12: The wrong book

Lured

Soft and warm, safe and comfortable. Chanyeol’s body felt heavy and boneless, and in this halfway unconscious state, it almost felt as if someone was patting his head gently. Opening his eyes could wait a little longer because he really didn’t feel like letting go of the sweet dreams just yet.

When he started feeling his limbs and the brain started to pay attention to his surroundings, it became clear that someone indeed was playing with his hair.

“Morning, love”

A voice so soft his heart swelled in his chest came from somewhere close and he had to open his eyes to be sure he was right.

Chanyeol looked straight up into a pair of blue crystals, strands of golden hair falling softly around the boy’s face. The soft pillow was Baekhyun himself, whose fingers lazily ran through his hair.

The hulder leaned down enough to place a kiss on his forehead and when Chanyeol didn’t move away, another on the tip of his nose. Chanyeol melted into the familiar touches of careful fingers drawing patterns on the skin on his arms and the strong tail looping his waist.

It was the most perfect way of waking up, something he could want for every day for the rest of his life. However, as his brain started to catch up a little there was one big question he had to ask, “How…? I mean, did I walk here myself?” His voice cracked a little, his throat still sleepy.

Chanyeol remembered talking to Lay under the night sky the night before. He didn’t remember walking here though. He remembered feeling sleepy and it was natural to think he had fallen asleep outside, exhausted from all the stress. He hadn’t been sleeping outdoors, that much he knew.

“No, you didn’t. Lay talked Jongin into bringing you home to my place. You looked tired.”

“I sure must have been if I didn’t wake up from being carried all the way over here”  

Now that he had opened his eyes, he could tell the room was light and pretty. It wasn’t a dark and creepy cavern like in the stories, but a larger room with white wooden walls, lights hanging off the walls and flowers in every corner. Delicate curtains covered small windows on one wall. Thick enough to keep out bugs and fairies, he guessed that was what those things with wings were, but thin enough for pink daylight to fill the room.

Baekhyun giggled and patted his head. “So much to learn.  Remember how Jonging have certain powers too? Hmm?”

Chanyeol looked at him dumbfounded. “He used his powers on me? Did he take my soul?”

“No” The giggle turned to a light chuckle. “You are /taken/, he knows that much. Jongin knows how to control a human brain, so he made you sleep deeply and filled your brain with cute dreams. I think you needed it after the evening in the cavern. And then he brought you over here, teleportation. You’ll understand everything eventually.”

Chanyeol let his body rest heavily on Baekhyun’s thighs, closed his eyes in order to organize all of this magical weirdness. It should have felt scary, instead it felt safe and lovingly. All of them had been welcoming and sweet towards him. Maybe, except from Astrid.

 

“Do you feel better? It was a lot to take in yesterday, I know.”

Baekhyun sounded sincere, and Chanyeol decided he had to be honest. He rolled his body over on the side, chin resting on a thigh, face turned away from the other. If he didn’t look at him, maybe he could focus enough to say what he wanted to.

“I wish my family could know I’m okay, that I’m alive and everything will be fine. Your family know where you are.”

He paused, waited for any respond behind his back. Baekhyun tightened the hold his tail had around him, pulled him closer, but didn’t say a word, gave Chanyeol the time he needed and so he continued. “If they knew and if I could make sure Astrid never gets to Sehun, then I’d happily stay with you. After all, you have my heart and I will feel lonely and empty on the other side. I’m done living with a hole in my chest. I’m done missing you.”

 

The relaxing treatment from fingers on his skin and in his hair stopped as the pair of hands landed on his head and turned it enough for him to watch /his/ hulder. , was that what he was? Or was it Chanyeol that was Baekhyun’s human? How was he supposed to know when this far most stuff in his books had been all wrong?

“I think you have read the wrong book.”

“Wrong book? How? How many are there?”

Baekhyun looked shy for a short moment, but then his gaze hardened and Chanyeol understood what was coming had to be important.

“I never stole your heart, not even a piece of it.” His eyes glued on Chanyeol as he spoke.

“I don’t understand! You said you made me yours. You know /If you kiss a hulder, she steals your heart/ and all that ?” Chanyeol felt confused again. Baekhyun had said those words, he was almost sure.

“A tiny misunderstanding in your books, you should rewrite it.” The blond boy’s gaze had softened again and he stuck out his tongue teasingly.

“Technically I made me yours. I gave you my heart to feel, and keep, for as long as you wanted. It’s a risky move, I know. That’s why I never could go back. I couldn’t survive in your human world without my heart. I needed you close, but you left. All I could do was wait for you to return so I could find you. It felt like forever.”

The blond hulder inhaled deeply, let the air slowly escape in form of a long sigh. “I tied us together back then, but if you didn’t love me, you never would have come back.”

 

“I have loved you since that day, ever since that first kiss you gave me. Something happened that day, I know it,” Chanyeol argued. He still felt sure about his friend having lured him into something he didn’t wanted back then. He might wanted it now, but back then Baekhyun had initiated everything.

“That’s not because I forced you to, you could have starved my heart to death if you wanted to. If you didn’t have feelings, you wouldn’t have felt my pain. That’s what brought you back to the pond.”

“This means... “Chanyeol looked up into the wooden ceiling, needed to organize his words a little before they let out. “This means you can’t come back with me, like ever? Because you made you mine, I will have to stay here for you to be happy?”

It broke his heart a little. No, a lot actually. Knowing he could go back if someone helped him, but Baekhyun would be stuck here alone.

 

“I could go back.”

“As long as I’m with you, I’ll live. As long as you let me be yours.”  The message might be a good one to Chanyeol, the eyes showed how it was not. It simply was not going to be that easy.

“Is that’s why hulders keep the boys here? Because then they are sure their heart is close?”

“Yes, sort of. It’s easier. Some boys are free to come and go, but it depends on the hulder. I only had one chance it seems, and it took all of my heart too.”

It made Chanyeol emotional to know Baekhyun had given his all to him, had jumped into the waters without testing the temperature or if it was possible to reach the bottom with your feet at all.

‘“And then there are girls like Astrid. She’s after a toy, not love. I don’t know what her heart is made of or if she knows how to lure boys without giving away her heart at all.”

 

That last comment hurt more because it made Chanyeol remember how she was after his brother, how she had offered to bring him over but wanted his brother in payment.  His fingers tightened around a cold edgy item in his pocket /The stone that made him remember/. They had made a plan, him and that singer, Lay, something. He remembered it now.

“I will let you be mine if we go back, of course I will. You can’t doubt that. Why is it so scary then? ”

“Your family will have to accept it, you being with me. I don’t know how they feel about it. I’m not human, they will know. And they will understand how my mother isn’t human either. I don’t know how people will react. Maybe you’ll listen to them, kick me out, forgets about me. Then I’ll be lost without my heart and my tail. I’ll turn into a long nosed troll then.”

 

The tail. Chanyeol had forgotten about it.

“I thought you had to marry to drop your tail. Do we have to get married? I mean, not right away?”

A gasp left Baekhyun’s mouth, overly dramatic and a hand slapped against his forehead. “Park Chanyeol, Are you proposing to me?”  The vulnerable look in his eyes one minute ago was gone, now they sparkled.

Chanyeol turned beet red all the way up to the tip of his ears and he pushed his body up from the soft lap he had been resting on.

“No! Not like that. I mean, not like I never could have, but this is all so new and I just read that a hulder is losing her tail if she gets married in a church and you don’t want to lose your tail, do you? So I just thought that we could stay and not get married but it’s not like I never would like to if you would like to” The flow of words stopped because he needed to breathe. When the smaller one next to him was quiet, Chanyeol shut up too, swallowed, unsure of what Baekhyun thought about his rambling.

 

“I’d like to kiss you again. Can I?” Even if Chanyeol had sat up, Baekhyun’s tail still curled around on his hips, the silky tip resting in his lap. Without the crystal in his pocket, he would be wrapped up in this reality, forgetting everything about his past. Every single crystal on his body tingled when they touched and to be honest, if he could be sure his family knew he was safe, then he could throw the amulet away and indulge to this lovingly universe.  Until then, he was going to keep it.

Chanyeol pushed it to the bottom of his pocket and smiled “I’d love to” while his ears turned pink and gaze dropped to the others mouth. It was fine. He could let himself forget for a little while. The memories he could find when needed.

It was cute how the lively blonde was shy in this moment. He had been anything but it the day before. Maybe Chanyeol’s angry words had hurt more than he thought. Baekhyun had been kind and soft from the first second they met on this side of the river and he still was. Chanyeol loved him so much. Wanted to kiss him so badly.

 

Baekhyun wrapped one arm around his neck and pulled him closer until Chanyeol had to close his eyes because they were so close. He felt warm air blend with his and soft lips brushing his. This was new. This was them agreeing on something. Exactly what, they hadn’t discussed, but something good would have to come from this.

Baekhyun finally closed the tiny distance between them and Chanyeol let himself be dragged over on the side and then rolled over on his back. Baekhyun rolled himself on top of him, one leg resting on each side of him while slowly sliding his tongue over Chanyeol’s lips.  One of Baekhyun’s arms was trapped under his neck, the other hand curled in his hair. The third one roaming his body, tickling his sides up and down. Feather light touches down his arms and under his shirt.

Wait. Third?

With a firm grip on the others waist, Chanyeol pushed the hulder up from him, sort of startled by the number of arms touching him.

“Whaaat?” Baekhyun whined, his tail coming up to rest over his shoulder.  Chanyeol dropped his hulder down on his side and trapped him under his long body, all of him shaking from holding back laughter.

“Your tail! I forgot about your tail”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “I’ll make sure you never forget about it again then”

The boy might look small and fair, but his tail easily pulled Chanyeol close. Being on top, he took the opportunity to pepper Baekhyun’s face with kisses, inhale the scent of warm skin and touch as much as possible. Something else was out exploring too. This time the thing sliding up on the inside of his legs didn’t startle him. It was an unusual feeling, tickling and soft and very close to his crotch.

This was the start of it, realised as goose bumps popped and he shivered in the best way possible. Part one of his plan; Make Baekhyun want more.

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Lifeisafunnyplace
Anyone in for an epilogue?
I’m making one anyway 😝

Comments

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bitterharpy
#1
Chapter 18: Thanks for the update!
badentic #2
update
imissedyourskin
#3
Chapter 17: uwu the memories are so cute I really feel how Baekhyun is thinking back to everything Chanyeol related and that’s good. Must help his plan! ?
Also I went all soft for the skinny dipping and then you turned up the heat ? giving them all the reasons to be together forever ?
Azainab2058 #4
Chapter 17: cant wait for nxt update
Wings_99
#5
Chapter 17: Gosh this is the most beautiful underrated chanbaek fantasy fic I have ever read!
A masterpiece!
Your mind>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Wings_99
#6
Chapter 3: Thank Sehun and Lisa for making chanbaek's first kiss happen >•<