III. The More You Ignore, the More it Hurts

Baekhyun’s first step outside into the outer city was met with a painfully loud creak.

He drew his foot back immediately, but the sound cut through the silence brutally. Flinching, he moved the cloth covering aside so he could see better.

Darkness greeted him. Baekhyun could make out walls around him, and, given the creaking, there were wooden floorboards under his feet—but it was all he could make of his surroundings.

It was the perfect time to turn back. It wasn’t too late, he hadn’t gone anywhere, and it was perfectly possible to sneak back to his house without being found out. This was the opposite of what he was supposed to be doing—he was supposed to impress his father, to figure out a way for his father to notice him and to get more than those dreaded words. This—this was wrong.

He swung his legs over the side and pulled up the hood of his cloak.

It wouldn’t hurt if he looked around the outer city just a bit. If he didn’t get caught, he wouldn’t technically be doing anything harmful. Besides, it was night, and everyone would be asleep, anyway. It would be fine. It was fine.

Another part of him simply couldn’t muster up any care for the consequences. It simply didn’t matter.

Carefully, Baekhyun moved across the wooden floor, making sure that it didn’t squeak excessively under his feet. The place itself was old, damp (if he wanted to, he could pull the moisture from the air, and it would’ve created quite a lot of water), and molding. It was a miracle that the floorboards weren’t collapsing under his feet.

Every step brought a feeling of no-return, but Baekhyun shook off the feeling. He would be fine as long as he remembered the way back, which had never been a problem for him. He’d be back long before anyone was awake, as well. Dowon wouldn’t even know he had been gone. It wasn’t as if he had been particularly able to sleep, anyway, so it wasn’t truly hindering anything.

A little too aware of the fact that he was simply listing excuses, Baekhyun continued towards what seemed to be the exit. A sliver of light peered through doors, and cautiously, he made his way towards it.

A minute of careful maneuvering later and Baekhyun was standing in front of a barely-functioning door. He gave it a slight push, flinched at the loud screech it made at the barest hint of movement. He wasn’t sure if it would be smarter to shove it open in one go to get the noise over with, or attempt to slowly ease it open.

(Of course, there was also the smarter option of turning back, but the one peek outside showed cobbled streets and stone houses, and a small bud of curiosity began to bloom, filling the emptiness. Just a bit, at least.)

After making sure there was no one around, Baekhyun pushed the door open enough so he could squeeze through. Then, a bit clumsily, excitement beginning to stir, he stepped onto the street.

A gust of fresh, cool air greeted him. He breathed in deeply, the small bud of excitement growing wider, enough to cover up the guilt. If this was wrong, it suddenly didn’t matter as much, because despite the stone walls and the fact that every single color was grey, somehow it was free. Ugly, run down, a far cry from the architecture just inside the walls he had stepped through, but free.

Baekhyun took another step forward. The cobbled path wasn’t very even, each step threatening to send him stumbling. Compared to how well maintained everything was in the inner city, even a single step outside the wall was already showing the difference.

It was strange. But for some reason, despite the differences, Baekhyun couldn’t exactly say it was bad. He spun in a full circle, taking in the surroundings under the moonlight—and a breath of awe and disbelief escaped him, then turned into an incredulous laugh. He was out. Out of the inner city, standing right there between the walls that separated the two halves. There was a quiet whisper in the back of his head that said that he should’ve been going back, turning back now and perhaps it wouldn’t have been too late, but for once, Baekhyun was happy to shove that thought into the black, black hole as well. He didn’t care, and god, it felt so good not to.

The place he had emerged from seemed to be a run-down building—perhaps a post for the guards once, but now an entrance into the inner city. It could’ve been long abandoned, Baekhyun reasoned. The shack looked old and wind-worn enough.

He had a good feeling that it wasn’t that simple, but for once, it wasn’t his problem. Baekhyun pulled his cloak tighter around him, making sure that his face was hidden well enough, before heading off carefully down the street.

As uneven as the cobbles were and how different the streets and buildings were, it was a good type of different. Baekhyun made his way carefully through, sending out short bursts of wind snaking down the path to make sure he wouldn’t run into any of the guards.

The outer city wasn’t like how he’d imagined. Unlike the buildings in the inner city, made from the most expensive, rarest woods, painted with different colors and the carefully tended gardens, the outer city was all stone. Stone buildings, stone paths, dead trees stretching towards the sky. Spring had began to touch the inner city, but apparently not the outer. It was still winter.

Still, Baekhyun didn’t mind. The architecture could be considered drab compared to what he had seen before, but there were some interesting bits too: colors that stood out despite the grey, the decorative curtains that he could see on the first floor of one of the houses. It was patched in some places, but even in the night, it stood out against the dark in a curious kind of way. He leaned over, observing, unsure of what he was looking for, before continuing down the path, all the while committing the route down in his memory. The moon was still high in the sky, which meant he had time to get back before the patrols turned more strict and someone came to check on him.

The initial guilt seemed to have disappeared. Baekhyun wasn’t too sure that it was even a good thing that the feeling was gone: he didn’t particularly feel good about it, but it was the fact that it was a weight lifted—that yawning absence of anything but a lethargic sort of curiosity—that was a strange sort of relief.

And so he wandered down the streets, surrounded by the grey of the outer city, which somehow still ended up being more interesting than the colors of the inner. 

***

Baekhyun wasn’t lost, but it was raining.

Usually, he didn’t mind the water. Liked it, even. His power was enhanced when he was surrounded by water, and it was nice, especially during training.

It wasn’t bothersome. He didn’t mind his clothing being wet, normally. But with the heavy cloak and the equally heavy downpour and even heavier clouds, the moon was covered and each step sent water sloshing in his boots and his cloak hung down his shoulders almost obnoxiously. And even more ridiculous than everything else, Baekhyun was tired.

He knew it was around a thirty minute walk back. So far, he had only encountered one set of guards (who had been grumbling about the rain so loudly that Baekhyun had splashed into hiding without being seen or heard) and practically no people (he didn’t know if it was because he was going down the wrong streets). Going back to the inner city wouldn’t be that much of a problem, especially if he managed to be early enough to avoid the most of the guards, except sneaking back into his own house and then cleaning up the watery mess would take some time and effort. He wasn’t looking forward to thinking of an excuse as to why the floors and carpets were sopping wet in the morning for both the maids and Dowon.

Baekhyun turned down one last alley. The deeper he wandered into the inner city, the more the buildings seemed to change a bit—the difference wasn’t noticeable at first, but then he realized that the ones that had lined up near the walls of the inner city had been the relatively fancier ones: the doors were intact, the walls didn’t seem to be in desperate need of fixing, the windows weren’t broken and shuttered up. Here, deeper down, seemed to have been passed over by the hand of poverty. Many of the houses had at least one thing broken—and those were the good ones. Smashed windows covered with wood, messily patched walls, doors that were barely hanging on their hinges.

This—this was what the people of Vasileia lived in while the rest of them dined and lived like royalty.

Still, Baekhyun could not bring himself to feel an ounce of concern.

It was like walking through some sort of dream. Deep down, he knew that it was wrong, knew that what he was seeing—while he knew, he had never realized just how big the divide was—and now, he was witnessing firsthand what the families had left the people they were supposed to protect live under.

But then again, it wasn’t as if he had never known the families were cruel. It was just that he had managed to steer clear of that cruelty, more or less. Except right then, Baekhyun felt so subject to it—so overwhelming subject to the rules and regulations and standards and impossible demands—that the crumbled bricks and stones and broken windows seemed like nothing.

For a while, the rain beat down around him mercilessly, his cloak getting heavier by the moment. All of the houses down the alley were empty, unlike a couple he had seen when in the wealthier districts, where lights still flickered from some windows. These felt abandoned. These felt too… ruined to be even habitable.

A flash of lightning split across the sky, and not long after, thunder rumbled angrily in its wake. Baekhyun squinted at the sky.

The moon wasn’t visible, but he knew he should be getting back. There was always the possibility of wringing the water from his clothing with his power, but that had always been the most bothersome process, and he wasn’t looking forward to doing it again. Then he thought about returning—a strange concept, even if he hadn’t been gone for long—before running the word return through his head. It didn’t feel like he wasn’t going back, because part of him couldn’t understand why and how he had left in the first place. It was so strange that Baekhyun almost felt like the whole thing was a strange, elaborate dream, walking down those roads and seeing what he was seeing and feeling the cool, fresh air. He would wake up soon. And—

“Excuse me,” someone said, “are you looking for someone?”

Baekhyun spun around so quickly that he nearly got whiplash.

The alley had been empty before, and silent. There was no way someone could simply sneak up on him, or even just manage to evade him for long. The fact that they had spoken up meant that they weren’t there to ambush him, but… the thought was disconcerting.

All those thoughts fled when Baekhyun looked at the figure standing in front of him: a girl, holding a small bag, one skeptical eyebrow raised at Baekhyun. She was drenched in the rain as well, though she looked much more comfortable in the water than Baekhyun felt, which was saying something, given that he controlled water. She was holding a lantern that cast a small bubble of light around her, water droplets pattering off the glass panes that surrounded the firelight.

And for a couple of seconds, Baekhyun could only gape.

Perhaps it was strange because she was the first person he had seen since he had left the inner city. Perhaps it was the fact that not only was she the first person he had seen but the first person in general that wasn’t wearing fancy dresses like all women in the Byun family wore, that she was wearing a coat (wet, of course) and trousers that were ill-fitting. There was a patch on her coat. There was nothing—nothing—special about her.

Except the expression on her face. It was guarded, which wasn’t unexpected, but there was also the look of curiosity that trumped that. She couldn’t have been over eighteen, Baekhyun decided. Perhaps even his age. With large eyes framed with dark lashes, she could’ve easily passed off as pretty—if she weren’t wearing such clothing, and if her hair hadn’t been chopped so messily. But now, her eyes looked too large for her pale face, drenched hair clinging to her cheeks and equally wet clothing dripping.

“Hey,” the girl repeated, her arms folded over her chest. “Are you listening? Are you looking for someone? Are you lost? Who even are you?”

Baekhyun was lucid enough to feel some offense at that, although he shoved it down immediately. She didn’t know he was from the Byun family. If she found out, he would have to kill her, but since he didn’t, he could play it off as… well, whatever the commoners did. He had the vague idea that he had no clue how commoners were supposed to act and if it would be a better idea to just run then and there, but the girl was staring at him insistently enough.

“I’m… not lost,” Baekhyun ended up saying. He glanced past her. Rain, miserable, spring rain, was still drizzling down, but he could tell that it was nearing morning. “I was just walking around.”

The girl’s eyebrows went higher until they disappeared under her bangs. “You were walking around in the middle of the night in the rain,” she repeated. “Really.”

“Really,” Baekhyun echoed stupidly.

“I think you are lost,” she decided.

He turned around slightly so he could glare at her. Perhaps the roads were somewhat confusing, but Baekhyun remembered the basic route back, and he definitely wasn’t lost. He opened his mouth to snap at her for saying, and then he realized that there really wasn’t much he could technically say without exposing who he was. He would rather have her think he was lost than to know he was from the Byun family. That would endanger his own position too much.

“I am slightly lost,” Baekhyun amended through gritted teeth.

The girl’s expression lit up into half triumph and half amusement. “I knew it,” she crowed.

For the first time in what felt like a long time, something flickered inside of him—just a hint of frustration.

“Just tell me where to go,” Baekhyun snapped at her.

Maybe it wasn’t just a hint of frustration but a lot of irritability. He pressed his lips together and wondered if he should be more patient with her. He wasn’t the Byun family’s prodigy right now, Baekhyun reminded himself—he didn’t expect any respect from her, any realization of who he was. It was hard, but he could do it.

“You could ask nicely,” the girl said stubbornly. “I’m trying to help you.”

“You don’t have to rub it in that I am lost,” he replied, then cursed himself inside. He was fanning the flames, and she seemed too hotheaded to back off.

Instead of retorting, her expression lifted into a more genuine smile. She was pretty, Baekhyun decided, even in the oversized clothing and the chopping haircut. Not the same kind of beauty that Miran exuded, but a carefree sort of ease.

But just slightly, he corrected. Really, compared to everyone in the inner city, where beauty was almost mandatory, she would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb.

She stared at him with probing, wide eyes for a couple of moments longer before nodding and holding out her hand. “What’s your name?”

Baekhyun eyed her hand. It would be impolite not to shake it, and perhaps attract too much attention and scrutiny, so he took her hand. It was wet with rain, but so was his. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

“What’s your name?” he countered. 

She snorted. “I’m Heejin. Cho Heejin. You?”

Baekhyun pulled his hand back. “Maybe next time.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You won’t tell me your name, but maybe next time? How do you know we’ll meet next time? You can’t just ask for my name and not give me yours.”

It was getting close to morning, and Baekhyun knew he had to return. Still, he couldn’t think of any easy way to get away from Heejin, and she looked like she wasn’t going to leave him alone without an answer. And Baekhyun couldn’t afford to cause a commotion by trying to run.

When he didn’t reply, Heejin lifted her lantern to his face. “How about this,” she said, “You tell me your age. That’s it. I won’t ask anything else. Or else it’s not fair.”

Age. That was general enough; no one would recognize him by age alone. For a moment, Baekhyun hesitated, but Heejin was looking at him imploringly (or perhaps demanding; he couldn’t begin to read the girl). Then, Baekhyun gave in with a shrug. “Sixteen,” he replied.

Her expression lit up. “I’m sixteen as well.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun replied, with lack of anything else to say. He didn’t feel nearly as excited as she was. Everyone in the inner city that he saw on a daily basis was around his age, and age didn’t seem anything to be enthusiastic about.

If Heejin took note of his attitude, she didn’t show any signs of it. Instead, she lifted a shoulder and tilted her head at him. “So, what are you looking for if you’re lost?”

Not lost, Baekhyun thought to himself, but he didn’t say it aloud. He had already admitted to her that he was lost, which meant that he had to play that part long enough to get away and back to the inner city. Time was ticking by second by second, and each minute that passed, the urgency to get back in time rose.

“The main road,” Baekhyun decided.

Heejin gave him an incredulous look. “You’re not from around here,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but a statement. “But… you have a Vasilein accent.”

Baekhyun shrugged again, though his heartbeat picked up at that. “I haven’t been here for a long time,” he corrected. “But I was born here. And my parents had a Vasilein accent. I guess it never disappeared.” I’ve been in Vasileia all my life, he thought to himself, just not out here. But in there.

Heejin didn’t look like she bought his excuse, but instead of prying, she gave a disinterested shrug. “Alright,” she replied. “There’s not actually… a main road. But I’ll bring you to the closest one around here that’s… I guess one of the more main roads? If you can’t find your way from there, then I can try to bring you to the place you’re going to. Are you looking for an inn? Why are you out here at this time?”

Baekhyun tucked his hands inside his pockets, which were drenched thoroughly. “I got lost,” he replied.

“Did no one tell you about the curfew when you went inside?”

He blinked at her. “Curfew?”

“So that means no one did,” Heejin mused, her lips twisting into a contemplative line. “Well, a couple months ago, the officials in the inner city issued a curfew. No one is supposed to be outside from midnight to an hour before dawn, whenever that falls. And if the guards catch you outside, I heard the consequences… aren’t good.”

Baekhyun tilted his head. “Aren’t good,” he echoed.

Heejin’s expression turned slightly sour. “I’ve never been caught,” she said, tone a bit snappy, “but I’ve heard. And I thought I’d warn you, since you obviously don’t know, and you’re also lost. You’re welcome.”

For a moment, Baekhyun felt bad about offending her (or angering her, or whatever—he wasn’t sure, and from the defiant glimmer in her eye and the way her stance, she was actually kind of intimidating). Then he told himself that he’d never see her again and his main goal was to get back to the inner city without being caught or giving away his identity, and the anger ebbed away into calmness.

“I did not’t mean to offend you,” he said while not quite meaning a word, “I just wasn’t sure, since you said you’ve never been caught. Do you know people who have?”

Heejin squinted at him. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

Baekhyun tapped his foot on the ground, now impatient. “Nothing’s wrong with me,” he replied. “Why?”

Her eyebrows furrowed even more. “You just sounded kind of odd,” she decided, then shook her head. “Whatever. Come on, just follow me. And if there are guards, stay out of the way and do what I tell you. You don’t want to be caught.”

Baekhyun contemplated asking her again what people who did get caught were punished with, but she had her heel and was heading towards the exit. After a moment of contemplation, Baekhyun hurried after her.

The inner city was still relatively empty as she weaved through streets, now on a completely different route than the one he had taken. Baekhyun could only hope that he would recognize the way back by the time they got back to the main street that Heejin was talking about. 

Thirty seconds later and he fell in step with her. She walked at a surprisingly quick speed, constantly checking over her shoulders, and he wondered if it were something that had been trained from many more similar forbidden adventures. Baekhyun sent wind snaking down the road to make sure they didn’t bump into anyone, just as a precaution, but they seemed to have gone far enough from the inner city that the guards were scarce, if there were any at all. It had only been the area near the wall that he had seen the most guards.

Baekhyun assumed that it shouldn’t have been a surprising thing that they did run into guards. He felt the shift in his power ahead of time, and before Heejin could say anything, he lunged for her wrist and pulled her back. “There’s a patrol,” he hissed at her. The last thing he caught was a glare (or some sort of protest; he couldn’t tell very well) before they had stepped behind a wall.

Heejin yanked her arm out of his grasp. “Thanks for warning me,” she said sharply, arms planted on her hips, “but you do not know where you’re going and wear to hide. Follow me.”

The rooftops would’ve been a good idea. There was a wall on the side that wasn’t particularly tall, with what Baekhyun could already see as good footholds. He would be up in no time, and wouldn’t have to worry about the guards. But he would have to worry about Heejin, and he didn’t want to stir up any more trouble where he could be recognized. If he did run on his own and she informed the guards, then there’d be no getting back to the inner city unseen.

“Hello?” she was saying, and Baekhyun blinked to see her wave a hand in front of his face. “Are you deaf? Let’s go. I can already hear them.”

Baekhyun hadn’t even had time to move before she was the one who had grabbed his wrist, surprisingly strong for her size, and gave him a tug towards the buildings. It was insistent, and he didn’t need his power to sense that the guards were travelling in their direction, now much closer, another reminder that they didn’t have much time left. Before he could put more thought into the decision, his feet were already moving after Heejin, just in time for her to push open a door he had no idea existed before pulling him inside. She let go of him immediately, giving him a slight shove so that he stumbled into the dark, before closing the entrance she had pulled him through quietly. Baekhyun could sense the wall around him, uncomfortably enclosed at the sides, then the scent of musty air as the faintest traces of a breeze wafted through. It was a hallway.

“Where are we?” he whispered. 

He couldn’t see Heejin, but from the sound of it, she had turned around. “Be quiet,” she whispered back.

Sure enough, the sound of footsteps echoed from outside. The door obviously wasn’t very thick despite being so obscured, because Baekhyun could hear the soldiers passing by as if they were out in the open, the sound magnified by the echoes. And he wasn’t nervous—really, nervousness and fright seemed to have fled a while back, perhaps that day when he met his father—but he still found himself holding his breath.

Because Baekhyun wasn’t scared. Because that feeling of fear was strangely foreign, nowadays—it wasn’t fear that made him feel obliged to go back to the inner city, but… obligation? Or it was simply the fact that he didn’t really know anything else apart from that routine, and he would have to go back there. But if he thought about it, he wasn’t afraid. Baekhyun almost wished he was, but another part of him simply didn’t care enough to wish about it either.

Soon, the sound of footsteps faded into the distance. The door in the wall—whatever door it was that Heejin pulled him through—didn’t let in a sliver of light from outside. There was nothing for his eyes to adjust to in the pitch darkness, and Baekhyun couldn’t even see her outline.

“Hey,” he said, louder this time. “Where is this?”

Heejin paused for a couple of seconds as if contemplating her answer. Then, “Just… it’s a hollow in the wall. In case things like this happen. There’s a lot of them across the city if you know where to look. Most people can’t overrun guards fast enough or find a place to hide without something like this.”

Baekhyun send another slight gust of wind down the passageway. “It’s not a hideout room,” he replied slowly. “This is a hall. It leads pretty far down.”

Heejin fell silent again. Baekhyun opened his mouth to say something else when she spoke up again. “How do you know?”

He managed to register the suspicion in her voice, as well as the wariness. “I can feel a breeze,” Baekhyun amended, and it was partially true, “which means the wind is coming from somewhere. That normally happens if it is a corridor. Something on the other side is bringing the draft in.”

Another span of silence, and Baekhyun figured he had gotten away with it. If she didn’t ask anymore questions, there would be no more suspicions raised (than there were already) about where he came from and who he was. You’re a stranger here, Baekhyun reminded himself. Got lost in the city. That’s all.

“Who are you?” Heejin repeated.

“I—” he started, mind spinning. There was nothing he could think of, no excuse that could come to mind, no matter how hard he thought. For a brief second, Baekhyun contemplated using Dowon’s name, but if that got out, the situation would also be ugly. And he didn’t want more on his hands.

“Boxian,” he finally answered. He hoped she wouldn’t ask him to speak another language because of his name. He couldn’t.

“Boxian,” Heejin echoed after him, the irritation now obvious in her voice. Then, very crossly, “That would’ve been a nice introduction, but it tells me nothing about who you are. Who are you? What are you doing in Vasileia? You’re…” She seemed to struggle for the words, and ended up settling with, “You know a lot.”

A very ugly part of him wanted to tell her exactly who he was, just to see the reaction. The Byun family’s prodigy, he could say. It was a bit damp in the corridor, but enough to summon a spark to coax into a flame to see her expression at that. That would give her quite a scare, enough to satisfy the protest of being treated in such a way by someone who should’ve been below him. Except then Baekhyun would have to kill her—which, as easy as it would’ve been, wasn’t an option—and, even more prominently, there was the very real fact that Byun family’s prodigy didn’t seem like a title that rightfully belonged to him anymore. And that wasn’t something he could brag about, when it wasn’t his anymore. Even if Heejin didn’t know, even if no one else in the family knew about it, Baekhyun did, and it didn’t belong to him.

So he swallowed down the words one by one. There was no other excuse Baekhyun could think of, so he opted for a shrug (which he then realized that Heejin had no way of seeing). In the most noncommitted voice possible, he replied, “I have just heard rumours. I told you. I’m just visiting.”

The lie actually sounded convincing enough, and Baekhyun was certain any other person would’ve taken it. It wasn’t as if he knew that much, but either Heejin was naturally suspicious or he wasn’t as great as bluffing as he thought he was.

“You’re lying,” she announced. Baekhyun heard her footsteps start forward again—was she going for the door?

It would’ve been a terrible move to deny it just like that, so he followed her steps cautiously. “And how did you come to that conclusion?”

The footsteps stopped. Baekhyun stopped.

Even in the dark, he could feel and hear Heejin turn around. Baekhyun took a small step backwards—they were standing too close for comfort—and frowned. “What?” he asked.

“I don’t care who you are,” Heejin replied, not bothering to hide the irritability in her voice. “But you’re not who you say you are. Firstly, any visitors who are let in Vasileia get checked thoroughly. And they’re told specifically what they’re allowed to do and what they aren’t, and then they know how bad the consequences are. Your accent is also Vasileian. You’re not just some visitor.”

Baekhyun reached for his belt, then realized that he hadn’t brought any of his weapons. Heejin persisted to speak without stopping.

“Your speech is formal,” she continued. “I mean, the accent sounds the same, but your wording and… well, you’re not the same as us. You’re not from the outer city, are you?”

For the first time in a long time, something like fear flashed through him. Possibilities flashed through his head—what he could do, what she would do—and before any of those possibilities could play out, Baekhyun felt her shove him back against the wall with a surprising amount of strength.

All his training didn’t prepare him for the moment, to react before Heejin had a blade pressed against his throat. It happened in an instant—not quite fast enough for Baekhyun to be unable to do something about it, but surprising enough for it to catch him completely off guard.

He didn’t move when Heejin dug the blade into his neck.

“You’re from the inner city,” she said quietly, “aren’t you?”

Baekhyun’s heartbeat quickened. “No,” he got out, but his voice sounded hoarse. It could’ve been attributed to the fact that she still had the blade to his neck, but probably more so because of the lie.

“You’re lying,” Heejin growled. The blade stung a little bit, and Baekhyun found himself holding his breath. He could’ve grabbed her wrist and snapped it. Used his power, somehow. The blade to his neck didn’t bother him—that wasn’t what he feared—so what was he scared of? He could easily turn it around and slit without trying. She was tough, she was brave (or perhaps rash), but she was nothing compared to the training he had gone through before. “Are you from the Byun family, Boxian?”

All remaining sense fled. Everything Baekhyun could’ve done didn’t happen, and all he could do was remain still with bated breath, speechless.

“Well?” Heejin demanded. Her voice was still strong, but there was a hint of a tremor in it. “You are, aren’t you? What are you doing here?” She paused. “Are you running away from your family?”

Even in the midst of his confusion, that thought cut clearly through his mind like a hot knife through butter. “No,” Baekhyun blurted before he could think. “I am not.”

“So what?” Her grip slackened a bit, and Baekhyun knew that if he tried, he could take the knife easily. One cut and he could even slit . No one would know who did it, no one would know. He could make his way back by himself without her help easily.

All training told him to do it. But he didn’t.

“Boxian,” she pressed. “Are you?”

“I’m not running away,” he rasped.

“But you are from the family. And if you weren’t lying when you said you were sixteen, you shouldn’t be allowed outside right now. What are you doing here? This isn’t… you’re not supposed to be here, aren’t you?”

By then, some bit of sense had trickled back into Baekhyun. The situation filtered in bit by bit, nudging out the surprise, and pieces of his training slipped back as well. He didn’t have to kill her. Knock her out, perhaps, take the blade, make sure he didn’t leave any trace of his presence there when he left. He could get back to the inner city on time easily, make sure he got back to his room before Dowon found him—and then never make the same mistake again.

Resume his training. And perhaps one day, meet his father again.

Baekhyun couldn’t quite summon any enthusiasm for the thought no matter how hard he tried, but still, he clung onto it. “It is none of your business,” he said as calmly as he could.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Heejin wasn’t stopping. “There’s no way your family would let you out. And if you want to go back in that direction, that means you’re returning. Did you sneak out?”

“I did not,” Baekhyun gritted.

“You did,” she shot back immediately. “So why are you here? Life in the inner city not as great as you thought it was?”

Her grip had slackened slightly there, and Baekhyun took the chance. Her biggest mistake had been not securing his hands as well, and with one movement, he grabbed her wrist and twisted.

It was hard enough for Heejin to drop her weapon with a slight shriek of surprise. Baekhyun caught the blade—a knife, from the feel of it—and shoved her away from her. A step back, a sweep of his leg towards her ankles and he was holding her up by a handful of the soaking jacket she was wearing. And as he had expected, it was easy.

What he didn’t expect was the blow towards his side. It was messy—at least, for the standards of his family—but it was enough to hurt, and he almost let go of her. Quickly after the first blow, she landed another sharply on his chest, knocking the breath out of his lungs from the force and the position. Baekhyun released her, then realized that she was going for her knife, still in his hand.

Move, then think. Another quick blow from him and he had pinned her against the wall—more securely, this time, the blade leveled to Heejin’s throat, and veins thrumming with adrenaline. Strange that he’d been training hours before, but this fight was the first rush of… well, Baekhyun didn’t know how to describe it, but his senses were on high alert, heartbeat loud in his ears and hearing sharp.

“Do not even try,” he snapped at her.

“Try what?” she demanded back, though her voice was visibly shaky. “What am I supposed to do against a trained member of the Byun family?”

Member of the Byun family. He wasn’t, technically, not until he turned twenty and passed the test. That had always seemed easy enough. Now…

Baekhyun didn’t answer her, just kept the blade levelled to her neck. It was obvious what he had to do, now. And it wasn’t hard—just dig a little deeper, bring the knife across. When—if—somebody found her body in the godforsaken passage, there would be nothing that could be traced back to him as long as he made it back to the inner city on time. As long as no one knew, it didn’t affect him.

“Do it,” Heejin snapped suddenly, her voice exceptionally loud in the silence. “If you’re going to kill me, do it.”

She didn’t beg for her life. Didn’t make any excuses or reasons. Really, her voice was more angry than anything, and Baekhyun realized that it was his own hands that were shaking. He steadied it, then tightened his grip on the blade.

“Well?” Heejin asked. In her voice was almost a challenge.

Outside, Baekhyun was sure that it was rapidly approaching dawn. He didn’t have much time left, but the more he tried to make sure his hands didn’t shake, the more they trembled. The more he tried to move, the more frozen he felt. 

One cut. It was nothing compared to what he had already done. It wasn’t significant enough to count as a rule truly broken, when he had broken much more significant rules. But his hands shook, and the thought of that one cut—so frightfully easy—was what truly terrified him.

Baekhyun dropped the knife before he knew what he was doing.

It hit the ground with a surprisingly loud clatter, and Baekhyun found himself nearly gasping for breath when he released Heejin and stumbled back as well. He realized his mistake the moment he let go of her, but instead of going for her knife again like he thought she would, Heejin only stepped away from him warily, her steps slow.

The silence was so all-encompassing that Baekhyun could feel it weighing on him. Each breath from him and Heejin cut through the air, the tunnel seeming to shrink and shrink until Baekhyun was certain the walls were closing in.

A jumble of thoughts, panic most evident in it. He hadn’t felt such strong emotions since meeting his father, and on one thought rose onto the top of it all: I can’t kill her. It was so easy—so ridiculously easy that it made it even worse—and he couldn’t. The thought that it was so simple was almost nauseating.

Finally, it was Heejin that broke the silence. “What are you doing?” she asked.

What am I doing? Baekhyun half wondered, but he wasn’t sure if he could trust himself in saying something without it coming out as messy as his thoughts were. He couldn’t kill her, that much was obvious, and he needed to leave. He just wasn’t sure how to formulate it in a way that wouldn’t get him into even deeper trouble.

“Do not’t tell anyone about me,” he finally breathed out. “Forget you even saw me here. I can find my own way back from the inner city.”

Leave, he needed to get out now. Baekhyun took a step towards the exit, brushing past Heejin, but she stuck out a hand in front of him.

Baekhyun wasn’t sure if she was brave or suicidal or brash or stupid, but before he could decide which, she said, “Wait.”

He pushed her arm down from the wall. “I need to leave,” he repeated out loud.

She ignored it. “Why are you letting me go?”

“You should consider shutting up about it before I change my mind.”

“You couldn’t do it the first time. Who’s to say that you can now?”

She was stupid, talking in such a way. All of his life he’d adhered to one rule especially—to listen to the command of every superior, because it always came with a punishment when he disobeyed, whether short term or long term. The fact that she knew he was from the inner city, knew he could easily overpower her, yet still talked back in such a way was unthinkable. 

Baekhyun didn’t have an explanation for how she could do such a thing, nor did he want to think of one. So, ignoring her words, he turned towards the door. “Do not speak of this,” he warned over his shoulder.

Heejin didn’t make a move behind him, and for some reason, heart pounding quickly in his chest, Baekhyun pressed his palm against the wall and pushed.

It swung open heavily. He didn’t look back, but from the silence on the other end, Heejin hadn’t tried to follow him (or pick up the knife).

He was making a huge mistake letting her go. It was possible he could make it to the inner city in the nick of time without getting caught, but if somehow word got out that he had left, if she had been able to describe his face—so many what-ifs—then that would’ve been the end of that.

But Baekhyun knew very well now that he was unable to land the final blow, no matter how slight it was.

Outside, a faint light had already begun to spread across the sky. A sliver of brightness slid into the hallway as the door opened wider, and Baekhyun stepped onto the wet, cobbled, broken streets of the outer city.

“Boxian,” Heejin said behind him.

He turned around even though he knew he shouldn’t have. Even though it wasn’t his name.

He could see her a bit better with the light now, her face all angles and contours in the near-darkness of the hallway. Her eyes were surprisingly bright despite the shadows, and Baekhyun thought again of how she had told him off so easily, how ridiculously brash she had been. She was pretty in a strange way; not like what he had seen in the inner city. He couldn’t place just how, but she was.

“I won’t report you to anyone,” she promised. “Besides, then they’d find out I’d been sneaking around, and I’m sure I’d get into more trouble than someone from the Byun family would.”

Baekhyun nodded at her.

Heejin returned the nod. “I’ll be in the same place in three days,” she said. “If you ever decide the inner city’s too boring for you again.”

Ridiculous of her to ask him to. Absolutely insane of her to assume he’d be back, that he would even try to see her again, much less want to when they were so different. He was from the Byun family, from the inner city, and she knew that. She was a commoner, another face among the many in the inner city.

“Well?” Heejin prompted, and Baekhyun realized that he had stopped in his tracks.

He turned away. “I know the way,” he replied shortly, unsure if he was talking about his way back, or the way to her.

It wasn’t quite a promise, but it wasn’t a lie either, and Baekhyun was uncertain which was worse when he finally started off.

______

uh... remember me? hahahhaHahahhahah SORRY

here's heejin thO!! comments are very much welcome yall been hearing about her from angst boi (tm)'s perspective but never acc met her so ... make ur own judgements? :D