awake and confusing his feelings yet again with her bewitching looks and silvery vocals. “There’s plenty of space over here.”

Admittedly, the distance Chanyeol has put between them is a little melodramatic, but he had just been trying to be polite. “Oh, so there is,” he murmurs, pretending to be surprised as he awkwardly slides closer. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” she smiles, looking so adorably sleepy with her leisured blinks and face half squished into the feather pillow. Chanyeol goes back to staring at the ceiling because looking at her is making him feel bizarre, and he’s about to return to sleep again when she perks up. “How long have you been living like this?”

His eyes snap open, staring at the murky tree roots. The only light source they have is the dying embers of the campfire two metres away from his feet. It’s cooler now, but they have managed to contain some heat underground. Still, his body is wrought by the occasional shiver, and it makes him want to give up his blanket to Baekhee to ensure that she doesn’t have to go through the same thing, as menial as it may be.

“A year and a half,” he replies lowly. “This place is like home to us now.”

She smiles faintly, humming once. “What did you do before this, then? Or have you done this all your life?”

Chanyeol sighs, letting his exhale blow down the fortifications encasing his mind and innermost memories. “I was a soldier before,” he says – stupefying her, if her little gasp is anything to go by. “I fought in the king’s wars, lost some good friends along the way, and one day I just woke up and thought, why am I putting my life on the line for a king and a country who wouldn’t do the same for me? So once the war was won I left the army and decided to start living for myself. You have to be selfish when you’re young, otherwise you’ll never be happy.”

Her lips purse as she watches him, then she repositions her head on the pillow so that all of her winsome face is visible, and she rests her hands out in front of her. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one, you?”

“Twenty,” she replies, her following smile dreamy. “So how did you and Jongdae meet?”

“In a tavern, actually. I was travelling the roads and I went in to get myself an ale – walking is thirsty work – and I came across this man, or boy, who couldn’t afford to pay for his drink. He was about to be thrown out of the place but I decided to step in and pay the difference. We’ve been together ever since, and that was three years ago.”

Her eyebrows raise in surprise. “Wow, you’ve been friends for a while.”

“Yep.” Chanyeol nods, suddenly feeling oddly sentimental. Jongdae had been a scrawny thing when he had met him, wearing patchwork clothes and sporting hair so long it covered his eyes. On that day when they first met, he discovered that Jongdae had been orphaned around five years prior, and at only sixteen years of age was struggling to find paying work. When they banded together, Chanyeol recalls Jongdae making a comment about them both being lost causes, and from that moment on Chanyeol has worked to change Jongdae’s outlook on life. It had been that sense of obligation again, that desire to help people, that had led him to do it; and once he had seen Jongdae flourish, he had made helping people his sole career, never mind how unorthodox it may be.

“I don’t have much in the way of friends,” Baekhee murmurs, tracing spirals into the blankets between them with her delicate fingertips. Chanyeol wants to hold her hand, it would certainly complement his own, but he doesn't. They are only just starting to connect, build a bond, and he doesn't want to spoil the moment by doing something which could make her uncomfortable.

“You don’t?”

“No,” she shakes her head glumly, briefly meeting his eyes before yielding her gaze back to her ivory fingers. “There aren’t many people in the village who are similar to my age, see. There is another boy and girl who are relatively the same but they’re married and don’t really want me around. I tend to stick with my family more and keep myself busy with work, but I haven’t really found a proper profession yet.”

Chanyeol hums. “Well, what does your mother do? Could you not work with her?”

Baekhee’s expression is strained in a pained sort of way, and Chanyeol worries that he’s struck a nerve. “My father tells me she was a dress maker, and she used to help repair the villagers’ clothes, but I don’t really want to do something like that.”

Was. “O-Oh, I’m sorry, I—I didn’t know.”

She smiles serenely, appreciative of his manners, and the look she gives him is incomprehensible. There is almost too much affection in her eyes. “It’s alright. It was a long time ago.”

Chanyeol swallows, struggling to interpret what such an expression could mean. When he returns with not a single theory, he disbands his search and focuses back on the conversation at hand. “How did she...?”

“Childbirth. Me,” she laughs emptily. “My father says she caught an infection from one of the villagers’ dirty hands. Seems silly, doesn’t it? How something as simple as washing your hands could save someone’s life.”

His eyebrows knit together while he mulls thoroughly over the information. Too many accidents happen from lack of care, in his opinion. “Yeah…”

“Oh! Sorry, I’m keeping you up,” she whispers apologetically, newly considerate of Jongdae who is already snoozing away, lowering her voice so she won’t disturb him. “Sleep well, Chanyeol.”

“Yeah, you too,” he returns the favour, looking over at her with something swelling in his chest. He watches as her eyes fall closed and her muscles relax, stares in amazement at how beautiful her breathing looks, and then he sees it: something wriggling out of the dirt by her head, and he balks. Not today, Sir, he thinks mightily. Not today.

He shuffles closer, trying to remain as quiet as possible so as to not wake her, and then he snatches the writhing worm up between his finger and thumb and flings it across the cavern. With squinted eyes, he tries to suss out where it’s landed to see if there’s a likely chance it’ll come slithering back, but when he realises that he can’t see much of anything through the gloom he decides to leave it. Looking back down for one last check on Baekhee, he freezes when he realises that she is staring right at him, her piercing gaze causing his spine to suffer a shivering wrath. It’s so creepy to be expecting a pair of eyelids and end up with a pair of eyeballs instead.

“What are you doing?” she whispers, sounding a little uneasy while she avoids his gaze. Their position isn’t really the best position to be in, as Chanyeol is leaning his torso over her body and his head is hovering above her head, basically locking her in against the ground, and he wonders what he could say in this situation to convince her that he’s not some crazy somnophiliac out to touch places that ought not be touched without permission.

Regrettably still, he settles for: “There was a worm.”

Instantly, Baekhee catapults out of her skin and cowers towards his chest, glaring over her shoulder accusingly and fearfully at the wall as she clings onto his shirt. “What?! Where?” she whisper-screams, panicked and alarmed until Chanyeol tells her that it’s gone. “Gone? Where has it gone?!” she continues to freak out, and Chanyeol cannot help but be endeared by her display of fright.

“Hey, it’s alright, I threw it away.”

“Threw it away? Into the fire, right?” She gawps at him restlessly.

“Sure, into the fire.”

“Oh,” she slumps in relief, “okay then, that’s alright.” Settling, she falls back against the padding and pillow, her porcelain face framed by ebony waves. “Thank you,” she winces, now embarrassed, “I don’t like worms very much.”

Chanyeol grins, smitten. “I’ve noticed. And you’re welcome.”

Her finishing smile is as sheepish as sheepish can get, and Chanyeol is besotted with it.

After that ordeal, they both fall asleep into an uneventful slumber, questionably close to one another. Their hands are almost touching and they’re practically sharing breath, and when Jongdae wakes up to the birds in the morning, he rises and narrows his eyes at them suspiciously. H