The demonic goat didn’t kill him, but this ride would, Jongin thought to himself.

Reason one (and only): Kim Jongdae was in the car with them.

“Let’s go to the Miracle Hospital,” Jongdae said from the front. Why he, who did not get run over by a foul goat, was sitting in the passenger seat was the mystery of the century. He was also eating some chips.

Jongin hadn’t even noticed him get into the car, but as they drove through the campus gate, Jongdae’s foul voice came from the front, like the highlight moment of a scary movie, where the characters find out the killer was one of them all along.

“We’re going to the Universe. It’s the closest one.” Kim Woobin said.

“Let’s go to the Miracle Hospital,” Jongdae said, as if he was saying it for the first time. “my mom works there.”

“I have to take him to the closest hospital — we’re going to Universe,” Kim Woobin retorted.

“Miracle is better. They’re not that from each other and —”

“We’re going to Universe!” Baekhyun said. “Shut up, Jongdae. Why are you even here?”

“Why are you here? Huh? What are you to our Puppy?”

“I’m his… roommate!”

“Well, I’m the one he saved. That means he likes me best, that’s why I’m here. I’m blessing him with my presence.”

Something inside Jongin’s head was getting close to snapping in half.

“You were the only one just standing there like a moron,” Sehun said softly, almost gently.

Jongdae his spot and looked at Sehun over the headrest. “Another puppy,” he said, sounding curious. “Hmmmm... “ he stared at Sehun for a very long, uncomfortable moment before flopping back into his seat. “So, we’re going to Miracle,”

“Universe, now be quiet. Otherwise I can drop you off here and you can walk back.” Kim Woobin said coolly. He didn’t sound worked up at all.

“But my Mom — it helps if there’s someone you know in hospitals!” Jongdae shouted.

“I don’t know your mother,” Jongin mumbled, wishing he was back in their room, eating some kimbap and watching some anime with Baekhyun.

“Jongdae,” Baekhyun said politely.

“Yes?” Jongdae answered. Jongin noticed that he sounded wary. 

“Doesn’t your mother work in human resource?”

“Oh my — don’t be ist!”

Kim Woobin snorted.

Baekhyun gasped. “How am I — How is that ist, you head?!”

“I’m insulted on behalf of my mother, who never made a single misdeed. To make me feel better, we’re going to Miracle!”

“Universe!”

“I’m gonna die,” Jongin mumbled. Nobody heard him.

“Miracle!”

“UNI —”

“Shut it!”

They stopped at a light, but the action was still in its full swing inside the car. Jongin saw a little girl in the backseat of a car beside them, watching them and smiling. Some drool was making its way to freedom from the corner of . Jongin smiled and waved at her, she waved at him back enthusiastically.

“You shouldn’t even be here!” Jongdae yelled and Jongin saw Sehun wince at the piercing sound. “I’m the one he risked his life for!”

“It wasn nothing personal! He would have saved anyone, because he’s a decent human being, unlike you. And I know that because I know him, unlike you. And I bet he’s regretting —” 

“Actually, look, Black Pearl is the closest,” Sehun said, showing his phone to Baekhyun.

“, you’re right.” Baekhyun said calmly, as if he wasn’t shouting at Jongdae just a moment ago.

“I forgot. It’s a new hospital, barely two years old. Well done…” Kim Woobin looked at Sehun through the rear mirror.

“Sehun. I’m Oh Sehun.”

For some strange reason, Jongdae didn’t raise an objection. 

(｀Д´)

“So, he doesn’t have a concussion?” Baekhyun asked.

“He doesn't have a concussion,” The nurse said.

“He doesn’t have a concussion.” Said Kim Woobin.

“Yes.” 

“No concussion.” Said Sehun.

“No concussion.” 

“So, he won’t die?” Jongdae said, sounding completely disappointed.

“No,” the nurse said, furrowing her eyebrows.

“And it can’t happen afterwards, right? The concussion. He doesn’t have it so he won’t have it.” Baekhyun said. He was absentmindedly running his hand through Jongin’s hair, which was why Jongin was unable to say a word.

“Unless another goat attacks him, no. You can sign the form and go.” she added, looking at Jongin over her silver spectacles.

The nurse had her hair wrapped into a tight bun. She was wearing a white cardigan over her uniform, and she hadn't shown even the slightest sign of surprise when they told her what had happened.

There came a sound of some electronic punches, some exaggerated screams and then,“FINISH HIM!” a horribly familiar voice ordered.

Kim Woobin smacked Jongdae’s head and said, “Put your phone away! I thought you were worried about him. How can you be playing a game right now?”

“Well, it was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to die. I got bored.” Jongdae whined, putting his phone back into his pocket. 

The nurse tutted. “Of course you’d be bored, considering the life you lead.”

Jongdae looked up. “Eh?”

The nurse turned to Jongin and smiled. “This one came here last year with a severe stomachache. He was vomiting everywhere and was drenched in his own sweat. He had just eaten some soap over a dare, you see? Called it a casual Tuesday night.”

“I came here ?! Not Universe? And, no fair!” Jongdae hollered at the nurse. “Personal information and all that! Isn’t it illegal to reveal my medical records to these people?”

“ These people? ” Kim Woobin raised an eyebrow.

“Sue me, then.” the nurse said coolly and walked away, taking Jongin’s signed form.

“Well, at least now we know why he didn’t want to go to Universe so badly.” Baekhyun said, still carding his fingers through Jongin’s hair.

“You ate a bar of soap?” Sehun said.

Jongdae groaned and slowly sunk down to the floor. “Just some,” he muttered. “I was young. Let it go.”

“We shan’t,” Baekhyun said.

They left him there.

(¬､¬)

Kim Woobin drove them back to campus and went home. Jongdae said something about picking a fight with the Minho dude and went back to the party, after of course hugging Jongin tightly to thank him, for the life that Jongin saved and was secretly wishing he hadn’t.

They dropped off Sehun in his room and then went up together. The dormitory was eerily silent, as most of its occupants seemed to be still at the party.

Their room was a little bit stuffy as they had closed the windows when they left earlier. Baekhyun had insisted that some bird would come and poop on their bed. 

Baekhyun said Jongin should shower first since he cheated death today. He said he would even take his laundry down tomorrow for him. 

Feeling tired but glad to be back in their room, Jongin started to take off his clothes. “Ow! … oh,”

“What? What’s wrong?” 

Jongin sheepishly smiled and showed Baekhyun’s his inner thigh, where a large bruise was forming.

“I knew I got hit somewhere.”

Baekhyun grimaced and breathed in through his closed teeth, hissing. “That looks bad. How did you not feel this before?”

Jongin shrugged. “Adrenaline? I felt something, but it didn’t hurt bad. Don’t you get that too, hyung? Some part of your body just randomly hurts and you can’t care to check it out?”

“Yeah, I do. But…” Baekhyun pointed at Jongin’s thigh with his chin. “That’s huge. Maybe we should put some ice on it? Or massage it to relieve the muscle? Or will that just make it worse? How do I not know anything about bruises?

Jongin didn’t have any answer to that. He was too busy cooing over Baekhyun’s big ears. 

Suddenly Baekhyun’s fingers were on the bruise and Jongin forgot to breathe. Baekhyun’s fingers were cold and they felt incredibly smooth. But the sensation didn’t last long, much to Jongin’s dismay, as Baekhyun seemed to snap out of whatever that made him touch Jongin in the first place.

“Sorry,” he said, giving Jongin a small, apologetic look. “Did I hurt you?”

Jongin gulped. “No,” he said. He wanted to say ‘you could never hurt me,’ but thought it was too dramatic, even if it was true.

While Baekhyun showered, Jongin wrote to Sehun.

Nini: Dude, that goat went for my

Sehun: excuse me? And his name is Suho, and you know it.

Jongin snapped a photo of his injured leg and sent it to Sehun, who would surely change his mind about the beast, once he saw how close his best friend got to the sweet ending brought by (yours truly) death.

Sehun: dude that looks bad

Nini: that’s it?

Sehun: what?

Nini: I could have lost my . Why aren’t you screaming for the imbecile’s death??????

Sehun: But you didn’t.

Nini: I almost lost MY !

Sehun: But did you die?

Nini: you

Sehun: if you did lose it though

Sehun: it would have been one hell of a story to tell

Nini: dude, you would trade my for a story?

Sehun: dude, I’d trade your for a piece of gum

Jongin sat up on his bed and was just thinking over which insult to use on Sehun— who had apparently stopped loving Jongin after just one week at their new school— when the soft click of the bathroom door was heard. Jongin turned off the screen, flung his phone away and lied back down on his bed. He knew he would die if Baekhyun found out his screen name for KakaoTalk was Nini . He was just not ready yet, that is why he had given his Line I.D to Baekhyun, on which his name showed as just Kim Jongin .

Baekhyun looked so soft in his dark blue pajama set. He was proper like that.

“Were you texting Sehun?” Baekhyun asked, wiping his hair dry with his bright yellow towel. 

Jongin had to ignore the urge to pull Baekhyun down to himself. He just looked too.damn.cute. His ears were sticking out and his eyes looked droopy but bright, and he smelled so good, too. Sue Jongin.

“Uh-haha, you saw that?”

“Mmmhmmm,”

Baekhyun put his towels over his desk and chair, as they had no room for a drying rack. He started to smear some cream onto his face roughly. He was done in three seconds. Then he picked up the book he was reading, propped his pillow against the headboard and got under his blanket.

“What are you reading?”

Baekhyun showed him the book. “It’s called Before Coffee Gets Cold. It has a mysterious cafe that can send you back to the past, or to the future. There are some rules that seriously limit what you can do, and it’s written in a really unfamiliar way, but it’s not hard to keep up as long as you remember the characters, which is not hard to do since they’re all so individually unique.”

Jongin grinned. Baekhyun looked so excited. Jongin liked that.

“Can I read it after you’re done?”

Baekhyun nodded. “Sure… now, will you share a chocolate bar with me? I know I brushed my teeth but I’m a er for chocolate while I’m reading.” He opened up the drawer under his bed, opened the little case that was full of snacks and pulled out a chocolate with almond. “I swear I will do this very rarely.”

Baekhyun looked timid and hopeful, and since Jongin couldn’t eat him, he would have to settle for the chocolate. For now. He could never say no to Baekhyun anyway.

o(^-^)o

“Did you clean the sink?” Baekhyun said, flipping through his manga with leisure. He had propped himself on his elbows and was lying on his stomach, his feet were in the air, crossed. There was a bag of Baekhyun’s favorite chips open on the bed, and a can of cola zero on the floor.

Jongin was reading a manga book too, but most of his time was spent stealing glances at Baekhyun while chewing on his tiny bear paw shaped biscuits.

The windows were open and the room was alight thanks to the bright sun. Now and then, the warm breeze would float in. Jongdae was cleaning their room, Baekhyun and Jongin had finished all of their homework, and they had a plan to have dinner in the city with Sehun tonight. All in all, it was the perfect day. 

“Yes.” Jongdae said, now wiping Baekhyun’s desk.

“With baking soda and vinegar?”

“Yes. off.”

Baekhyun hummed nonchalantly. “I think I won’t. Did you wash the floor twice?”

“Of course I did. I’m a man of my words.”

Jongin saw Jongdae making faces at Baekhyun’s Deadpool plushie.

When Jongdae arrived in the morning to clean their home, Jongin hadn’t known that Jongdae was weird about keeping his words. But it was obvious that he had meant business. He was wearing a grey apron, had a white towel wrapped around his head, and was holding a little basket with some cleaning products and tools.

Even though he kept wincing and groaning, he did a very thorough job out of their humble room. He scrubbed without complaining, but while whistling a cheery tune. He even went down to do their laundry and brought it back all cleaned and dried, with the help of a small timer.

He spent longer time cleaning Jongin’s desk than he did on Baekhyun’s. At first Jongin thought maybe Jongdae was trying to snoop around to find some dirt on him. But when Jongdae wiped Jongin’s bed with a clear determination on his face, Jongin wondered if Jongdae was trying to show his gratitude, in his own strange way.

“Jongdae, are you in pain? Why do you keep making those ugly moans?” Baekhyun said, after Jongdae had given a particularly loud groan as he straightened his back.

“I’m in hell, but what do you know about my ? This could be my pleasure noise.”

“I know what your pleasure noise is.”

Jongin whipped his head at Baekhyun, who made a face as if he was trying to smother down an eager memory ready to resurface. “We went hiking last year and he met a girl on the way. Long story. I’ll tell you about it never, for your protection.”

Sniggering, Jongin nodded. 

Jongdae looked from Jongin to Baekhyun, lips curled downwards in disgust, probably.

“I’ll let you know that I’m a fantastic lover.”

“Sure you are.”

Jongdae wiggled on the spot in frustration and a series of whining sounds came from his mouth. Jongin froze, horrified at what he was witnessing.

“Eeeeuuuhhh… hnng! Fine, I won’t tell you why I’m in so much pain. It’s an epic story.”

“‘Kay,” Baekhyun said.

Jongdae glared at Baekhyun, who looked supremely unbothered, so he turned to Jongin. “Puppy, you wanna hear the story right?”

Jongin nodded, only because he wanted Jongdae to stop wiggling his .

Thankfully, Jongdae stopped moving, took a deep breath, and said, “I saw the ghost. Minho hyung made me workout at the crack of dawn’s today.”

Baekhyun and Jongin both sat up on their beds. Baekhyun’s chips fell on the floor and spilled, but nobody paid any attention to it.

“Really?”

“Where?”

“When?”

“Did she try to kill you?”

Looking thoroughly pleased at their reaction, Jongdae smartly sat down on Baekhyun’s chair and began telling the story.

“So last night, I went home after rubbing my victory in Minho hyung’s face, right?”

Jongin and Baekhyun nodded.

“While I was showering, I thought I heard my door make that beeping sound it makes when you come home. You know what I’m talking about, right?”

Jongin and Baekhyun nodded.

“Of course, I thought I heard wrong. Maybe it was just my imagination, or it was my neighbor’s door. I live alone and my parents wouldn’t come barging in at that late hour. Minseok hyung knows my passcode, but he’s so busy these days he doesn’t even see his own home much.

“But when I came to the living room, I saw that the entrance light was on! It’s automatic, but it only stays on if you’re moving right there, you know? If you stay still, it turns off, you know?”

Jongin and Baekhyun nodded, urging Jongdae to go on. Baekhyun had, at some point, taken his bag of chips off the floor and was now eating very slowly. He had, once again, tucked his hoodie behind his ears, probably in an effort to hear better.

“I was frozen.” Jongdae continued. “I stood there looking at the entrance and it stayed on and on and on. I couldn’t move and the light wouldn’t turn off. So I dashed to my couch — I just needed to put something behind my back, man. Do you know how scary it is to have your back exposed like that? And I the TV. After a minute, the light went off.” 

Jongdae put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. He his lips and looked over his back nervously. “I swear, I heard someone shuffling into the room. You know that sound your bare feet make on the bare floor?”

Jongin and Baekhyun nodded. Baekhyun had a piece of chips between his lips.

“It was soft but I definitely heard it. So I screamed and slapped myself really hard.”

“Then what happened?” Jongin said.

“My neighbor cursed at me. Officetels have really thin walls.”

“And then?”

Jongdae stared at the floor. “I heard something. Like, breathing, or blowing but gently. I could sense that someone was there with me. I never knew I could do that. It was freaking me out because I had never experienced anything like it, nor did I believe in ghosts or any other supernatural beings…

“Then I remembered something Minseok hyung once said. He said that if a ghost is bothering you, you just need to be tough and talk to it, tell the ghost to go away. He said that ghosts aren’t as scary as we think they are, and that they would listen to us.”

“So you yelled at a girl.” said Baekhyun, sounding unimpressed.

Jongdae’s mouth fell open. “ She’s a ghost! And she was disturbing my peace, threatening my health, and my dinner was all cold by the time I got to it.”

“So what happened when you yelled at her?” Jongin said.

“Actually,” Jongdae said. “I kind of screamed at her.”

“So what happened when you screamed at her?”

“My neighbor cursed at me.”

“Did she leave?”

Jongdae shook his head. “She… came out. She was visible to me. And all of a sudden… I wasn’t afraid.”

“Really?”

“No, I shat my pants.”

Baekhyun snorted. “Not like it’s your first time.”

“Aww, don’t be so mean, hyung,” Jongin said, grinning at the grumpy, pouty look on Jongdae’s face. “We all grew up pooping in our pants.”

“Oh, no, no, not like that,” Baekhyun said. “You see Jongin, Jongdae here shat his pants when he was, like twelve.”

“NoOOOoooo!” Jongdae yelled, throwing the Deadpool plushie at Baekhyun, who caught it calmly in one hand and gently put it down on his bed.

“Yeah, he was trying to force out a fart, but then ended up ting himself.”

Jongdae screamed non-stop as he got out of the room. He stopped screaming, only to yell, “Puppy wasn’t supposed to know that! TRAITOR!” Then he went back to his screaming, Jongin and Baekhyun listened to him scream for a good minute until he, presumably, went too far for them to hear him.

Jongin wiped the tears out of his eyes and looked over at Baekhyun, who was already looking at him, since when, Jongin didn’t know. They were both still weakly laughing and Jongin wished that he had the ability to select and store his memories. He wanted to remember this forever and watch it again, live it again, feel it again, whenever he wanted. Because he knew, with every fibre of his being, with every tingle on his skin, and with every erratic beat of his heart, that he was in love with Baekhyun. 

The chapter title has got nothing to do with the story, I'm just losing sleep because of my horrible horrible downstairs neighbors.

Also, what the is going on, man.