- savior -

Sometimes Baekhyun found it hard to hold onto a single emotion. He hated to admit it, but the more time passed, the harder he found it to focus. He hated the idea of becoming one of those ghosts who barely were more than a scattered whisper in the wind, but that was exactly what he was afraid would happen to him eventually. As he watched Chanyeol get older and whenever he looked down at himself, still basically a teenager, he sometimes forgot why he still stayed. He had believed it was his duty to help. Keep his friend alive. Prevent the person he had jumped off a roof for from doing the same mistake.
Sometimes he loathed Chanyeol.
Sometimes he relived that moment when he had fallen and  remembered how he had immediately regretted it. No one was worth dying for. Not even Chanyeol. No matter what he had meant to Baekhyun when he had still breathed and been able to sense the physical world around him.
Sometimes he honestly was not sure what he felt and what he tried to achieve. As if on constant autopilot, he followed the idea that his presence made things better for Chanyeol. But every once in a while he stopped and wondered.
What if he left now?
What if he had left much earlier?
What if he had never followed him and had just ascended to heaven?
There were so many what-ifs that in the end he only noticed a possibility when it had already passed. Like that, the years went by and he slowly lost his purpose. He followed Chanyeol because that was what he had done for what felt like an eterniry. It was the natural thing to do. It was the only thing he still knew how to do.

It was in this kind of situation that Kim Minseok suddenly appeared and shook up the peaceful coexistence between Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Because with every single thing Kim Minseok uttered, he raised a thousand questions and Baekhyun hated him for it. It was the strongest emotion he had felt in a while, so strong that it woke up those parts of his mind that still functioned.
Kim Minseok obviously confused Chanyel and as Baekhyun watched him from the outside, an uncomfortable thought found its way into his consciouness.
What if he had not died in the first place? What would have become of them if he had just waited? What if there had been a chance all along but he had been too stupid to just grasp it? Teenagers were idiots. He could tell by the fact that Chanyeol slowly grew up and stopped doing some of the things he had done years earlier. He could tell by the fact that Chanyeol sometimes rolled his eyes at him as if he was talking to a child, the child Baekhyun probably still was.
He began to regret his decision even more.
One mistake had killed him. One mistake had caused him to be in this constant state of being neither alive nor fully dead. Memories he thought he had forgotten, appeared in front of him as vivid flashbacks. Old feelings. Lingering feelings. Sitting behind Chanyeol in class and staring at the back of his neck and the slightly crooked hairline above the collar of his shirt. Watching him and Kim Saebyul as they had their heads together and laughed at something Baekhyun couldn't hear. Standing next to each other in the crowded bus home although it was a detour for Baekhyun, because sometimes those small moments would save his day. It had been hard sometimes. His parents using him as an excuse to not talk about their own issues. His grades dropping. The constant noise of the world around him that made him feel sick and tired. But then they sat in their empty classroom or were pushed against each other in a bus with barely enough space to breathe or walked to the convenience store across the school and life seemed okay. Life seemed worth living. Because Chanyeol was there.
But then he had acted in the spur of the moment and everything had broken.
And as he remembered this old feeling, he made another mistake. He allowed himself to be lured into the trap of Kim Minseok and did what so many ghosts had done moments of weakness.
He possessed.
And it felt right.
And it felt wrong.
And it made him understand that whatever Chanyeol felt now would never be directed at him.

"Get back in there," he said and noticed that his voice almost didn't sound as artificial and strained as usual. Chanyeol stood in front of the door like a trapped animal although he could have easily walked through Baekhyun. Even if he hated it, he had done it a hundred times before.
"I don't know what happened in there but you look like you should really resolve it this time," Baekhyun continued. There was a limit to how often he wanted to see Chanyeol walk out of Kim Minseok's apartment with the expression of someone who had just swallowed a bucket full of slugs, especially if he did so after having to carry random passed out exorcists. One night it was Kim Minseok himself, the next it was another random exorcist. If this went on, they would probably end up with three passed out exorcists later that day.
He blocked the way towards the stairs and Chanyeol furrowed his brows as he looked down on the floor.
"I mean, what did happen anyway?" Baekhyun asked.
They had come back the previous night. Baekhyun had walked Kim Minseok as far as his doorstep and had felt him to be awake enough to stagger inside himself. Because of the many protective charms, he could not even look through the open door so he wasn't sure how far Kim Minseok would have made it. Chanyeol had appeared inside for a while and had then come back out.
"Do you reckon I should call someone?" he had asked and before Baekhyun had been able to give a half-hearted response, he had already said, "Honestly, I don't get the Office. They were there when Minseok-sshi took off, so it's not like they wouldn't know. But I checked his phone and no one tried to call or text. Who knows what happens if I get them to come here? Is there a summoner prison or something? I don't see what's so wrong about helping someone who obviously needed help anyway, because according to all the stuff they told me so far, that's what they normally do."
He had been about to ramble on as he always did when he was aggravated so Baekhyun had nodded towards the door and asked, "So how are they?"
Chanyeol had shrugged, "I don't know. Yixing-sshi is out cold and Minseok-sshi is somewhat awake but not enough to really respond." There had been a slight hint of panic in his voice that Baekhyun had chosen to ignore.
"Right," he had nodded. As far as he knew, Kim Minseok had always woken up as usual after being possessed and he had agreed that it probably wouldn't be smart to get a bunch of other exorcists. "I mean, it's not like they're wounded," he had then said and Chanyeol had given him a dubious look. It had probably been obvious that Baekhyun did not particularly care about Kim Minseok's well-being. It also hadn't really helped that he had seen enough of his memories to know what had happened the previous morning. There it was. The stabbing feeling of jealousy.
"If I was you, I'd just wait until they're awake and then he probably knows best what to do. He started the whole thing anyway," Baekhyun had then said and Chanyeol had eventually reeled back inside with a frown.
After that, hours had passed. The sun had risen, people had walked by and eventually, the other exorcist had left with a tired expression. He had barely noticed Baekhyun.
A few minutes later, Chanyeol had come through the black hole that was the door. If last time he had mainly looked embarrassed, this time he looked aghast.
"I don't know..." Chanyeol began and pressed his lips together. "I'm not sure what just happened." He leaned his back against the door.
For a moment, Baekhyun wasn't sure what to say because he wasn't sure if he even wanted to know. There had been less then ten minutes between the other exorcist's and Chanyeol's exits. Probably not enough for another failed make-out session but what did he know?
"Why, did they speak Chinese?" he then asked jokingly and Chanyeol rolled his eyes at him.
"No," Chanyeol said in the strangled voice of someone couldn't deal with badly timed jokes. "I don't know, I.... He... I'm not sure what to say to him. I don't understand. I don't know what I could possibly say that... That does not sound like I have no clue whatsoever. Because I don't. I honestly don't. I don't know what things are like for him and I can't pretend I do. This is just... This is all too much to process."
At first, Baekhyun only frowned at the nonsensical speech. Chanyeol occasionally had the talent to talk without saying anything at all. But then it hit him.
"Oh, ," he gasped. "He told you about the ghost mother."
Chanyeol winced at the word and made it very obvious that he really did know. When Baekhyun had been inside Kim Minseok's head, those memories had been at the very core, like the root of a thornbush. Everything else existed because of what had happened to him as a child.
"He told Yixing-sshi about her. I'm not sure I was even supposed to hear it," Chanyeol said meekly and in the spur of the moment, Baekhyun kicked through his shin, only to then be knocked back by the force of the door behind him. Damn charms.
"Bull," he said as he collected himself from the impact and clearly startled Chanyeol with that response. Chanyeol was about to go into a huff, so he continued, "Man, you're daft sometimes."
That in return caused Chanyeol to just stare at him in bewilderment.
"Yeah, I get it," Baekhyun continued. "He blames himself because someone did something stupid, thinking they could be like him, so he tells them why he's special, blah blah blah, and you just happen to be there. Yeah. I see how that makes sense to you. I wasn't even there but I can picture you standing there like, 'oh, man, he probably forgot I'm still here,' like it's all just a ing great coincidence. Just like how you went home yesterday as if you merely accidentally smashed into each other."
At that Chanyeol finally threw him a nasty glance which he decided to take as a good sign. Angry Chanyeol at least reacted. Angry Chanyeol had said the things he had kept inside for ten years. So he knew that he probably wasn't supposed to push it, but contoínued in bad mimicry of Chanyeol's voice, "Oh, pardon me, I must have misunderstood that . I guess I'll just go home now and worry my family who all think that I'm suicidal because, I guess, that's better than to tell them that I have the hots for my new friend, the-."
"Okay, stop," Chanyeol said in a voice like a steel rod scratching over concrete. It was amazing how a human voice could sound like that. "Stop acting like a ing . This is not about you. You don't know what you're talking about."
Baekhyun didn't immediately reply because he didn't want to be caught up in the heat of a moment. Futile words would not cut it, so he had to make sure that his message really came across. "See, the thing is," he began calmly. Chanyeol threw him a suspicious glance but didn't interrupt him. "I actually do. Because I know you. And because I've been in that guy's head. And I can tell you that it's ing frustrating to watch the two of you. It's like you misunderstand everything on purpose. But I'm not even sure if I can blame him here because, , I don't like him, but he's pathetic. His whole life is pathetic. Right from the moment when a crazy ghost spawned him, to the moment when that pile of steaming garbage that is the Office finally took him in after he had killed her by accident because he didn't know better and because she had abused him for years. And it never improved after that. You can't kill and not be affected by it."
It was a crude way to summarize the story but he understood its impact by the painful expression on Chanyeol's face. It also was the first time he really thought about what it all really meant. He couldn't even imagine to live that kind of life and part of him wondered if it wouldn't harm someone like Chanyeol to have someone like that thrown at him.
But someone like that was all he had. That someone at least lived and breathed and had answers to the questions Baekhyun couldn't answer for him.
"So honestly, he maybe can't help being an idiot but you can. He already broke the rules for you. If he had not insisted to contact you, we wouldn't be here. You'd still be watched. And he would have long found a way to kill me without breaking a single ing rule if he had not worried whether you'd  be able to cope. He got possessed because of you. And there's no way he would have told that guy about his mother if he had not know that you'd also hear it. Because how else is he supposed to make you understand that he's not the one for you but by telling you about the thing that he hates the most about himsef? Because it makes him believe that he's not actually human? Because why the would you still be interested then, right?"
The words hung heavily in the room. Chanyeol again stared at the floor, as if he could make reality disappear if he only wanted it to.
"I don't know what to say," he then muttered as if he had not heard any of the words Baekhyun had spoken.
"Just say what you feel I guess," Baekhyun shrugged and felt like a hypocrite. When he had mustered up his courage to say what he felt, he had ended up staring down at his cracked skull.
"I don't know what I feel," Chanyeol said and rubbed his forehead. "I mean, to be honest, I'm not sure if I can deal with all these things. It's too much."
Baekhyun sighed but before he got a chance to voice his thoughts, Chanyeol added, "So I can't get back in there. It wouldn't be fair. I could lie and pretend that everything is cool but then what? Get what I want for the moment and then figure things out later?"
He took a step forward and Baekhyun instinctively moved back.
"So you're just going to leave him in there by himself," he noted.
Chanyeol balled his hands into fists.
"I mean, what do you want me to do here?" he asked in a low voice. "You've never been in my head. You don't know what the past few years have been like for me, not really. He said he can't save me and maybe he's right. Maybe he can't. And maybe I can't save him either. And maybe that's the whole point. This isn't normal. None of this is. If we just blindly plunge into this, this will maybe only hurt even more later on."
He threw him a glance that was both determined and painful, so Baekhyun wasn't sure what to reply.
And then he walked away without a glance back and Baekhyun stayed in front of the door.
He wondered if Kim Minseok would have heard them.