and All Your Thorns
RosesAnd All Your Thorns
When Baekhyun called that night, it was raining outside and it was 1 in the morning.
“Hello?” This time around, I did not feel bad for being awoken, instead, I was worried as . “Baekhyun?”
Usually, the moment I pick up, he launches into why he was calling yet today all I hear is the pouring of rain on his side of the phone, as though he was standing outside.
“J-Jangmi?” My heart leaped to my throat at that moment. Why does Baekhyun sound so… broken? Is he crying? I throw my blanket off me and walk out of my bed.
“What’s wrong?” I paced in the small space of my room. What happened?
Byun Baekhyun has always been a sort of stronghold for me, a place of sunshine I escaped to. It was selfish of me to always, even unintentionally escape to him, so seeing him down the last few days was really starting to get to me.
And then he calls me up this late and his voice is so weak? Did someone hurt him? I was going to throw hands.
“Baekhyun! What’s wrong?”
“C-can you come outside for a moment?”
“Ou-outside?" Wait, what? "You’re outside as in… outside. Like my house? Like here?”
Despite his cracking voice, he chuckles. “Yes, my rose. I’m outside.”
A familiar feeling of fear crept me up as I looked at my door. What if I meet him now and one of my parent sees me? What am I supposed to say to them?
Excuses poured into my head as I contemplated whether to go or not.
Normally, the rare times when Baekhyun calls and does not tell me a corny joke, it was because he has nightmares but they’re mostly about Pokemons chasing him and want me to tell him a joke. Other than that, he has never done anything else… say turn up at my door.
“Please?” He suddenly whispers, most probably sensing my hesitation. My heart lurched over a little and I let out a long sigh. Why does he sound so… sad?
“I’ll be there.”
He hums and cuts the call. I stand there frozen for about a minute because I was still hesitant.
“Go,” Jung’s voice startles me a little making me jump. “ing go and see that poor man.”
“Geez,” I frown. “You’re awake and don’t swear.”
“Stop stalling and go. He’s been waiting for way too long. Don’t make him change his mind.” She murmurs urgently, sitting up and glaring at me.
“Goodness… I’m sure it’s not been that long.” I explain as I get my jacket.
“Three years is a long time.”
What on good- “Are you okay? You’re probably sleep-deprived.”
“Go before I scream and wake up my parents.”
“Geez. What sort of creature are you?” I close my door as softly as I can and I was glad that it was raining. The rain muffled my footsteps as I walked down the stairs.
Do these stairs always make such loud noises? UGH. My heart. Please. Don’t wake my parents or worse, my brother because he might make a fuss and wake everyone up.
With my heart on my throat, I placed both my hands on the handle of our front door and twist it slowly.
I winced at the cold wind that blew as soon as I opened the door making me wince and wish I could return to the comforts of my blankets.
But I know someone awaits and like someone wise said (it was prolly a stoned Yixing) ‘A listener also needs a listener', so like an English widow, I pulled the sides of my jacket and walked out into the cold night.
I frowned searching for him but not finding the said boy. I hesitated to call him out and walked around to see if I can spot him.
I gasped as I turn towards the left of our house, away from the main entrance. Baekhyun was standing against his bike, light barely reaching him. He was soaked from head to toe looking more tired than the entire college students put together.
I gasp and run to him, ignoring the coldness that seeped into my skin. The raindrops are annoyingly like bullets.
“Are you mad?” I scream at him, grabbing his hand and rushing to our porch where the rain won’t get to him, straight into the house.
My hands shivered, I realized as I pulled him after me into my room, my heart beating as fast as the rain on my rooftop. One reason was that I was cold, secondly, I was afraid… not of my parents but for him.
Something was seriously wrong and I don’t even know it!
The number of times Baekhyun has been to our house, he has never even come near my room but right now, I couldn’t care less.
For the first time in my life, the tired face, the soaked hair, the leather stained with rain all the way to his boots had awakened something in me that I never thought I had. My heart felt it necessary, in fact, it fiercely made me protective of him. It made me want to soothe him and cradle him like a baby.
Grabbing a towel, I immediately started ruffling his hair not noticing that I was almost on the verge of tears. His eyes were on mine looking like he wanted to tell me a million and one things but just did not know where to start.
Ah. Those eyes. If he wasn’t smiling, Baekhyun’s eyes which were naturally turned a little downwards gives him a default sad look. And right now, he does look sad so imagine the amount of times the sadness has multiplied! Probably a hundred and of course it took a toll on my heart.
“What happened to you, hmm?” My voice came out steadier than I thought it would. “You even dyed your hair black. Feeling cloudy?” I tried but his lips did not even budge to give me a smile, instead he continued staring at me making me feel a little weird, not gonna lie.
“Dry yourself and be quiet. My sister is… asleep. I’ll go and get you some change of clothes.” With that, I left the towel and rush downstairs to the laundry room. I do all the laundry in the house so I know exactly where everything was. There was no way I am entering that demon’s realm.
Plus, do you know that he has a bigger room than ours? him.
Taking clothes that would fit him, I rush upstairs again not really bothered much about my footsteps anymore.
“Get changed into this. Now.” I push him into our bathroom and closed the door. “Hurry and put your wet clothes into the bucket.”
Placing a hand above my pounding heart, I let out a huff of breath.
“Stripping him from the get-go? Feisty.” My Sister murmurs from underneath her blanket making my already tensed nerves go crazy.
“You little- Ant! Shut up and go to sleep.”
He takes a little longer than expected making the adrenaline that was rushing come to a slow halt.
Oh crap! I ing have a male inside our room changing into clothes that my brother owns. What the am I going to say if by any chance I get caught? I better just go down and start digging my grave at that tiny vegetable garden behind our tiny house.
“Jung! I am going to die, right? Oh . What was I thinking?” I turn towards my sister’s bed but there is no response. “Jung?”
She is asleep? I walk up to her and waved in front of her face, not believing she left all the work of digging my grave to me, and went to sleep. “I cannot believe you’re asleep. Now? Really? The one time you listen to me, it’s this?”
It takes about 15 rounds of anxious pacing for him to come out.
By now, he looked a lot more ‘awake’ if that made sense. He looked around my darkroom and then turn to me.
“I’m sorry… for coming like this.” He whispers as I walked towards him.
“It’s totally fine,” I lied through my teeth as I give him a small smile. The low light from my bed lamp gave a soft glow to his face making him look softer than he usually was. Perhaps it was also because he looked like whatever edge he usually has has been lowered. “Come. Sit.”
He did not hesitate to come to sit next to me on my bed, instead running his hand wistfully through it.
“I bet you want to sleep?” I ask seeing the way he was looking at my bed.
He chuckles at that, his eyes coming back to me. With dark hair, he looked a lot more… serious.
“When did you dye your hair?” I asked as I absentmindedly climbed to my bed to touch his wet hair, making him sigh at my touch. He’s a puppy, for sure. “You look… different.”
“Is it a good different?” He asks me with a ghost of a smile making me nod my head.
“You look good in everything anyway, like the bacon that you are.”
He chuckles at that and leaned towards my hand as soon as I stopped petting it, making me shake my head. “What are you? A puppy?”
He nods and as though to prove that began panting like a dog, coming closer to me.
“Stop!” I laughed, clamping down my mouth. “Don’t make me laugh now.”
Baekhyun seems to understand that, thankfully, and stopped.
We go quiet for a moment, just listening to the pouring of rain outside.
“Did you have a ruff day today?” I turn to him with a cheeky smile making him laugh softly.
“It was terrier-ble.”
Despite the need to be quiet, we were still chuckling. How can anyone not be happy around this puppy?
“You should sleep,” I tell him, concern growing over me looking over his tired eyes and his eye bags. “You wouldn’t be able to get any girls to date you if you look like this.”
His cheery countenance suddenly drops at that and he turns to me with the look he had before.
“Something’s up, isn’t it? Something wrong in the family? Tell me…”
He sighs and turns around looking like he wanted to just spill his secrets but is uneasy still.
I took his hand and he looks at me, his eyes just begging me for something, his lips still shut though.
“Baekhyun. Talk to me.”
It takes some time for him to actually settle down, almost about three breaths, and the level of my patience.
“I’ve… been wanting something for three years now…” He finally begins sighing into his hand, “and it is so selfish of me because I know… that…” He gestures his hand as words failed him. “Um… Basically a girl.” He shuts up clamping down his hands as though giving up explaining.
“The tt…!” My hands flew to my lips in surprise, a surprising feeling of uneasiness settling on the pits of my stomach. “You…” I circled my hand at him, “as in you… pining after a girl?”
He folded his arms and huffed a little, looking annoyed. “Is that so bad?”
“I mean no…” I muttered cocking my head to the side, “But it doesn’t go with your… um… brand.”
“What am I? Nike?”
“Nah… You can’t even do it.”
At that he lunges forward and flicked my forehead with his index finger, looking highly pissed.
“Ow! Did I lie though?”
He mutters some more giving me an angry look but turns away. His eyes widen a little though, as his eyes found the photos on my bedside table.
“Ah…” I chuckled. “My little collection.”
I had framed photos of me with every of my closest friends in here which honestly was just with my best friend and Baekhyun. Unfortunately, Yixing and Sehun didn’t make it although I mentally prepared a frame for the four of us in our graduation gowns.
He goes absolutely quiet as he took the photo of us smiling into the camera sometime around the second year, his arms around my shoulder, and my hand on his waist. He looked at it intently as though trying to decipher some code and before I could mention something witty, he lets out a shuddering breath.
“It’s you. I like you. I’ve liked you from the first time we met and I am dying trying to keep it inside for the whole ing three years and now that we’re going to pass out, I am dying at the fact that I can never tell you how I feel.”
He pauses to take a huff of air making me simply drop my jaw at him. Is this some sort of prank?
“It’s not-It’s not a ing prank or a joke if you are thinking that because I am actually, extremely serious about this. I know what you’re going through, I know what your situation is like and I know that you don’t look at me that way but…” He frowns looking like he wanted to cry, “…I just… like you so ing much.”
My mind had short-wired because honestly, nothing was there anymore. The information was going in but it was not processing anymore.
“I know I can never be like Junmyeon. I don’t have a fancy car… but you must know that I fancy you so ing much. I don’t have perfect scores nor am I tall like Sehun nor am I as handsome… I am a ing mess but I just…” He brings the photo to his face and lets out a huge breath. “Every time I am with you I feel like… myself… Like I could be here forever. , I even compared you with my Neverland… You know, that time when Yixing asked us if we can create Neverland for ourselves. You’re the one who came to my mind.”
I nod at that thinking back to the time when our Yixing, high as a kite suddenly wanted us to picture Neverland for ourselves, a place where we never grow old and filled with things and people we loved.
"It doesn't even have to be a place. It could be a person!" He had announced. Gee. Mine was filled with gold and diamond with me sitting on top of it with no parents and brother in sight.
My tiny heart began pounding at that but there was more dread in there than any other thing. I think he’s serious.
What on good heavenly earth? Baekhyun… as in Byun Baekhyun is… ah… interest in me? Like romantically? How on earth does that work out?
“You don’t even have to reply to me. I know how you feel and I’ve been scared this whole time because I know that I might even severe whatever relationship we have. I don’t-I don’t think I can imagine a world without you so I kept it inside but it’s eating me alive.”
He ran a hand through his semi-wet hair biting his lips, just looking miserable.
“You mean to say this is the reason why you’re losing sleep?” My brain finally decided to send me some information.
He nods and looks down at his free hand that was playing with the edge of my blanket. “You don’t understand how scared I am… Just… If you can’t feel that way for me… I at least wanted to tell you. Just… Just don’t leave me…”
“You’re so dramatic,” I sigh feeling annoyed that he will actually think of me like that. It was true that I did not look at him romantically but just because he does, doesn’t mean I will cut him off. I’m not that vain. “Before anything, you’re my friend…”
He turns to look at me at that, his eyes dim but hopeful. “It’ll be hard for me to leave you… Byun Baek… But um… I really-ah…”
“No. Stop.” He covered
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