Chapter eleven

07-07-15

‘’That bastard.’’ Jongdae muttered.

Baekhyun had told both of them everything what happened; from who Park Chanyeol was to how the squirrel – a.k.a. Jongdae – was taken from him. Both boys had been silent the whole time, only nodding in understanding.

‘’I know, it’s just so weird. I mean, it doesn’t really surprise me but, we just got on good terms again.’’ Baekhyun said.

‘’How does he look like, I’ll teach him a lesson.’’ Jongdae said.

‘’You don’t have to do that Jongdae.’’

‘’No it’s okay, I’ll just electrocute him.’’ The latter made spooky finger motions; tiny sparks appeared on his fingers.

‘’You can electrocute people?’’ Baekhyun asked, brows high on his forehead. Yixing answered for him with a proud nod.

‘’Yes he can.’’ Yixing answered. ‘’He’s really good, he once electrocuted his roommate!’’ Yixing said it as if it was the best thing that Jongdae had done in his whole life. ‘’I healed him!’’ He then said, making a smug face.

Baekhyun snickered and leaned against the wall, unconsciously rolling up his sleeve again – which had fallen down.

‘’Anyway, are you gonna pay him back or...?’’ Jongdae asked, kicking his legs back and forth on the stretcher.

‘’Probably just the silent treatment.’’ Baekhyun shrugged. ‘’It’s something I’m good at so.’’ He grimaced.

‘’What’s with the bandage?’’ Yixing then asked, pointing at the white fabric. Baekhyun then became aware it was the wrong sleeve he had pulled up.

He immediately rolled it back. ‘’Nothing, small, stupid accident.’’ He brushed it off with a shrug.

‘’No, nono, let me see.’’ Yixing took a step forward and grabbed his arm. Baekhyun didn’t stop him when he rolled up his sleeve – looking troubled when he saw how long it was – and slowly removed the bandage until there was nothing more left than the huge gap on his arm. It instantly started bleeding again.

‘’That ain’t a small accident, my friend. What happened?’’ Jongdae asked, looking over Yixing’s shoulder as the latter grabbed a clean tissue and started wing the blood away. Baekhyun flinched when he touched the wound.

‘’You remember those kids who escaped the ADT?’’ He asked.

‘’Yeah.’’

‘’That was Kyungsoo, Jongin, Chanyeol and me.’’

Yixing grabbed his wrist and turned his arm around as he fully stopped the bleeding.

‘’So one of them shot you?’’

‘’Piece of ceiling fell down on it.’’

‘’Ouch.’’

The bleeding had stopped. Yixing stepped away and opened a drawer, taking out a piece of transparent paper which he laid on his arm before putting his hands on it.

‘’Why the paper?’’ Baekhyun asked, watching how a small scintilla light appeared in his hands.

‘’The wound is too big actually, the paper helps it heal quicker.’’ Yixing explained and Baekhyun nodded, watching how the large cut slowly disappeared. Not even a single trace of it was left on his arm.

Yixing removed the paper and threw it away.

Baekhyun looked  at his clean arm, turning it around to admire how clean the healer had done it. ‘’Thanks.’’

‘’No problem, but I need to go now, and Jongdae needs too. So see you around.’’ Yixing said before walking out of the room. Jongdae threw him a last smile before leaving him alone as well.

‘’...’’

Baekhyun  began his journey to his room.

The journey didn’t last that long and baekhyun arrived in his room merely ten minutes later.

It was 7 pm which actually meant dinner time, but Baekhyun’s appetite was nowhere to be found for some reason. So instead of eating, he took a warm shower and dressed in pyjama since he had no intentions of going out tonight; sitting on the couch afterwards, watching TV for quite a while until he heard a few knocks on the door.

Baekhyun didn’t stand up. Chanyeol had the keys with him and even if he didn’t, he could sleep outside for the night.

But the knocks became louder, Baekhyun began to think it maybe wasn’t Chanyeol.  So just to be sure it wasn’t someone who actually needed him, Baekhyun heaved himself up from the couch and opened the door.

It wasn’t Chanyeol.

Instead there were three boys around his age, he remembered as Sungjong, Myungsoo and Woohyun, if he was right. The three and only members of the invitation squad. The latter was holding a piece of A4 paper in his hands, the blank side showing and keeping whatever was on the page for himself for now.

‘’Hi!’’ Baekhyun’s voice accidently went a pitch up before he cleared his throat and continued with his normal voice. ‘’What are you guys doing here?’’ He asked.

‘’Well.’’ Sungjong started. ‘’We’re done with the poster, I’m sorry it took us so long; we weren’t quite in agreement with each other, but hey, it’s done now.’’ The boy said as Woohyun turned around the A4, showing colours, brightness – radiating fun and enjoyment – and the necessary information.

Baekhyun took the poster from his hands and took a good look at the piece of art. ‘’This is amazing.’’ He genuinely commented before handing it back.

‘’So we can use it?’’

‘’Of course! Hang it wherever you want, the school has already given allowance to us.’’ Baekhyun stated the truth.

‘’Then we’ll do that now.’’ Myungsoo said, looking at his friends, trying to find a sort of approval on his face.

‘’Isn’t it a bit too late for that right now?’’ The skinny boy asked.

‘’Yeah,  why can’t we do it tomorrow?’’ Woohyun said, teaming up with Sungjong on Myungsoo, who raised his hands in defence.

‘’Okay, okay, we’ll do it tomorrow then, jeez.’’ Myungsoo muttered before he walked off first. The other two shrugged before saying Baekhyun goodbye and leaving.

Baekhyun could understand why they couldn’t really get into agreement with each other.

He closed the door and made sure to lock it behind him before something hit him. in a figurative sense of course. Something he had completely forgotten about. Something he now only had about a week or so for. Something he stupidly told himself he had plenty of time.

‘’God how could I forgot about the festival.’’ He scolded himself as he walked back to the couch and plopped down on it, wiping his face with his cold hands. ‘’Good work Baekhyun, you now have 2 weeks left to organise a festival. Great!’’ Baekhyun ended with a sigh. He would begin tomorrow with all the arrangements and ask Mr. Oscar if he could use the big hall for it. The school’s main colour was green; so Baekhyun could ask the decoration crew if they knew how to decorate a whole hall in green. Kyungsoo was good in cooking so he and Baekhyun could devise what kind of snacks the food crew could make.

This was going to be great.

No need to panic.

As he was sat on the couch, thinking out many ideas of what he could and how he would do things, he didn’t notice how fast the time was passing. It wasn’t until thunder clapped – lighting up the whole room through the big windows – that Baekhyun was snapped out of his train of thoughts.

He looked around to see it was already dark outside – what was normal for this time of the year – and raining heavily. Not even a second later, the front door was opened with a ‘click’ of the lock and harshly thrown close, followed by heavy, familiar footsteps and a pendulum mumbled curse words.

It was Chanyeol. A very angry Park Chanyeol. He was cursing in his mouth, making it all unable for Baekhyun to hear. He turned around on the couch to see how the former angrily kicked out his shoes.

He was literally fuming, his face was bright red and his hands were shaking in anger; drenched from head to toe and dripping on the ground while his eyes had a dark red sparkle inside of them.

‘’The happened?’’ Baekhyun asked, curious about whatever made Chanyeol like this. At the same time, he was already annoyed by the boy’s behaviour.

Chanyeol didn’t look at him as he took of his jacket – which didn’t work out that well because of his anger – and only glared at him from the corner of his eyes. ‘’Isn’t it obvious!?’’ He shouted, angry and dumbfounded.

Baekhyun took a better look to see what he was talking about and noticed a dark bruise on his cheek. But other than that there wasn’t much.

‘’That , I’ll teach him a lesson tomorrow, how dare he.’’ Chanyeol started mumbling again, this time a bit more audible, and stomped to the kitchen.

‘’What happened?’’ Baekhyun repeated, he wanted a proper explanation for his roommate to come in like this.

Chanyeol ignored him – back facing the smaller – and Baekhyun was very impatient.

‘’Yah! Answer me!’’ He got off the couch and walked to the kitchen, standing beside him as the boy was getting a first-aid kit out of one of the upper cupboards to aid his… bruise. He still didn’t look at him.

Chanyeol got a grip of the kit and took it out of the cupboard, but before he could open it, Baekhyun snatched it from his hands, finally and successfully gaining his attention.

‘’The ?!’’

‘’Answer me.’’

Chanyeol didn’t answer, staring down at him with so much anger. But it didn’t scare Baekhyun. Out of the blue, but not unexpected, Chanyeol reached out for the kit with one hand while the other tried to grab his wrist; Baekhyun avoided them and took a step back.

When Chanyeol attempted it for a second time, Baekhyun didn’t hesitate and let his anger free, gifting him a nice, flat handed high-five across the face. He was getting tired of all his .

‘’You did NOT just slap me!’’ Chanyeol said agape, hand touching his already becoming red cheek, his eyes wide and pupils red. Red as fire.

‘’Oh yes I did!’’ Baekhyun threw the first-aid kit on the bar, it wasn’t about the kit anymore. It was never about the kit anyway.

Chanyeol caught him off guard when he suddenly swung a fist at him – something Baekhyun honestly didn’t expect him to do – but Baekhyun easily dodged it and grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back and pushing him down. It all caught Chanyeol off guard, he had never expected his roommate to be able to do something like that. He fell on the ground and Baekhyun squatted down, one knee on his back to hold him down.

‘’Are you going to tell me why or what?’’ Baekhyun hissed, his voice dangerously low. Chanyeol knew he was being very serious about it all. He also knew what he meant, he just didn’t know the answer to it.

‘’It just happened.’’ He replied.

‘’And what made you so angry?’’ Although it was meant as a ‘soft’ question, the way Baekhyun said it made him shiver.

‘’I had a fight with someone.’’ Chanyeol muttered. Although Baekhyun was holding him down tightly, his weight didn’t support him. Even if his knee was boring into his back, Chanyeol didn’t feel much of it aside from his bony knee.

He finally understood what he had meant with saying he weights ‘nothing’, back then.

Light has many definitions, indeed.

Chanyeol decided to use it against him and pushed himself off the ground, throwing Baekhyun off his back. He stood up and judging the expression his roommate made, he could see that he hated his weight as well. It was both an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time.

‘’I hate you.’’ Baekhyun muttered as he stood up as well. He wanted to walk away, but Chanyeol’s lanky body blocked him without even trying.

‘’You’re really weightless.’’

Baekhyun looked up, anger mixed with another certain emotion was expressed on his face. An emotion Chanyeol couldn’t read. ‘’You noticed?’’ He sarcastically asked, trying to walk past his roommate again, but was held back when Chanyeol grabbed his arm, holding him in place. They didn’t look each other in the eyes.

Baekhyun stared at Chanyeol’s arm and Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s black hair. They stayed like that for a moment, both not understanding why exactly. But it felt good.

‘’There was this guy, he said he was the best. I didn’t think the same way so we decided to fight it out.’’ Chanyeol then said, ending with a sigh. Baekhyun didn’t reply.

‘’…I’m sorry.’’

 Baekhyun felt the grip around his arm loosen, but the taller boy didn’t walk away. It was the first time he had heard his roommate say sorry; and not just a sorry and everything’s okay. No, it was more than that. It sounded genuine, full of emotion.

Different from the Chanyeol he met.

‘’What’s it like?’’ Chanyeol asked. Baekhyun looked up at him with a frown. even his expression changed, as if all the proudness, all the egocentric parts had been painted out of it and replaced by authority, slight concern and seriousness.

‘’What do you mean?’’

‘’Weightless, what’s it like to be weightless.’’

Baekhyun looked down again. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed to tell anyone, he just didn’t feel comfortable with it.

‘’It’s like you’re floating.’’ He said with a soft voice. ‘’All day. You don’t need to drag your weight with you, nothing takes much effort when it comes to running, climbing or swimming.

Jumping or falling goes slower and when the wind blows, you’ll get blown away easily if you don’t hold on to something or someone else.

People can easily push you over, carry you up.’’  He looked up at Chanyeol, who seemed to be immersed in his voice, staring blankly down at him. ‘’Being weightless feels like… you’re nothing.’’

Chanyeol didn’t respond in the first seconds after he was done talking, he kept looking at him with a blank, unfocused expression. ‘’If you could… have weight.’’ Chanyeol didn’t know how he should formulate it, but Baekhyun understood him anyways. ‘’Would you change?’’

Baekhyun slowly shook his head and looked back up again, looking into deep brown, sparkling red, focused eyes. ‘’I won’t ever change. Not by will anyway.’’

¬

‘’Kyungsoo?’’

Jongin’s head peeked over the bed sheets as he stared at Kyungsoo’s sleeping frame on the bed opposite of his. Unlike Chanyeol and Baekhyun who had two separate rooms, they both had a shared room. It wasn’t like Jongin cared anyway since he was extremely scared of-

Thunder strikes

Jongin shrieked and hugged the bed sheets tighter. It was 1am and Jongin was roughly awoken by the thunder. Usually, his mom would wake up too and hug him tightly until he was asleep again, but this time, his mom wasn’t there.

His mom had always loved him, just like his dad. They didn’t sent him to a special school because they wanted him away, they did it because they wanted Jongin to be able to learn more and make a lot friends. That’s why he didn’t hate his parents.

Unlike Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo whished his parents the death, especially his dad.

Kyungsoo had once told him that his dad had always hated him and sent him away without telling his mom or even giving Kyungsoo the change to say goodbye to his mom. It has been 7 years since Kyungsoo had seen his mo-

Thunder strikes again

‘’Kyungsoo? A-are you aw-awake.’’ He stammered

‘’What’s wrong Jongin.’’ Kyungsoo murmured sheepishly.

Jongin opened his mouth but no sounds came out, he suddenly felt very embarrassed with the fact that he was still scared of thunder. He didn’t dare to say anything, so when the thunder clapped again, he quickly left his own bed, taking his own sheets with him and jumped into Kyungsoo’s bed, hugging his own bed sheets.

He felt Kyungsoo shift next to him.

‘’What’s wrong.’’ Kyungsoo’s soft voice became more audible.

Jongin ignored him and hugged the sheets tighter.

‘’Don’t tell me you’re scared of thunder.’’

Jongin remained silent.

Kyungsoo chuckled and wrapped his arms around Jongin’s tensed frame. ‘’Don’t be.’’ He murmured and hid his face in Jongin’s back, falling asleep seconds later.

Jongin tensed up even more by the touch. Kyungsoo softly started snoring again while Jongin’s body was burning up from the others heat. But the position was rather uncomfortable for Jongin so he turned around and hugged Kyungsoo instead, letting the smaller male’s head rest on his chest.

‘’That’s better.’’ He murmured before he fell into a deep slumber, completely forgetting his fear for the thunder now that he was embraced by the warmth of the tiny body of his roommate.

¬

‘Once upon a time, there were three small houses in a huge forest were three old man lived in. Edgar Solander, Xavier Fluut and Oscar Breamel. They liv-‘

I already know that story, you’ve told me when I was ten.

Sorry Baek, then what do you want to know tonight?

Tell me more about how SM arose.

You already know about them, you’ve experi-

Please~

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‘Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, there was a boy called Lee Sooman. Lee Sooman wasn’t like any other child of his age, he was special. He had the ability control water.

He was the most helpful kid you could ever imagine, sweet, caring and humble. But not everyone thought that way. When Sooman turned 20, he started to become stronger. The villagers became scared, scared that one day, he would kill them.

And that thought became history…

Because when Lee Sooman witnessed how his family got slaughtered by the king’s soldiers (because he was scared that they were different too), he called up all the water sources nearby and drowned them.

Because of this, the king became even more scared and commanded ever soldier he had under his possession to find Sooman and kill him.

But they were no match for Sooman.

Sooman killed every soldier who came near him and hid in the forests, finding more of his kind and training them because he only had one thought in his mind; to become the world’s overlord.’

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But that doesn’t make any sense, I get why Sooman was angry but why did he want to take over the world?

‘I don’t know why, I can’t look into his mind you know, he’s dead.’

I know…

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‘Have you told them already?’

No and I’m not planning to.

‘Why? It’s not that bad-‘

You weren’t there.

‘…You’re right and I’m incredibly sorry for that, but can’t you just forget about it?’

…

‘Baekhyun?’

I’m tired, goodnight.

‘Goodnight ‘