*Chapter 18;

He thought it was a dream. Baekhyun thought there was no way such a coincidence could happen, that the transfer student from Vancouver could possibly be a police officer. From the looks of it, he looked like a very important officer too, judging by the way the other officers of the squad treated and took orders from him. He wasn't sure how to respond, because Kris was one of his classmates, the very same one with eagle-eyes and jet-black hair.

Baekhyun cleared his throat, "Kris. That's you, right? Kris?"

The taller (definitely taller, much taller) male glanced up from the notes he was busily jotting down with a ballpoint pen, not bothering to answer right away. He, finally, looked up and recognized the two. "Oi, small fry and large fry," he chuckled, handing the notepad to another officer and escorting the two boys to the nearest patrol vehicle. He opened the back door for them, then signaled to two other men. "Let's chit-chat on our way back, this scene's pretty messy for a nice conversation."

Baekhyun was still confused, but he didn't refuse the free ride; after all, he was secretly excited that he was riding in a nice police car (not the dinky ones, but the cool ones that appeared in action movies!). It wasn't everyday a non-criminal would have the opportunity!

Once they were inside, Chanyeol looked around, and Baekhyun was the first to speak up after Kris turned down the police reports that kept muttering in and out of static frequencies. "We're not... going to get in trouble for this, are we?"

"Nah," Kris said, much to Baekhyun's relief, "But you are going to be held at the station for a while, for questioning. Those shadies are a large case and we need witnesses. You're lucky, small fry. If the call had been any later, you would have been found in the dumpster with all your internal organs missing."

Baekhyun swallowed. "Call?"

"Yeah, your brother over there called through a payphone. We had no idea where the coordinates were, exactly, but he found out via tracking the payphone locations scattered in this area." Kris explained, looking at the two through his rearview mirror.

Chanyeol was zoning out like he always did during deep conversations, staring out the window and seeing whether the car or the moon would win the race.

Baekhyun was amazed. If it hadn't been for Chanyeol, the police would have arrived too late. He would have followed the kind old lady into a shady alleyway, thinking it was just one of the poorer parts in town, and then what? A van would have picked him up, whisked him away, dissected him, then thrown his corpse somewhere others would find it rotting weeks later. The morbid thought sent chills down his spine. Chanyeol had saved his life. He wasn't sure how to process that unbelievable thought just yet, if at all, because Chanyeol was acting so normally, like he didn't know the result of his heroic deed.

That aside, Baekhyun was curious about Kris, how he had wound up in a police uniform, when he had been introducing himself to the classroom weeks ago. "So..." Baekhyun twiddled his thumbs, "Are you an undercover agent or something?"

"Undercover?" Kris asked, then burst out laughing, "Oh, no, not really. I'm twenty-six. When I graduated high school in Vancouver, I didn't go straight into college. I didn't want to go back to Canada; it wasn't the life for me, and the only way they said they'll let me into a Korean college at this age was if I took my entrance exams, since I graduated high school so long ago. I guess I'm just looking back on things and wishing I actually got a better education than this, so I'm back in school."

It made sense. Baekhyun nodded slowly. "Why Hye-Seong, though?"

"There was no other high school that would take me in, a twenty-six year old officer trying to relive his dreams? Kind of uncommon, and I'm used to having people judge me by how I look. No one would think I'm a police officer, just some shady guy trying to cause trouble," Kris chuckled.

So Kris lived like that too, Baekhyun thought, Kris had to deal with people judging him for the way he looked, just like Chanyeol for his mental state. In a way, he was surprised Kris still attended school despite the way people misjudged him. Here, Kris was this great officer who was respected by others; in school, he was just some lame, wannabe hot-shot who tried too hard to woo people who were "out of his league."

"Plus, I didn't want all the attention if I were to be stationed somewhere close to Hye-Seong. Keep this a secret?" Kris grinned as they drove up to the police station.

Baekhyun nodded. He would take that secret to his grave.

Once the interrogation was over, Kris personally drove them back home in the patrol car, right up to their doorstep. He felt that the three had gotten close in the span of two hours. Kris's jokes weren't half-bad and he was a nice person underneath his intimidating visage. In fact, Baekhyun wondered if anyone could possibly be nicer. On their way back inside, Chanyeol mentioned something about having read a fable before, about a wolf in disguise as a lamb. Chanyeol pointed out that Kris was the opposite: a lamb in disguise as a wolf.

That night, it rained hard. It poured so hard that the roof shook over their heads, and it was so cold that Baekhyun had to keep a heat disc in his bedroom to compensate for the warmth that seeped out of the walls. He finally called his mother close to midnight and told her to stay overnight at a friend's house, because the weather was getting so bad that he was worried for her safe return.

His mother had left a pamphlet on his desk. Across the cover it read 'Seoul Psychiatric Institution' in delicate letters, while the pages showed highly unrealistic pictures of the establishment. There was a brief summary on the inside page with snapshots of happy patients posing with fake smiles. He flipped through the pages one by one, trying to find an inkling of reassurement in the sugarcoated lies that the pamphlet offered, even if none of them appealed to him. The only thing Baekhyun actually found satisfactory about the "institution" was the rose garden. Chanyeol liked gardens, so he had been hoping, if worse came to worst, Chanyeol would find a place that could fill the empty void for him.

Maybe these smiling employees knew answers Baekhyun didn't.

When someone knocked at his door, Baekhyun quickly slipped the pamphlet under his pillow and waited for Chanyeol to come in.

"Baekhyun, it's... it's raining so hard, can I sleep... with you?" Chanyeol asked cautiously, dragging along a blanket with him.

Usually, Baekhyun said no. If he had been any more selfish, he would have declined, then told Chanyeol to leave him alone. Then, he would toss and turn in bed because he'd hear Chanyeol sniveling and crying in the room next to him, but never have the heart to take back his words. He'd express his guilt with anger, slamming his fist on the thin wall and yell at Chanyeol to shut up so he could go back to sleep.

This time, he pulled back his covers a little and pat the spot next to him after scooting aside. Chanyeol slipped in next to him, and they shared one pillow together, both facing the ceiling dotted with tacky plastic stars.

The thunder rumbled outside, then roared with a deafening crash. A blinding flash of ice-blue light flooded into their room, then faded away like magic. Chanyeol whimpered softly.

"You're not scared of a little lightning, are you?" Baekhyun teased, turning his head a bit to see Chanyeol's pupils darting this way and that as the thunder crashed again, this time louder than the last. The rain poured so violently that Baekhyun actually thought it could break through the roof.

Chanyeol shook his head, but tucked the covers up to his chin.

"Someone once told me when I was a kid that if the wind blows, it means someone's calling your name. If it rains, it means someone's missing you a lot, or they're crying for you. Kind of silly, huh?"

"... Mom?" Chanyeol blinked, "Dad?"

Baekhyun smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure your mom and dad miss you a lot."

"What... about Baekhyun's dad?"

Baekhyun shook his head. "I don't really care about him, he's the one who left us," he mumbled under his breath.

Another clap of thunder shook the entire bedroom, lighting the dark room in a brilliant cataclysm of blinding white and blue explosions. "I don't think God wants you to lie, Baekhyun," Chanyeol whispered, elbowing the other boy's ribcage lightly with his eyes widened a bit.

Baekhyun pretended he hadn't heard him, and eventually, the silence engulfed them both until all he heard was the gentle pitter-patter of rain dripping down the water spout and Chanyeol's light snoring beside him. If Chanyeol could win a contest hands-down, it would be the "falling asleep quickly" competition. He could be chattering it up one second, then out like a light the next.

He thought that was amusing. Baekhyun his side to face Chanyeol and playfully pinched his nose, muffling a soft laugh as the other boy sputtered for air, then mumbled something about the Whack-A-Mole in his slumber. Chanyeol was still so much like himself, even in his sleep. A yawn escaped him as he tucked the covers up to his own chin, memories of the long-gone past slipping in and out of his thoughts like an interrupted film reel missing some frames. When he closed his eyes, he was time-traveling through space, revisiting places and people that only existed in his most precious memories.

"Baekhyun, sweetie, this is Chanyeol. He's living in the same apartment as us now, so the two of you could walk to school together. Say hello," his mother said warmly, nudging Chanyeol gently towards Baekhyun.

Baekhyun stared at the new boy, clutching his new Power Ranger toys to himself. Chanyeol had curly hair and giant, floppy ears that looked almost elvish, if not for the fact that Chanyeol was a little too tall to be a real elf. It was Chanyeol's wide smile that melted the ice between them, when Chanyeol spoke first.

"Hi, I'm Chanyeol." the new boy gave a little wave.

"I'm... Baekhyun."

"Nice to meet you, Baekhyun," Chanyeol replied politely, "Are those the new Power Ranger action figures? I have red ranger at my house, wanna come over and see?"

Baekhyun clutched his toys bashfully, but nodded.

It was about time his black ranger made some new friends.

Slowly, his memories were getting sharper and clearer the longer he stayed in this dream-like state.

"Chanyeol, I'm scared..." a little Baekhyun huddled up in a cocoon of blankets, staring at a little Chanyeol as thunder rumbled outside, lighting up their fort of bedsheets.

"Don't be scared," Chanyeol reassured with a toothy smile, "If the wind's blowing, that means someone's calling your name. If it rains, it means someone's missing you. You don't need to be scared, I'll protect you!"

"Really?"

"Really."

"Always?"

"Always! Promise!"

"Stop following me! I said I was going to go play with Jonghyun today because you don't have the Dino Thunder Ranger! How can my black dino ranger play with your red ranger when mine can turn into a raptor? Can yours do that?"

"N-No..." Chanyeol looked down at his old red ranger, the same one he had kept for years yet had no money to buy a newer one. Now that Baekhyun had upgraded to the newer version, he was playing with kids who had the same kind, even replacing Chanyeol's red ranger in the team. "I just want to play with you, Baekhyun..."

"No! We can't play Power Rangers together unless you get Dino Thunder, so stop following me because I'm going to go play with Jonghyun!" 

Chanyeol still trailed after him, holding his red ranger carefully in both hands. When they came to the streets, Baekhyun turned around and shoved Chanyeol so hard that he fell off the sidewalk and a passing car driving slower than the speed limit hit him with its front bumper. Chanyeol fell to the asphalt with a loud 'thunk', and Baekhyun just stared in shock. It had been the most traumatizing moment of his life, when he saw Chanyeol bleeding from his head on the ground, and he just stood there until the driver stopped to call the ambulance.

It had been so traumatizing that he couldn't remember it, he had pushed it far back into the recesses of his mind as he grew up, because after that incident, Baekhyun didn't see Chanyeol for a long, long time.

Warmth flooded his thoughts again. Baekhyun wondered if he was asleep, or he was just lying in bed while revisiting the past, but somehow, he felt so... light. Another memory played in his head, the voices faded in his ears.

"Baekhyun, this is Chanyeol. He's your stepbrother."

Baekhyun, back from soccer practice, dropped his bag beside the shoe cabinet and stared at the other boy standing in front of him. He had brown curly hair that framed his face, and a smile that looked very, very familiar.

"He'll be living with us from now on, sweetheart, so be good to him."

Baekhyun arched an eyebrow at Chanyeol. "You know how to play soccer?"

Chanyeol shook his head.

"Hey, Baekhyun! Let's go play!" a group of his friends who had gathered outside of his house called in a chorus of screams and shouts.

"Mom, I'm going out!" Baekhyun shouted, then shut the door in front of Chanyeol. He never really had the chance to see Chanyeol's expression wilt the moment he left.

When he woke up, Chanyeol was leaving the day after tomorrow.