He hissed and pulled his hand back to press it against his stomach, the heel of his palm stinging from where he skinned it against the rough concrete. Baekhyun’s shoulders are hunched and he kneels in an empty room, alone.

No Chanyeol to reach out tenderly and grasp Baekhyun’s wounded hand while scolding the latter for being careless. No Chanyeol, with his eyes that reflected the kindness within and the love that spilled, no, overflowed and wrapped Baekhyun in its warmth. No Chanyeol to light up the darkness.

Baekhyun brought the heel of his palm to his face and on it, ignoring the burn when tears mingled with the blood on his cut.

He’s really only aware of how quiet and empty that room is now. The last time he had been there, it had been with Chanyeol. Back then, he hadn’t realised how big the room had been.

It had only been this morning when they had stood together, laughing. They were on an impromptu trip to the beach, where they had decided to borrow a friend’s cabin for the week.

Baekhyun still remembers the sharp smell of salt and the humid wind that threaded through his hair that morning.

“God, don’t pee your pants in excitement,” Baekhyun snorted, hands gripping the steering wheel as they sped down the road that brought them to the beach.

Chanyeol shot him an indignant look. “I’m not going to,” he protested. “I just really really need to go and there’s no toilet around for miles and-”

Baekhyun pulled over to the roadside and slammed on the brakes. Chanyeol yelped, and wriggled in his seat even more.

“Jesus, don’t do that! It jolts the bladder so it’s not my fault if Jongin’s car is introduced to the yellow river.”

“If you really need to go, then go!” Baekhyun nodded at the roadside. “I stopped specially for you, so hurry up.”

“You can’t be serious,” Chanyeol gasped, “here? In public? In front of all these-”

“Bushes?” Baekhyun interjected. “Come on, there’s no one else here other than me, and it’s not like I haven’t seen you before.”

For all his block-headedness, Chanyeol was surprisingly easy to embarrass, and before long, he had scampered out of the car and to the bushes behind more to escape Baekhyun’s words than to relieve himself.

When Chanyeol climbed back into the car, Baekhyun wrinkled his nose and continued to cruise down the road. “If you touch anything with your hands, I’m telling Jongin,” he teased.

“You wouldn’t,” Chanyeol said with conviction, but Baekhyun didn’t miss the fear that flashed across his face for the briefest of moments.

Three hours and a very nauseous Chanyeol later, they finally arrive at the beach house. Chanyeol let out a very weak whoop of joy and flopped himself facedown onto the sand after retching loudly into the grass.

The sun had slipped a little from its position in the sky and now hung a little above the sea level. Baekhyun never really liked the sun. It looked like an oversized yolk, and it made him sweat, which he never enjoyed doing anyway.

The moon, on the other hand, was beautifully pale, and it glowed gently. In Baekhyun’s mind, the moon was like the attractive older sibling of the immature, attention-seeking sun.

However, Chanyeol adored sunsets and sunrises, and Baekhyun knew that on this trip, he would be forced to watch that big fat yellow ball drown in the ocean in an unnecessary explosion of oranges and pinks.

It didn’t matter, anyway. The skies reflected in Chanyeol’s eyes were beautiful, and watching the sunset through his eyes made it infinitely more breathtaking than it actually would have been in person.

So as Chanyeol watched the sun dip its toes into the horizon, Baekhyun took in the entire galaxy in the former’s gaze.

“Wasn’t that beautiful,” Chanyeol sighed when the sun finally died a watery death.

Baekhyun found it hard to tear his gaze away, but he did in the end. “Yeah, it sure was.”

And it didn’t matter that Chanyeol thought that he was referring to the sunset, because sometimes it’s better when people don’t know how stupid in love others are.

Baekhyun thinks that it’s impossible for Chanyeol to love him more, especially when it’s always him who is saying the ‘I love you’s. For someone that generous with his physical affection, Chanyeol is surprisingly stingy with verbal expressions.

But than again, Baekhyun guessed that it didn’t really matter. When he listens closely, he can hear the ‘hello hyung’ in his smile, the ‘I missed you’ in his stride and the ‘hyung I really really like you’ in his laugh.

Their stay at the beach cabin with the strange concrete floors proceeded in a dreamy fashion. By midweek, Baekhyun was certain that reality didn't exist and that Chanyeol was at the center of his galaxy.

He didn’t think of anything when he steps on a note with a message scrawled in unfamiliar handwriting. He picked it up and crumpled it without a second thought when he read the words on it. It was probably left over from some party held at the cabin by Jongin prior to their visit.

Hello. My name

 

//

 

Baekhyun noticed that the trash bin has been filled midway with crumpled papers with the same graceful script. The pile had appeared overnight, and Baekhyun raised an eyebrow.

“Have you been writing?” Baekhyun asked Chanyeol, gesturing at the trashcan.

“Me? Writing in my free time?” Chanyeol looked so baffled, it’s actually comical, and Baekhyun burst out laughing.

He didn’t think about the trash anymore, until one day they come back from a drive around the seaside to find their room in a complete mess.

Clothes were strewn all over the place, and Baekhyun made an indignant noise when he saw that his writing materials have been torn up into smaller pieces. The trashcan was overflowing by now with balled up pieces of paper, and Baekhyun noticed that some of the discarded paper was from his notebook.

He picked one up and unfolded the crinkled paper, recognizing his handwriting on the side that faced him.

On the flipside, there was that person’s handwriting again. Words that looked ready to dance right off the paper, waving their inky limbs at him with unmistakable grace.

Hello. My name is K

Hello. My name is Ka

Hello. My name i

“Whoa,” Chanyeol whispered behind him, taking in the sight before him.

Through the paper, Baekhyun could feel the indentations of the person’s writing. Most of the notes carried the same message, except for a few. Those had their contents scribbled out by angry lines that tore right through the pulpy paper. The very last note ended in a mess of ink splotches. Not far away, there was a small puddle of blue and the remains of his favourite pen.

Baekhyun eyed the pen with the broken nib warily, before shoving everything into the trash and spinning around to grab Chanyeol by the wrist.

“We have to get out of here,” he said quickly. He ignored Chanyeol’s puzzled expression and continued to speak. “I think there’s some creepy stalker around. Seeing as he managed to get into the cabin and into our freaking possessions, I think it would be best if we left. Like, now. I don’t think it’s safe to stay here.”

They spent the rest of the night throwing their things together in frenzy, and Baekhyun nearly cried from frustration when his suitcase refused to close. It took both his and Chanyeol’s weight to force the case to shut, and they practically stumbled over themselves on their way out.

It only got worse when Baekhyun realized that Jongin’s car tires had been slashed. He cursed, and the both of them stared hard into the darkness, as if daring whoever was out there to come and get them.

He didn’t remember exactly how it happened, but Baekhyun found himself scrambling out of the car in a panic and away from the shadowy figure that appeared at the edge of his vision. A hard blow at the back of his head sent him sprawling headfirst into oblivion.

 

//

 

It was the same handwriting on a page ripped out of Baekhyun’s notebook that lay in front of the both of them.

Baekhyun didn’t pay much attention to the note and turned to Chanyeol instead, who lay unconscious beside him. For a brief moment, Baekhyun wondered why they hadn’t been tied up, but he shoved the thought out of his mind and thanked his lucky stars that they weren’t.

“Hey,” he continued to shake Chanyeol’s side gently, “hey you okay?”

His shakes became more frantic when the younger man didn’t stir, and his voice rose in pitch, a hysterical note weaving itself in and out of his vocal cords.

Baekhyun stopped when Chanyeol finally reacted. “Ugh, you idiot,” he groaned. “Stop doing that I have a massive headache.”

As Chanyeol slowly rights himself, Baekhyun reached for the note and scanned it quickly.

He didn’t remember when exactly had the note fallen from his hands, but he watched through a haze as Chanyeol picked up the fallen scrap of paper and read its contents.

He watches, rather detachedly, as the blood drained from Chanyeol’s face and as he cast a frightened glance at the knife that they both had only just noticed.

The handle laid within reach, the blade hidden by the shadows, pale from the silvery moonlight.

Only one survives, or both will die. The clock is ticking, and I am waiting. Make your choice.

Chanyeol lurched to his feet and Baekhyun flinched back. His cheeks burned with shame when he realized that all Chanyeol was going to do was to try to force the door open.

He had always found it odd that the windows in the cabin had grilles on them, and now he cursed that very fact. There was no way that they would be able to escape via the windows, and from the way Chanyeol rattled the doorknob in vain, or from the entrance either.

The both of them sat in silence for a minute, and Baekhyun’s breath hitched in his throat when he heard a faint ticking.

It didn’t take him long to find the source of the ticking, since there was no attempt made at hiding it.

“It’s a ing explosive!” Baekhyun swore, tossing it at Chanyeol.

Chanyeol backed away from it in terror. “Why’re you giving it to me?”

“De-activate it,” he practically screamed. “You’re the techie, not me. I’m a writer! I know nuts about technology!”

“I fix computers,” Chanyeol nudged the bomb away with his foot. “I’ll probably end up blowing the both of us to bits.”

Baekhyun slumped against the wall, trying desperately to tune out the ticking sound that was deafening in the grim silence. “What do we do, than?” His lower lip trembled, and he fisted his hands in his hair. “Do we both die here?”

“Not really, no.”

Baekhyun heard a world of suggestions behind that one sentence, his gaze slid across the room to alight on the knife half-hidden in the shadows. He glanced up at Chanyeol’s face, and bit back a whimper when he saw nothing in those eyes.

The stars, the moon and his entire world has been shrouded by intent, and Baekhyun is suddenly terrified of the man crouched down before him.

They both reach for it at the same time, Chanyeol and he.

Chanyeol’s long arms allowed him to grab it before Baekhyun did.

Immediately, Baekhyun was on his feet, lunging at Chanyeol. Even though Chanyeol has the advantage in strength, Baekhyun was faster, and before long, Chanyeol found himself dropping the weapon in surprise.

The knife felt heavier than it looked to Baekhyun, and it slipped from his fingers when he first tried to pick it up. The metallic smell of iron filled the air and Baekhyun realized that the handle was already slick with blood when he picked it up.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” Chanyeol choked out as he eyed the cut in Baekhyun’s side.

As Baekhyun advanced towards Chanyeol, he saw the stars flicker out and die in the younger man’s eyes. He saw confusion and love and a question that jumped out at him. What about us, his eyes asked.

The rhythm of Baekhyun’s footsteps faltered when he noticed that Chanyeol was no longer backing away from him. He looked away and steeled himself, before continuing to move forward.

Biting his lip so hard that it bled, Baekhyun pushed all fond thoughts out of his head and locked it away at the bottom of his heart.

Quicker than he thought he could, he plunged the blade into Chanyeol’s gut, and looked up at the taller man with an apology in his eyes.

What he saw makes his blood run cold.

It would’ve been better to see hatred, anger or resentment. Instead, he was greeted with warmth, and a resolve to protect. The look in Chanyeol’s eyes cut him to the bone and left him gasping for air as he tried to staunch the bleeding.

Too late, Baekhyun realised that Chanyeol had never tried to block his blow. Too late, he recalled how Chanyeol’s blade had aimed for himself more than once during their struggle.

As the light left Chanyeol’s eyes, Baekhyun saw himself in them.