Warning(s): angst
Length: 6.0K words

The only thing Ange remembers after the explosion at the nightclub is seeing Junmyeon’s face hovering over hers. She’s in an ambulance, eyes barely open, wondering how she ever got to be in that position, and he’s her cheek, in the same way Baekhyun does, telling her that she did “such a good job.” Those words, whispered sickly as Ange thought she would die, are stuck in her head until she loses consciousness and eventually wakes up in a hospital.

When Ange opens her eyes, she’s blinded by the lights of the room. It is so bright that she almost thinks that she’s dead and in heaven, but then again, she knows better, and nothing would hurt if she was really dead. Unfortunately, her ribs ache, and her left leg throbs despite her lack of movement. Breathing quickly becomes a chore since her side hurts so much, but Ange forces herself to wheeze laboriously. Some sort of devices is clamped on her index finger, monitoring her in a way that she doesn’t understand. Ange is confused beyond hell trying to figure out what happened to her after being wheeled out onto a gurney, but when she shifts her gaze to the side, she’s no longer puzzled by her predicament.

Junmyeon is by her bedside, flicking through a magazine as if the paper were too cheap for his fingers. He’s a supervillain, and supervillains like him wear pin-striped suits with golden lapel pins and skinny Italian ties. As usual, in Junmyeon fashion, he has his legs crossed as he sits back and reads his magazine.

“I was starting to think you weren’t going to wake,” Junmyeon quips without lifting his gaze. “They told me you lost a lot of blood.”

“What?”

Junmyeon closes his magazine and tosses it onto the table by Ange’s side. “I’m glad you’re alive,” he confesses without much emotion. His face is completely devoid of any expression but a blank one, further cementing Ange’s knowledge that he doesn’t really care about her. “It would have made for better theater if you died in that club,” Junmyeon says, Ange’s cheek and causing her to wince. “Your boy,” he stresses, “would be in the hospital halls right now, probably crying his heart out and cursing me. Maybe he would have started to believe in God again.” Junmyeon actually smiles at the image of a heartbroken Baekhyun while Ange’s lip trembles. “I would have liked it a lot to see him cry.”

“So you mean you would have liked to see me dead too,” Ange croaks.

“Collateral damage,” Junmyeon dismisses cruelly. He stands up and crosses his arms before staring down at Ange. “I need you alive if I really want to hurt him.”

“Well, are you done?” Ange coughs, trying to hide the pain in her ribs. She thinks about the hell that Junmyeon put her through for the sake of keeping Baekhyun alive. “Are we done?” Ange asks quietly. “I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

“Oh, Angel.” Junmyeon softens his voice but doesn’t dare bother stop looking so rough. He even goes as far to pout mockingly at her. Ange waits for the worse to come, but surprisingly, Junmyeon has decent news—and of course, decency is all relative. “You did such a wonderful job. How could we ever be done?” he murmurs. “Posing in all of those pictures with me.” Ange looks away from Junmyeon out of the embarrassment and shame of what she made herself do. “I really thought we had him when I had you on my lap, but no. It took you nearly bleeding out from shrapnel for him to catch a flight back here.”

Ange’s ears perk up. “You mean…?” she forces herself to look at Junmyeon’s now smirking face. “No, you’re lying.”

“He’s on his way back,” Junmyeon confirms. “My guys saw him at the airport in Tokyo. He should be back soon.”

“No.” Ange’s brows furrow inward at the implication of Baekhyun coming back to Korea. A small part of her still wants to hate Baekhyun for what he did to her brother—and to her—but she doesn’t want him to die. A large part of her—the part that is young, stupid, and in love—wants him to live and live well, even if it means it’s not with her. “Just let him go,” Ange pleads to Junmyeon. “He d-doesn’t need to die. Please, just let him—”

“You’re so much prettier when you don’t talk,” Junmyeon interrupts in a soft voice. It’s as if his very breath is poisonous. “Do you have any idea how stupid you sound right now?” Junmyeon peers down at Ange in disdain. “You’re witnessing something a lot bigger than a man getting his revenge. I know you’re just the girl who got caught up in between all that, and I’m sorry,” Junmyeon reaches up to fix his tie, “but then again, no, I’m not.”

After adjusting his already straight tie, Junmyeon moves to take off his lapel pin.

“What are you gonna do?” Ange asks weakly.

“I’m going to let him suffer.”

No.

“What do you mean?” Ange’s voice trembles. “A-A-Are you going t-to hurt me?”

“Guess you’ll have to find out, Angel,” Junmyeon replies mysteriously. He places his dragon lapel pin by the table next to Ange’s bed. “Just know that there will be pain. Lots of it.” Junmyeon then opens his suit jacket and takes out a syringe. The sight of it makes Ange’s breath hitch, but she can’t do anything as Junmyeon uncaps it to reveal its needle tip. “By the way, I know you liked it.”

“I-I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ange stares at the syringe. “And what the hell is that?” she demands, thinking automatically of the worse. “W-What are you gonna do?”

“Relax, it’s just a sedative to shut you up for when your boy does come—because he will,” Junmyeon mutters as he draws closer with his needle. “And don’t act dumb. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“N-No, I-I-I don’t.”

“No, but you do,” Junmyeon insists, pulling up the sleeve of her hoodie. He traces his finger down the length of Ange’s arm, and she’s much too weak to reach out and slap him away. “No matter how much you think you hate me, you liked the idea of getting your own revenge too.” Junmyeon stops tracing his finger at the center of Ange’s forearm. “And that’s okay, I suppose,” Junmyeon shrugs off as he inserts the needle into her flesh. Ange bites the inside of her cheek to suppress the feeling of the soft prick. “You were still thinking of him when you kissed me, and he was still thinking of you when he…” Junmyeon pauses to withdraw the needle. “Well, I’m sure you never left his mind.”

Ange wants to cry, but is too dry to conjure up a sob, and the sedative—or whatever it really is that Junmyeon put in her—is quick to act. Within a minute, a bubble of sorts bursts inside Ange’s head, and she feels her consciousness quite literally slip away when the muscles in her neck relax, forcing her head to go slack. Her vision becomes blurry, dotted in certain areas, and Junmyeon looks more like a phantom than a person.

“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do, but then again, I don’t really ing care.”

Junmyeon’s smile seems to drip from his face as he turns and walks out of Ange’s room. Ange merely lays there in his absence, still conscious but somehow simultaneously dreaming. The lights have gotten so bright that closing her eyes is no remedy. She sees stars flickering in the paper-like cosmos found only in her eyelids, giving her no comfort but no restlessness either. Time doesn’t seem to move; rather, it drips. Like raindrops on a glass window, one moment collides into another, becomes one, and then falls only to be replaced by another.

Ange remembers. She remembers everything.

Junmyeon came to her with blackmail and threats—or as she’d like to rationalize it. No, Junmyeon didn’t come with blackmail; he came with a proposition. He would look after her, make sure she was getting by, and in return, all she had to do was obey his commands. In her hurt, she did everything he asked of her because there was no one else anyways. Baekhyun was gone in her mind, and she had nothing left to lose but herself. And she didn’t even want herself at a certain point.

Well, she didn’t want anything unless she had Baekhyun there too.

The worst parts of herself—the naivety, the recklessness, the fear—felt so much more real in Baekhyun’s absence. Without him to counteract all the little things about her that she despises, she felt lost. She was lost. She is lost.

A few nights ago, Junmyeon informed her of his great plan to detonate a bomb in a club, and the first thing Ange wanted to do was tell him that he was insane, but he held her by the throat and said she would be the first on the ground. Junmyeon said it had something to do with Baekhyun, so naturally, Ange did what she was told again because she still didn’t want to see him hurt. Not even after everything he had done.

And so tonight unfolded spectacularly.

Ange was too afraid to get drunk, so she sat at the bar and twiddled her thumbs until the next thing she knew, she was on the ground, and her leg was bleeding, and there were many people screaming. Then she’s on a gurney, Junmyeon’s telling her that she’s done well, she’s at the hospital, Taeyong’s there too, and he’s forcing her to wear a hoodie because she won’t stop trembling.

She still remembers.

Somewhere, in the little spark of consciousness that Ange still has, she remembers everything. It’s as if she’s floating in an ocean, eyes up to nothing but blue sky, seeing and feeling everything as though it were happening again. From their first kiss in cool night of his car to the warmer nights spent in nothing but linen sheets, everything is still present in her mind. To her, they’re the type of milestones like graduations and funerals; how could she ever forget? Even the way he says her name—Angel—feels and sounds dreamlike in recollection.

Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel—

“Angel?”

The noise and all the dreams stop in Ange’s head. She can’t see, she can’t move, she can’t speak, and she’s barely able to latch onto every word, but she can still hear. Everything is muffled, and she is drifting in between universes, but the sounds reach out to her, begging her to listen.

A chair’s wheels make noise as someone pulls it across the floor to sit by Ange’s bedside.

“Ange. Hey.” His voice is like a piece of heaven that found its home in the throat of a mortal. “It’s me. Baekhyun.”

- - - - -

The sun is only starting to come up when Ange regains full consciousness. She remains groggy and can barely grumble in protest when a nurse gives her a dose of antibiotics. Only small bits of light filter through the curtains of the hospital room, but it’s enough to make Ange frown and turn away. When can’t fall back asleep, however, she turns to the light again and realizes that Taeyong is fast asleep in one of the visitor chairs, his green hair ruffled and unusually unkempt for his style. At the foot of Ange’s bed is the nurse, a tall man with brown hair that covers his forehead, who is busy with updating her chart.

“Oh, you’re awake,” the nurse notes after peeking up at Ange. “Hey, my name’s Kim Jongin.” He smiles at her and places the chart back down on the bed’s frame. “I’ve been one of the nurses overseeing your recovery,” he explains in a gentle tone. “Do you remember anything that happened last night?”

Ange exhales slowly, painfully, because she remembers nearly everything about last night. She knows about the explosion at the nightclub, the ensuing fire, and her conversation with Junmyeon in the hospital after she had woken up. The only thing she’s not sure of is Baekhyun—if he was really by her bedside, confessing to her, telling her that he loves her. Baekhyun’s words sounded more like symphonies than words due to the sedatives Junmyeon gave to her, and Ange is convinced that they were only said in in a dream.

“Did,” Ange whispers, her voice coarse, “did someone come to see me?”

“Well, your friend,” Jongin motions towards Taeyong’s slouching figure, “fought several nurses trying to come up here and see you this morning. We even had to move you to a different room because he was so insistent.”

Ange nods in admiration of Taeyong’s character, and she’s thankful for him and everything he has done, but something still nags at her.

“Just Taeyong?” Ange queries. “Was there anyone else?”

Jongin pauses, seemingly unsure of how to answer. He looks at the floor and then at the clock before answering Ange. “Yes, there was,” he finally says after a moment. “A man named Byun Baekhyun. He saw you late last night. Around 4 in the morning.”

So it was real then. Ange nods as she feels a painful lump of a sob form in . So he really said that he loves me.

“Is he still in the hospital?” Ange asks, holding back tears. She ignores the aches all over her body to sit up and get a better look at Jongin. “Do you have a phone? Can I call him?”

Jongin moves to Ange’s side to help adjust her pillows so she can be more comfortable. “Listen,” he whispers lowly, “I know Baekhyun—or should I say, I knew him. His second name is Lux, right?”

Ange frowns at the revelation of a seemingly ordinary nurse knowing who Baekhyun’s second person is. “Yeah,” she mumbles in disbelief. “You know about him?”

“A lifetime ago, yeah, I did,” Jongin sighs. He stands at Ange’s bedside and purses his lips as he looks to the floor, as if he was exhuming buried memories. “I knew him better than anyone. I knew the bad and good. Everything about him that there is to know.” Jongin exhales shakily. “That’s why I think it’s best that you don’t look for him right now.”

“What?” Ange had started to relax because it had felt