[title song: miracles in december (classical orchestral version)]

Chapter 3;

Hyemi sits down a good meter away from Baekhyun and ignores the way his eyebrows furrow. There’s a long, frankly awkward pause until Baekhyun rubs the back of his neck, “So I see you’re still doing the Garden Gnome thing.” Baekhyun says a little cheekily and there’s a part of her that actually wants to laugh.

Instead she frowns at him, “You have four minutes and twenty seconds left.”

Baekhyun groans, “Hyemi—”

“Four minutes and nineteen seconds, eighteen seconds, seventeen seconds—”

“Okay, fine.” Baekhyun interrupts with a scowl Hyemi doesn’t think he deserves to give her. Then Baekhyun stares at her and Hyemi swears he’s looking directly into her soul, the gaze is so intense. “What do you want to know?”

Hyemi gapes at him for a second, “How about everything? Why you left, where you went, why you left.” Hyemi says in a clipped tone.

Baekhyun sighs, long and drawn out, before biting his lip, “I can’t tell you why I left.”

“Fine. Then there’s nothing to talk about.” Hyemi replies, pulling herself off the ground. She’s about to turn on her heels when fingers wind around her wrist and pull her back down. She stumbles and falls right into his lap.

He blinks down at her and she can’t help but blush, goddammit why is she blushing? Then he immediately lets go of her and gently pushes her away, the tip of his ears a light pink color. “Sorry,” He mutters. “But I’m not finished, let me finish speaking. Then you can storm off or whatever.”

“Stop touching me.” Hyemi mutters back, rubbing her wrists.

Baekhyun just ignores her and continues speaking, “I can’t tell you why I left because it’s not just my secret to tell. It’s not the right time, either.”

Hyemi makes a face because he’s being so goddamn frustrating and she’s tired of it. “That’s a really ing stupid reason, Byun Baekhyun.” He sighs and looks up at the sky like he’s asking for help and suddenly she snaps. “I thought you were dead, you know. People didn’t remember you. They thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy. So that’s not going to be a good enough reason. I don’t care if this isn’t your secret to tell. I don’t care because I deserve an explanation, I don’t deserve any of your cryptic bull. I deserve the truth and nothing but the goddamn truth.” Hyemi practically shouts, reaching out and jabbing Baekhyun in the chest with her pointer finger, emphasizing every word.

He just looks down at her finger for a few moments before he looks up at her with a cynical smile that looks so utterly out of place on his face. “I was dead, you know. Technically.” He says, his lips twisting into a wry smile.

Hyemi opens to shout at him before she processes his words, “Wait. What.”

He laughs and it’s so bitter that it unnerves her. He’s not looking at her, it’s like he’s speaking to the sky, to God or something. “Two years ago, I made myself disappear from this world. You were never a part of the original plan so that’s why you were never factored in at the end. That’s why you remembered. If I could go back and change it, I would, Hyemi-ah. I never meant to hurt you.”

Hyemi just stares at him, her hand slack against his chest. Her head is hurting, she doesn’t understand anything. “What are you talking about?”

Baekhyun looks at her almost pitifully. “Things are changing. This world is going to go to hell really ing soon. And I’ll tell you the rest, I swear I will, but you need time. You need to figure some things out on your own first and I promise I’ll be there every step of the way to help you.”

“I don’t. I don’t believe you. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Hyemi replies and the pounding in her head is getting louder and more unbearable. Baekhyun just takes Hyemi’s hand and squeezes it gently.

“Did you ever find anything about your mother? You always talked about how you would look for her.” Baekhyun says and that’s when Hyemi feels like her head is literally going to split in two.

“Baek…” She groans and she wants to be angry, she wants to tell him to shut up, but he just brushes light fingers along her forehead. It’s soothing; it almost makes the pain a little better.

“I know, sweetheart, I know. It’ll go away in a minute, okay.” He says soothingly, his voice low and quiet and a little raspy.

As he speaks the pain slowly subsides and Hyemi blinks rapidly before she’s finally able to make out his face. He looks nervous. “What the was that?” Hyemi hisses, feeling utterly confused. She sits up, wondering when she even ended up lying down. “Why are you talking about my mother? Why are you back?” Hyemi hates the way her voice seems to break near the end.

Baekhyun sighs, “I never left, not really.”

Hyemi pulls her hands out of his and shakes her head, back and forth repeatedly. He’s still not answering anything, “I’m not doing this. I’m not going to deal with your stupid face and your stupid cryptic words, Baekhyun-ssi. My head hurts. I’m leaving. My best friend is waiting for me.” She says, venomously, and when she sees the hurt look in his eyes she doesn’t feel satisfaction, she feels sorry.

He grabs her hand, again, and she gets the urge to punch him. Instead he slips a gold bracelet around her wrist and it glints in the sunlight. “Just keep that on. It’ll help with the headaches.” Baekhyun says before dropping Hyemi’s hand.

Hyemi wants to take it off and chuck it in his face, but she doesn’t. Something deep inside her says to keep it, so she does, grudgingly. She doesn’t even say goodbye, she just turns on her heels and leaves. As soon as the courtyard door shuts behinds her, she starts to run, wanting to put Byun Baekhyun as far behind her as possible.

~.~.~.~.~

Hyemi gets to the bubble tea shop at a record time of four minutes (at least for her) and she still feels like she’s not far enough. She hurries towards the little door plastered with cute animal cartoons drinking bubble tea when the door opens and she nearly runs headfirst into a boy with cat eyes and a jawline she thinks might have been sculpted by God himself. He reaches out and steadies her and a shock of electricity surges through her. She blinks at him and he smiles a little deviously before he bows out a quick apology and hurries away. Hyemi finds herself standing at the door watching the boy go, a little dazed because that was weird.

“He’s hot, isn’t he?” A voice calls from behind her and she glances back and smiles at Minah, who’s standing behind the counter, a bright pink snapback pulled over her ponytail. There are no other customers in the little shop. Minah wipes her hands on her apron and sighs, a little dreamily, “Too bad he bought two bubble teas. He probably has a girlfriend.”

Hyemi fully steps into the bubble tea shop, letting the door swing shut behind her, and laughs a little. “Do you even know his name?”

“Nope.” Minah replies with a grin, dragging out the word. “So why’d you take so long? Did you kick Baekhyun’s into the next decade?”

Hyemi just shakes her head, frowning, “He wanted to talk. I didn’t like what he had to say, so I left.”

Minah nods, then she blinks as if she just remembered something, “Yah, I almost forgot! Rin, being the awesome senior that she is, told me some stuff that she found out about him.”

Rin, a cute second year who likes to experiment with hair dye and knows practically everybody on campus, pops out of the backroom right on cue. “Flattery won’t get you anywhere near that party, Minah.” Rin says, casually, as she takes out a bubble tea from the little mini fridge beneath the counter and stabs a straw into it.

Minah just pouts, “Okay, fine. At least tell Hye what you were saying about Byun Baekhyun.”

Rin pauses mid-sip and stares at Hyemi weirdly. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about earlier.”

“Really?” Hyemi asks, distracting herself by taking the bubble tea out of Minah’s hand, ignoring her protests.

Rin nods and she’s still staring at Hyemi a little oddly, unblinkingly, “Baekhyun’s a second year, too. Except I’ve never seen him around campus last year. I’ve never even seen any of his friends and some of them are third years and even graduate school students. It’s just like he suddenly showed up and everyone vaguely knows who he is.”

“That’s weird.” Hyemi comments, but she feels like she’s been in a similar situation before. She had been sent to so many clinics by her father because Byun Baekhyun doesn’t exist, Hyemi (yet they’d never be able to tell her who the boy is in her pictures).

“Do you know something about why?” Rin asks as she walks around the counter and throws the empty cup into the trashcan. Hyemi suddenly feels incredibly uneasy and she shakes her head, because she’s afraid that words won’t come out of .

Rin just stares at Hyemi, a little coldly and Hyemi doesn’t remember the last Rin had been cold. This is incredibly out of character and Hyemi frowns.

Then the little bell jingles signaling that someone had just walked in. Hyemi jumps at the sound, finally breaking eye contact with Rin and looks to the side. “Oh~ Must have been the wind!” Minah hums when Hyemi catches her eyes and Hyemi rolls her eyes because Minah is snickering at Hyemi.

Then Hyemi dares to look back at Rin, wondering if what their tension is even about, when she drops her bubble tea in horror.

Rin’s eyes are pitch black, not even a pinch of white left, and her lips are as red as blood. There’s a cloud of smoke rising up, up, up and surrounding Rin until suddenly it disappears, spreading throughout the bubble tea shop. Hyemi coughs because the air is filled with a rotten smell and it’s suddenly incredibly humid. Dark, bony wings protrude from Rin’s back and the noise they make as they slowly spread apart is sickening and it sends chills down Hyemi’s spine and straight to her toes.

The thing (Hyemi refuses to believe that’s Rin) stares at her so, so intensely and Hyemi is so terrified she can’t even move. A slow smile breaks across that thing’s face and Hyemi can see thin, sharp teeth lining the inside of its mouth.

The voice that comes out of its mouth is Rin’s but at the same time it’s not. Its next words make Hyemi feel like she’s been dipped in a bucket of ice and her mind keeps screaming for her to run, but she can’t. She can’t move.

“I think you’re lying, Hyemi. I think you know everything.” It says before it steps towards Hyemi, dark eyes transfixed on Hyemi. “You don’t have to tell me. I’ll find out, one way or another.”

a/n: dun dun dUNNNN

I'm sorry if this was a little confusing, everything will be cleared up SOON. oh gosh I'm so happy because my chem final isnt until next monday so I'm good for today blesss

MIRACLES IN DECEMBER IS SO VERY GOOD MY FAVORITE SONGS HAVE TO BE THE STAR OR MY TURN TO CRY (CAN WE TALK ABOUT BAEKHYUN'S VOICE OH MY GOD HE'S WONDERFUL ESPECIALLY IN THE STAR SWEET JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL)

(also "drop the shades and crank the bass" i love kris omg)

ANYWAYS what do you think is up with Baek?

Who has that jawline that might have been sculpted by God himself?

WHAT IS RIN??

WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON??

Tune in next time for these answers [laughs evilly]

but i'd love to hear your guesses! :)

Thank you for reading, please subscribe, upvote, and comment if you liked it! I love to hear thoughts gimme alllll your thoughts! ^^

xoxo