Allegro
Title: Allegro
Word Counts: Oneshot, 5k
Pairing: Chanyeol/Baekhyun
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): smut, murder, a little bit of gore (but very tame)
Disclaimer:The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Baekhyun loved Chanyeol. Chanyeol loved Baekhyun's hands.
Allegro
It was past midnight and Baekhyun sat on the brittle stone stairs leading to the Han River, his favorite place in the whole city.
In his hands he clutched his violin absentmindedly, his eyes staring motionlessly at the impervious, black water.
This was where he and Chanyeol had met for the first time, in a summer night just like tonight. And this was where Chanyeol would come and find him, and then kill him.
It was quarter to midnight when all of a sudden Baekhyun was pulled out of his trance.
A hand touched his elbow, making him not only snap his eyes open with a shriek but also abruptly cut off the sonata he had been playing. The bow he had been drawing across the strings slipped off and produced a sound of such horrific disharmony that Baekhyun felt his toes curling painfully in his shoes. It almost surpassed the uncomfortable feeling of his heart jumping up to his throat and his stomach filling with ice at the touch of a foreign hand gripping his upper arm.
He turned with wide eyes, his free hand tightening around his violin's neck, but he knew he would never use it as a weapon. It was so dark where he had played at his favorite place by the river that he only saw the outlines of someone threateningly tall and for a second Baekhyun felt like freezing in shock and terror. He lifted his right leg and slammed his foot on top of whoever had touched him instead.
Almost instantly the hand let go of him and Baekhyun took a step back when the tall form doubled over with a groan. Baekhyun muffled a cry and quickly turned to grab his violin case and the bow he dropped. But before he could run a hand reached out for him again and this time a deep voice begged him to "Wait," before he could freak out.
Baekhyun stilled instinctively and only realized a second too late that trusting someone just because of a plea might not have been his wisest decision. But the voice was vaguely familiar and to his luck Baekhyun only needed another second to realize why.
It was his neighbor. Baekhyun knew this from the many times they had greeted each other in the elevator and in the tiny hallway separating the two apartment doors on their floor. Baekhyun would have wondered how in a city as large as Seoul both of them managed to meet at night by the Han River, but their apartment complex had a direct access to its concrete covered riverbank, a wooden stairway running down the hill complex on which they lived.
Baekhyun's favorite place by the river was a dozen of old concrete stairs leading directly into the river. It was far away enough from Mapo Bridge and their apartment complex that his lonely melodies didn't bother anyone. Which actually twisted the fact that his neighbor had found him into a strange coincidence once again.
Baekhyun took a deep breath and then yanked his arm out of his neighbor's grip. It only had his neighbor lifting his hand again, this time in an attempt to calm him down.
"Wait- Baekhyun, right? I'm your neighbor! Park Chanyeol?"
The fact that for years police and news channels had warned to stay away from the riverside at night suddenly flashed through Baekhyun's head and he took another step back. He was out here almost every night, but only his neighbors sudden presence made him feel as if he was in danger when usually he felt completely fine being here for hours all by himself.
"What are you doing here?" Baekhyun asked as he clutched his violin and its case close to his chest and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. His neighbor was still just an ominous outline in the dark and Baekhyun didn't relax his tense stance. His heart though- oh his heart was beating loudly in his chest at that name.
"I wanted to meet up with my boyfriend, but he-" Chanyeol left the sentence hanging and Baekhyun immediately had a vague idea of what had happened.
"He ditched you?" Somehow the fact that his neighbor was waiting hopelessly by the river at night softened his voice in pity and left a fluttering feeling in his stomach.
"Yeah, somehow they always ditch me." He sighed. "We broke up a few weeks ago, he just left and never answered my calls. A few hours ago he told me to meet him here, but he never came."
Baekhyun tilted his head compassionately, his lips pursing, but then his eyes widened. "He told you to meet him right here?" he asked, voice a tad suspicious again. To his relief his neighbor's outline shook its head.
"No, but I heard you play and- well I know the way you play. Especially this piece, you play it nonstop. I listen to it sometimes when I'm at home." There was a short moment of silence, Baekhyun at a loss of words and Chanyeol apparently a bit embarrassed. "You play really well," he added awkwardly.
Baekhyun choked, his heart beating loudly in his chest as he nodded with his face flushed. He clutched his violin tighter. "It's Chopin," he muttered and felt his face heating up even more at the sudden realization that his neighbor had recognized him playing. They both lapsed into silence for another awkward minute before Chanyeol cleared his throat.
"Right. I uh- should maybe walk you home? Since it's late and everything, I mean! It's- uh, It's the same way anyway-" He broke off again, clearly flustered.
Baekhyun felt his lips twitch and quickly bit down on them to stop himself from grinning. He was still somewhat suspicious, but the way his neighbor was so awkward around him endeared him to Baekhyun- it made him like him even more. He wordlessly put his violin and bow into the case and snapped it shut before he finally walked up to Chanyeol.
"Aren't you gonna wait for your boyfriend?"
"No." Baekhyun was so close to his neighbor that he could see him frowning now. "If he didn't show up until now I doubt he will at all. I don't think he'll come tonight."
Baekhyun nodded at his neighbor's words, oddly relieved and his heart squeezing in his chest now, and then shrugged. "Alright, walk me home then," He faltered and then flushed at his own words, his voice cracking when he added, "Since it's the same way anyway-"
His neighbor laughed at that, a streetlamp illuminating his handsome face and Baekhyun saw him smile down at him. The way he looked at him spread the heat on Baekhyun's cheeks down his body where it rested warm and pulsing in his chest.
Chanyeol was hiding a smile, but his eyes were wide and clear as they looked down at Baekhyun with something akin to fondness and satisfaction.
They talked the whole way back to their apartment and the elevator ride up to the 6th floor. Then they chatted for another hour in the hallway separating their apartments, before they finally parted their ways. Baekhyun's cheeks were numb from the many smiles his neighbor had pulled from him. By the time they exchanged their goodbyes Chanyeol's intentions of sweet words and smooth talk became crystal clear when the man bent down and brought one of Baekhyun's hands to his lips.
"Sweet dreams," he murmured against the pale flesh and Baekhyun felt his stomach twisting into knots. "And a promise to meet up for coffee later?"
Baekhyun felt his lips twitching again. He let them spread into a smile as he watched Chanyeol gripping tighter around his hands as if to hinder him from leaving without giving him an answer first.
"Only because you got stood up and I pity you," he laughed and then blushed some more when Chanyeol pulled his hand closer for another kiss against his fingertips. It was awfully intimate, and impossibly sweet. Baekhyun felt himself turning to mush.
"See you later for coffee then, Baekhyun," Chanyeol murmured with a last kiss to the middle of Baekhyun's palm before he smiled at him and let go. Baekhyun tried to remember how to breathe as he nodded speechlessly and turned to punch in the code of his apartment door with shaking fingers.
The skin on his hand which Chanyeol had kissed burned and pulsed for the rest of the night and Baekhyun twisted and turned in his bed, his heart pulsing wildly in his chest as he tried to banish all thoughts of his neighbor sleeping only a wall apart from him from his mind.
It was almost impossible to find sleep that night and when he finally fell into an exhausted slumber it was to the satisfying thought of having someone he kind of had an eye on for months having kissed his hand and asking him out for coffee.
After a week of increasing talks in the hallway, coffee dates every other day and holding hands the second half of the week Chanyeol smooth-talked him to bed.
It was fine though, Baekhyun had been expecting it and, if he was honest with himself, wanted it since the first night Chanyeol had walked him home. He had been interested in Chanyeol since forever and had crushed on him just as long.
When Chanyeol took his hands tenderly in his own overly large and warm ones and when he tugged Baekhyun closer to his chest as they had stood between their apartments again Baekhyun let him lead him into his apartment and wordlessly allowed his neighbor to slip his hands under his clothes and his tongue into his mouth. Chanyeol was skilled and quick, his hands stripping Baekhyun so fast while pressing into all the right places until Baekhyun's head was spinning and his knees weakening.
With a laugh Chanyeol picked him up to carry him into his bedroom, his apartment an exact mirror of Baekhyun's, though somewhat cleaner, more minimalistic. For a confusing second this cleared the haze in Baekhyun's head as he stared at the barren walls and when he was lowered on Chanyeol's bed at the sparsely decorated room. Somehow the spare interior didn't fit the charming and lively personality of his neighbor, but before he could wonder longer about it Chanyeol climbed on top of him and captured his lips in another kiss.
Every thought besides the here and now flew out of his mind then and Baekhyun closed his eyes and concentrated on the way his neighbor’s lips felt on his skin as the trailed down his chest, calloused fingertips unbuttoning his shirt as a tongue dipped into his navel. Baekhyun gasped, his face blushing pink and he writhed on his neighbor's bed when his thighs were spread. Chanyeol trailed kissed down the insides of them, his warm tongue dipping into the soft flesh to lick at bruises he had left and then Baekhyun cried out when his neighbor's lips nipped the hard flesh between his legs.
He was trembling, his thighs weakly spread apart as Chanyeol spent his sweet time savoring him. Only when Baekhyun was an incoherent mess did his neighbor lift his face from between his legs and the way he grinned up at him with his hair disheveled and his lips slick left Baekhyun whimpering weakly.
His neighbor lifted himself up on his arms and Baekhyun licked his lips at the way Chanyeol's biceps flexed under his skin. He looked so strong and handsome and Baekhyun felt an intense heat curling low in his stomach and throbbing between his legs as he closed his thighs around the man's hips to pull him close to himself.
Chanyeol looked surprised, but laughed at his eagerness, his hands reaching out to cup Baekhyun's face to cradle it for a moment before finally sinking down again to cage the smaller in between his arms. He was kissing Baekhyun while he still held him tenderly, Baekhyun's own hands gripping the bulging hard muscles on Chanyeol's arms. When Chanyeol let go of him he gasped, his wet breath mixing with his neighbor's who rubbed his thumbs along the rim of Baekhyun's wet eyes.
Chanyeol's hands were warm when they entwined with his and Baekhyun's chest constricted painfully when the man lifted them up to press kisses on the back of them. The gesture was oddly intimate, but sweet and Baekhyun breathed calmly when Chanyeol let go to slip the last pieces of clothing from their bodies.
Baekhyun lied spent and exhausted on top of Chanyeol's broad chest when they calmed down. One of his hands was back in Chanyeol's again and he felt his neighbor pressing kisses to the tips of his fingers. It made him smile and lift up his head to stare at the handsome man underneath him and when Chanyeol caught him staring he slipped Baekhyun's fingers into his mouth to suck on them.
Baekhyun's breath hitched and he felt his nether regions stirring when his neighbor manipulated his fingers to slid in and out of his wet mouth. With a groan, because he was way too exhausted but also way too excited for this, Baekhyun pulled his fingers out of Chanyeol's mouth to attack it with his lips instead.
His neighbor laughed into the kiss, his hands gripping Baekhyun's hips to steady him and he groaned when Baekhyun started to grind.
"Your hands-" He still managed to grunt out when Baekhyun rolled his hips and pressed his half hard cock against Chanyeol's stirring one. "They're the most beautiful I've ever seen-"
Baekhyun gasped when Chanyeol lifted his hips to press back, his eyes rolling as he moaned quietly and gripped harder around Chanyeol's arms.
"My- mother gave them- ah!- to me-" He stammered, then he lost the coherency to form words as he reduced all his senses to feel.
"She also gave you nice hips and a perfect pair of-" Chanyeol muttered as he grabbed Baekhyun's ass cheeks and kneaded them in his hands, but ended the sentence with a groan when Baekhyun rolled his hips forcefully again.
"No talking," Baekhyun gasped and Chanyeol nodded feverishly when he reached for the smaller's neck to pull him down for a kiss.
They spent the following weeks like this, dating, kissing and then Chanyeol pulling Baekhyun along with him to his apartment when night came.
Baekhyun's lonely nights by the river were replaced with playing for Chanyeol as they sat in bed, Baekhyun leaning against Chanyeol's chest as the latter covered the hand holding the violin with his own.
Their relationship was perfect. Chanyeol was the sweetest and most attentive boyfriend Baekhyun could have wished for. He took care of him tenderly, always a smile always a kiss for him when he pulled on the strings of his violin in frustration and groaned when the melodies were stubborn to flow.
Baekhyun spent every minute of the day at Chanyeol's place, always clinging to him and always smiling while Chanyeol held his hand the whole day with a smile. On the days Chanyeol had to leave for work it took hours of kissing and closeness before Baekhyun would be willing to let go of his boyfriend. Chanyeol endured it with a good natured smile, but his eyes looked thoughtful whenever Baekhyun would press his face against his neck.
It was one month into their relationship when one of the violin strings broke while Baekhyun tuned the instrument. He cried out in shock when the wire slashed open his palm. It wasn't the first time this had happened to him and Baekhyun only stared at the blood pooling on his skin for a second before he frowned and licked it away.
His hand was pulled away from his mouth by a frantic looking Chanyeol, his eyes wide open as he stared at Baekhyun's injured palm. Baekhyun tilted his head in question, but didn't worry about Chanyeol's unusual pale face until he started cursing loudly. One of his thumbs was digging uncomfortably close to the fresh wound and Baekhyun flinched, his eyes tearing up as he tried to pull his hand out of Chanyeol's grip.
Chanyeol only tightened his grip on him, but his hard eyes softened and he quickly pulled up Baekhyun's hand to lick the blood away himself. The way he carefully tended to the thin wound and then pressed a kiss to it comforted Baekhyun, but he was still wondering about Chanyeol's upset eyes.
"Your beautiful hands," Chanyeol murmured eventually and his voice was so sad that Baekhyun felt his chest constricting guiltily. If only he had been a bit more careful. "Baek, please take better care of them- I can't see you hurt like this."
Baekhyun nodded wordlessly, a bit dazed when Chanyeol let go of him to bend forward and kiss him.
"I'll be more careful," he promised and the way his words made Chanyeol smile again had Baekhyun's heart warming up and swelling with love.
Autumn passed, then winter, spring and it was summer again when the bloated, half eaten and decomposed body of Chanyeol's ex-boyfriend was fished out of the Han River. Baekhyun only learned about this, because he watched the morning news in his own apartment.
Chanyeol was on a trip with his colleagues from work and even though Baekhyun had a key to his apartment he didn't feel like staying all alone in his boyfriend's sphere. The thought of being apart from Chanyeol made him feel physically ill, but staying alone where they used to be together all the time was even worse. Baekhyun gritted his teeth and wrapped his arms around himself as he forced down his longing and need for his boyfriend. The morning news pulled him out of his misery.
Baekhyun didn't know the face of Chanyeol's ex de facto, but he knew the name, Kim Taehyung. His corpse was missing his hands and classified him unmistakably as one of the thousand-hands murderer's victims.
Baekhyun stared at the pictures of the newest and all the former victims the news showed along the report and felt his stomach turning in uneasiness as he noticed the last victim's eyes ...so familiar and not unlike his own. He grabbed his violin with shaking fingers, because it was beside him and he needed the comfort of it in his hands.
As he listened to the report he stared at his hands, imagining them covered in blood and missing fingers, but the image was so horrible that it left him gasping with his heart beating wildly in his chest. A weird thought crossed his mind and his boyfriend's face flashed in front of his eyes, months ago at the Han River when they had first met.
He felt almost dizzy when he got up and left his apartment to enter Chanyeol's. As sparsely decorated as it was, Chanyeol had a shelf full of books and important documents. Maybe a box of pictures, too, and that was exactly what Baekhyun was searching for.
He laid down his violin on top of Chanyeol's living room table and then stood up on his tiptoes to search the highest shelf. He found what he was looking for almost immediately and pulled the shoebox he had grabbed down to open it as he sat down on the floor. Inside of it there were pictures, some of Kim Taehyung, a few of Chanyeol, but most of him, Baekhyun. From before he had started to see Chanyeol, all the years back even before he had moved in here.
Baekhyun let the pictures fall down with shaking fingers, his heart beating wildly when he realized that his boyfriend had most probably stalked him, at least a little and what this meant. There was only one reason why Chanyeol would have done that.
The way they had met at the river months ago flashed through his mind again and he whimpered quietly to himself.
When he turned to close the shoebox another picture caught his eyes. It was one of a girl, a pretty little thing with white skin and large eyes. Baekhyun knew who she was, Bae Juhyun, but three years ago her unblemished skin had been just as rotten just as eaten by fish as Kim Taehyung's. She, too, had been a victim of the thousand-hands killer, and in her case, too, the police had never found her missing digits.
Baekhyun let the picture fall back into the box with shaking fingers, his eyes following it as it landed on something hidden on the bottom of it. His face was ashen when he reached out and traced the tip of one finger against the hard metal of a gun.
"My god, Chanyeol-" he breathed out, his voice breaking as the impossible dreadfulness of the situation occurred to him. He closed his hands around the cold barrel, his stomach turning as he realized the absurdity of everything. He gripped around the gun for a moment longer, but then pulled his hand back, his fingers catching on more metal, a needle and a sharp edge. With a gasp he jerked back, but it was too late. Blood smudged some of the pictures in the box and Baekhyun cried out in dread when he realized what he had done.
He closed the shoebox hastily and with terror numbing his body put it back on its place on the highest shelf. His head was spinning and his stomach lurching. The image of the gun kept tormenting him and he almost fled back to his apartment.
He spent the rest of the day in his bed, sobbing into his injured hand. Only hours later, when he heard Chanyeol returning from his trip did he remember his violin forgotten on his boyfriend's glass table.
Chanyeol was unusually quiet when he knocked on Baekhyun's door the next morning.
He was in his coat- his uniform and shoes. In his hands he had Baekhyun's violin, in his other the shoebox with the pictures. Baekhyun's eyes widened and he swallowed when he saw it, his stomach clenching in both fear and pain. Chanyeol's eyes looked heartbroken when he hesitated to let him in.
In the end Baekhyun quietly stepped aside, letting his boyfriend in and closing the door as Chanyeol walked into Baekhyun's bedroom and sat down on his bed. The way he looked at him made Baekhyun shudder in nervousness.
"You found my treasure box," Chanyeol said quietly and his lips pulled into halfhearted smile that was more forced than anything else. Baekhyun wordlessly nodded.
"Taehyung was found in the river yesterday I heard," Chanyeol continued and his eyes stared at Baekhyun's every reaction to his words. "Same as Juhyun. And Yunho hyung. And Taemin and Minseok hyung and Jongin." Chanyeol laughed, but it wasn't a happy one. "All my exes ended up dead in the river. All their pretty hands gone- ah! Makes you kinda wonder about you, doesn't it Baek?"
Baekhyun swallowed, but stared wide-eyed at his boyfriend.
"I've been watching you for so long Baek. I've known you for so long, too- I've always... I've always wanted you."
Chanyeol sighed and dropped the box in his hands. The photos spilled from it and scattered across Baekhyun's bedroom floor. Chanyeol tilted his head and then slowly pulled the gun out of his halter hidden underneath the coat. Baekhyun trembled and his legs almost gave way when his boyfriend smiled sadly and aimed at him.
"Come now, Baekhyun. You snooped around and I'm afraid you saw too much. I would have loved to spend more time with you, but you aren't clueless anymore, are you?"
"Chanyeol-" Baekhyun finally croaked out, his eyes wide with fear when his boyfriend curled his finger around the trigger and- laughed, lowering the gun again, but not taking it away from where it still aimed at Baekhyun.
"Don't you have a shoebox of pictures, too, that you want to share with me?" Chanyeol chuckled, but he sounded heartbroken. When Baekhyun shook his head he laughed harder, almost sobbing, before he got up and walked to him. He nudged him with his gun as he stared down at him, every speck of amusement gone from his eyes which were icy cold when he told Baekhyun to move.
"You know why I'm here Baek," he said softly and Baekhyun felt like crying at the way Chanyeol's voice sounded so soothingly soft. He nodded, tears sliding down his cheeks as he let Chanyeol force him through his apartment.
"Show me your shoebox," Chanyeol muttered when he pushed Baekhyun roughly into the kitchen, another sad smile spreading on his lips when Baekhyun's smaller body crashed against the hard fridge.
Baekhyun whimpered and when he turned to face Chanyeol his boyfriend's eyes were gleaming and hard, suppressing sadness and something akin to pain.
"It's in there, huh. Open it!"
And Baekhyun did, breathing a soundless prayer as his shaking hands closed around the handle of the fridge's door, pulling abruptly as hard as he could in the opposite direction of what Chanyeol had expected.
The steel door crashed against Chanyeol's hand that was holding the gun and Baekhyun smashed his elbow into Chanyeol's chest the moment his knee sunk deep between his boyfriend's legs. Chanyeol didn't even have time to scream when Baekhyun leaped for the gun and whacked it across his face.
"Asshole," Baekhyun spat as he climbed over Chanyeol's motionless body on the floor, the gun in his hand as he turned to grab the fridge's door. He frowned at the contents, always angry at the fact that his collection was missing the last pieces.
Kim Taehyung's dainty hands that should have been cut and frozen right along the other six pairs of hands were missing. But back that night when he had gotten rid of Taehyung's body and had texted Chanyeol with the dead boy's phone to come find him by the river side to coincidentally find Baekhyun instead, his neighbor had been too fast and Baekhyun had been forced to throw the hands into the river as well instead of carrying them home in his violin case as usual.
Back then he had wondered how Chanyeol had been so quick to find him, but not anymore. Baekhyun scoffed as he stared at the badge neatly pinned on Chanyeol's uniform underneath the thick coat. His boyfriend and love interest of years was a fucking cop- just Baekhyun's fucking luck.
"Fucking asshole," he spat again, this time more heartfelt as he softly kicked Chanyeol's face. All this rudeness and all the lies when Baekhyun had been so nice to kill all the worthless people Chanyeol had decided to date before him. Just because of their fucking hands- because Park Chanyeol was obsessed with pretty hands.
"Who's the freak now, you fucking psycho," Baekhyun laughed when he finally closed the door of his fridge.
Then came the tears. He sat down next to Chanyeol and wailed into his hands, utterly devastated that the boy he had loved and followed and watched for years had turned out to be a cop- the one that would get him in the end, because Baekhyun knew he wouldn't be able to kill him.
"Busted," Baekhyun sobbed as he got up and reached for the gun. He weighted it in his hands for a moment, before he carefully laid it besides Chanyeol and went to grab his violin instead.
The play was over, and he couldn't kill Chanyeol to save himself and his cover, because living without Chanyeol was pointless. He only lived to be with him.
Baekhyun left the apartment quietly and went to the river to play.
It was past midnight and Baekhyun sat on the brittle stone stairs leading to the Han River, his favorite place in the whole city.
In his hands he clutched his violin absentmindedly, his eyes staring motionlessly at the impervious, black water.
This was where he and Chanyeol had met for the first time, in a summer night just like tonight. And this was where Chanyeol would come and find him, and then kill him.
It only made sense, he had seen the pain and madness in Chanyeol's eyes when he had aimed at him with the gun. Baekhyun had killed each and every of his lovers in the past ten years and he couldn't even fathom the many things he must have felt while he had pretended to be Baekhyun's boyfriend, playing right along the tragedy.
Or maybe it was a comedy, because for everything that had went so ironically wrong Baekhyun found himself laughing and then sobbing as he cried. He cried for a long while, mourning the loss of the life he finally had with Chanyeol after years of getting rid of anything between them. How foolish he must have looked to Chanyeol, how dumb and disgusting to fall into every lie Chanyeol had built upon his own.
Baekhyun closed his eyes when he heard footsteps coming closer and then picked up his violin to clutch it to his heart. The gentle press of hard metal against his skull had him turning his head to face Chanyeol.
But there was no one. Just a pale hand pulling the trigger.
-
a/n: Chanyeol loved Baekhyun, too. Had Baekhyun not snooped around and found the photos (and badge) Chanyeol would have played pretend until forever.
So. Who do you think killed Baekhyun in the end?
Word Counts: Oneshot, 5k
Pairing: Chanyeol/Baekhyun
Rating: NC-17
Warning(s): smut, murder, a little bit of gore (but very tame)
Disclaimer:The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Baekhyun loved Chanyeol. Chanyeol loved Baekhyun's hands.
Allegro
It was past midnight and Baekhyun sat on the brittle stone stairs leading to the Han River, his favorite place in the whole city.
In his hands he clutched his violin absentmindedly, his eyes staring motionlessly at the impervious, black water.
This was where he and Chanyeol had met for the first time, in a summer night just like tonight. And this was where Chanyeol would come and find him, and then kill him.
It was quarter to midnight when all of a sudden Baekhyun was pulled out of his trance.
A hand touched his elbow, making him not only snap his eyes open with a shriek but also abruptly cut off the sonata he had been playing. The bow he had been drawing across the strings slipped off and produced a sound of such horrific disharmony that Baekhyun felt his toes curling painfully in his shoes. It almost surpassed the uncomfortable feeling of his heart jumping up to his throat and his stomach filling with ice at the touch of a foreign hand gripping his upper arm.
He turned with wide eyes, his free hand tightening around his violin's neck, but he knew he would never use it as a weapon. It was so dark where he had played at his favorite place by the river that he only saw the outlines of someone threateningly tall and for a second Baekhyun felt like freezing in shock and terror. He lifted his right leg and slammed his foot on top of whoever had touched him instead.
Almost instantly the hand let go of him and Baekhyun took a step back when the tall form doubled over with a groan. Baekhyun muffled a cry and quickly turned to grab his violin case and the bow he dropped. But before he could run a hand reached out for him again and this time a deep voice begged him to "Wait," before he could freak out.
Baekhyun stilled instinctively and only realized a second too late that trusting someone just because of a plea might not have been his wisest decision. But the voice was vaguely familiar and to his luck Baekhyun only needed another second to realize why.
It was his neighbor. Baekhyun knew this from the many times they had greeted each other in the elevator and in the tiny hallway separating the two apartment doors on their floor. Baekhyun would have wondered how in a city as large as Seoul both of them managed to meet at night by the Han River, but their apartment complex had a direct access to its concrete covered riverbank, a wooden stairway running down the hill complex on which they lived.
Baekhyun's favorite place by the river was a dozen of old concrete stairs leading directly into the river. It was far away enough from Mapo Bridge and their apartment complex that his lonely melodies didn't bother anyone. Which actually twisted the fact that his neighbor had found him into a strange coincidence once again.
Baekhyun took a deep breath and then yanked his arm out of his neighbor's grip. It only had his neighbor lifting his hand again, this time in an attempt to calm him down.
"Wait- Baekhyun, right? I'm your neighbor! Park Chanyeol?"
The fact that for years police and news channels had warned to stay away from the riverside at night suddenly flashed through Baekhyun's head and he took another step back. He was out here almost every night, but only his neighbors sudden presence made him feel as if he was in danger when usually he felt completely fine being here for hours all by himself.
"What are you doing here?" Baekhyun asked as he clutched his violin and its case close to his chest and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. His neighbor was still just an ominous outline in the dark and Baekhyun didn't relax his tense stance. His heart though- oh his heart was beating loudly in his chest at that name.
"I wanted to meet up with my boyfriend, but he-" Chanyeol left the sentence hanging and Baekhyun immediately had a vague idea of what had happened.
"He ditched you?" Somehow the fact that his neighbor was waiting hopelessly by the river at night softened his voice in pity and left a fluttering feeling in his stomach.
"Yeah, somehow they always ditch me." He sighed. "We broke up a few weeks ago, he just left and never answered my calls. A few hours ago he told me to meet him here, but he never came."
Baekhyun tilted his head compassionately, his lips pursing, but then his eyes widened. "He told you to meet him right here?" he asked, voice a tad suspicious again. To his relief his neighbor's outline shook its head.
"No, but I heard you play and- well I know the way you play. Especially this piece, you play it nonstop. I listen to it sometimes when I'm at home." There was a short moment of silence, Baekhyun at a loss of words and Chanyeol apparently a bit embarrassed. "You play really well," he added awkwardly.
Baekhyun choked, his heart beating loudly in his chest as he nodded with his face flushed. He clutched his violin tighter. "It's Chopin," he muttered and felt his face heating up even more at the sudden realization that his neighbor had recognized him playing. They both lapsed into silence for another awkward minute before Chanyeol cleared his throat.
"Right. I uh- should maybe walk you home? Since it's late and everything, I mean! It's- uh, It's the same way anyway-" He broke off again, clearly flustered.
Baekhyun felt his lips twitch and quickly bit down on them to stop himself from grinning. He was still somewhat suspicious, but the way his neighbor was so awkward around him endeared him to Baekhyun- it made him like him even more. He wordlessly put his violin and bow into the case and snapped it shut before he finally walked up to Chanyeol.
"Aren't you gonna wait for your boyfriend?"
"No." Baekhyun was so close to his neighbor that he could see him frowning now. "If he didn't show up until now I doubt he will at all. I don't think he'll come tonight."
Baekhyun nodded at his neighbor's words, oddly relieved and his heart squeezing in his chest now, and then shrugged. "Alright, walk me home then," He faltered and then flushed at his own words, his voice cracking when he added, "Since it's the same way anyway-"
His neighbor laughed at that, a streetlamp illuminating his handsome face and Baekhyun saw him smile down at him. The way he looked at him spread the heat on Baekhyun's cheeks down his body where it rested warm and pulsing in his chest.
Chanyeol was hiding a smile, but his eyes were wide and clear as they looked down at Baekhyun with something akin to fondness and satisfaction.
They talked the whole way back to their apartment and the elevator ride up to the 6th floor. Then they chatted for another hour in the hallway separating their apartments, before they finally parted their ways. Baekhyun's cheeks were numb from the many smiles his neighbor had pulled from him. By the time they exchanged their goodbyes Chanyeol's intentions of sweet words and smooth talk became crystal clear when the man bent down and brought one of Baekhyun's hands to his lips.
"Sweet dreams," he murmured against the pale flesh and Baekhyun felt his stomach twisting into knots. "And a promise to meet up for coffee later?"
Baekhyun felt his lips twitching again. He let them spread into a smile as he watched Chanyeol gripping tighter around his hands as if to hinder him from leaving without giving him an answer first.
"Only because you got stood up and I pity you," he laughed and then blushed some more when Chanyeol pulled his hand closer for another kiss against his fingertips. It was awfully intimate, and impossibly sweet. Baekhyun felt himself turning to mush.
"See you later for coffee then, Baekhyun," Chanyeol murmured with a last kiss to the middle of Baekhyun's palm before he smiled at him and let go. Baekhyun tried to remember how to breathe as he nodded speechlessly and turned to punch in the code of his apartment door with shaking fingers.
The skin on his hand which Chanyeol had kissed burned and pulsed for the rest of the night and Baekhyun twisted and turned in his bed, his heart pulsing wildly in his chest as he tried to banish all thoughts of his neighbor sleeping only a wall apart from him from his mind.
It was almost impossible to find sleep that night and when he finally fell into an exhausted slumber it was to the satisfying thought of having someone he kind of had an eye on for months having kissed his hand and asking him out for coffee.
After a week of increasing talks in the hallway, coffee dates every other day and holding hands the second half of the week Chanyeol smooth-talked him to bed.
It was fine though, Baekhyun had been expecting it and, if he was honest with himself, wanted it since the first night Chanyeol had walked him home. He had been interested in Chanyeol since forever and had crushed on him just as long.
When Chanyeol took his hands tenderly in his own overly large and warm ones and when he tugged Baekhyun closer to his chest as they had stood between their apartments again Baekhyun let him lead him into his apartment and wordlessly allowed his neighbor to slip his hands under his clothes and his tongue into his mouth. Chanyeol was skilled and quick, his hands stripping Baekhyun so fast while pressing into all the right places until Baekhyun's head was spinning and his knees weakening.
With a laugh Chanyeol picked him up to carry him into his bedroom, his apartment an exact mirror of Baekhyun's, though somewhat cleaner, more minimalistic. For a confusing second this cleared the haze in Baekhyun's head as he stared at the barren walls and when he was lowered on Chanyeol's bed at the sparsely decorated room. Somehow the spare interior didn't fit the charming and lively personality of his neighbor, but before he could wonder longer about it Chanyeol climbed on top of him and captured his lips in another kiss.
Every thought besides the here and now flew out of his mind then and Baekhyun closed his eyes and concentrated on the way his neighbor’s lips felt on his skin as the trailed down his chest, calloused fingertips unbuttoning his shirt as a tongue dipped into his navel. Baekhyun gasped, his face blushing pink and he writhed on his neighbor's bed when his thighs were spread. Chanyeol trailed kissed down the insides of them, his warm tongue dipping into the soft flesh to lick at bruises he had left and then Baekhyun cried out when his neighbor's lips nipped the hard flesh between his legs.
He was trembling, his thighs weakly spread apart as Chanyeol spent his sweet time savoring him. Only when Baekhyun was an incoherent mess did his neighbor lift his face from between his legs and the way he grinned up at him with his hair disheveled and his lips slick left Baekhyun whimpering weakly.
His neighbor lifted himself up on his arms and Baekhyun licked his lips at the way Chanyeol's biceps flexed under his skin. He looked so strong and handsome and Baekhyun felt an intense heat curling low in his stomach and throbbing between his legs as he closed his thighs around the man's hips to pull him close to himself.
Chanyeol looked surprised, but laughed at his eagerness, his hands reaching out to cup Baekhyun's face to cradle it for a moment before finally sinking down again to cage the smaller in between his arms. He was kissing Baekhyun while he still held him tenderly, Baekhyun's own hands gripping the bulging hard muscles on Chanyeol's arms. When Chanyeol let go of him he gasped, his wet breath mixing with his neighbor's who rubbed his thumbs along the rim of Baekhyun's wet eyes.
Chanyeol's hands were warm when they entwined with his and Baekhyun's chest constricted painfully when the man lifted them up to press kisses on the back of them. The gesture was oddly intimate, but sweet and Baekhyun breathed calmly when Chanyeol let go to slip the last pieces of clothing from their bodies.
Baekhyun lied spent and exhausted on top of Chanyeol's broad chest when they calmed down. One of his hands was back in Chanyeol's again and he felt his neighbor pressing kisses to the tips of his fingers. It made him smile and lift up his head to stare at the handsome man underneath him and when Chanyeol caught him staring he slipped Baekhyun's fingers into his mouth to suck on them.
Baekhyun's breath hitched and he felt his nether regions stirring when his neighbor manipulated his fingers to slid in and out of his wet mouth. With a groan, because he was way too exhausted but also way too excited for this, Baekhyun pulled his fingers out of Chanyeol's mouth to attack it with his lips instead.
His neighbor laughed into the kiss, his hands gripping Baekhyun's hips to steady him and he groaned when Baekhyun started to grind.
"Your hands-" He still managed to grunt out when Baekhyun rolled his hips and pressed his half hard cock against Chanyeol's stirring one. "They're the most beautiful I've ever seen-"
Baekhyun gasped when Chanyeol lifted his hips to press back, his eyes rolling as he moaned quietly and gripped harder around Chanyeol's arms.
"My- mother gave them- ah!- to me-" He stammered, then he lost the coherency to form words as he reduced all his senses to feel.
"She also gave you nice hips and a perfect pair of-" Chanyeol muttered as he grabbed Baekhyun's ass cheeks and kneaded them in his hands, but ended the sentence with a groan when Baekhyun rolled his hips forcefully again.
"No talking," Baekhyun gasped and Chanyeol nodded feverishly when he reached for the smaller's neck to pull him down for a kiss.
They spent the following weeks like this, dating, kissing and then Chanyeol pulling Baekhyun along with him to his apartment when night came.
Baekhyun's lonely nights by the river were replaced with playing for Chanyeol as they sat in bed, Baekhyun leaning against Chanyeol's chest as the latter covered the hand holding the violin with his own.
Their relationship was perfect. Chanyeol was the sweetest and most attentive boyfriend Baekhyun could have wished for. He took care of him tenderly, always a smile always a kiss for him when he pulled on the strings of his violin in frustration and groaned when the melodies were stubborn to flow.
Baekhyun spent every minute of the day at Chanyeol's place, always clinging to him and always smiling while Chanyeol held his hand the whole day with a smile. On the days Chanyeol had to leave for work it took hours of kissing and closeness before Baekhyun would be willing to let go of his boyfriend. Chanyeol endured it with a good natured smile, but his eyes looked thoughtful whenever Baekhyun would press his face against his neck.
It was one month into their relationship when one of the violin strings broke while Baekhyun tuned the instrument. He cried out in shock when the wire slashed open his palm. It wasn't the first time this had happened to him and Baekhyun only stared at the blood pooling on his skin for a second before he frowned and licked it away.
His hand was pulled away from his mouth by a frantic looking Chanyeol, his eyes wide open as he stared at Baekhyun's injured palm. Baekhyun tilted his head in question, but didn't worry about Chanyeol's unusual pale face until he started cursing loudly. One of his thumbs was digging uncomfortably close to the fresh wound and Baekhyun flinched, his eyes tearing up as he tried to pull his hand out of Chanyeol's grip.
Chanyeol only tightened his grip on him, but his hard eyes softened and he quickly pulled up Baekhyun's hand to lick the blood away himself. The way he carefully tended to the thin wound and then pressed a kiss to it comforted Baekhyun, but he was still wondering about Chanyeol's upset eyes.
"Your beautiful hands," Chanyeol murmured eventually and his voice was so sad that Baekhyun felt his chest constricting guiltily. If only he had been a bit more careful. "Baek, please take better care of them- I can't see you hurt like this."
Baekhyun nodded wordlessly, a bit dazed when Chanyeol let go of him to bend forward and kiss him.
"I'll be more careful," he promised and the way his words made Chanyeol smile again had Baekhyun's heart warming up and swelling with love.
Autumn passed, then winter, spring and it was summer again when the bloated, half eaten and decomposed body of Chanyeol's ex-boyfriend was fished out of the Han River. Baekhyun only learned about this, because he watched the morning news in his own apartment.
Chanyeol was on a trip with his colleagues from work and even though Baekhyun had a key to his apartment he didn't feel like staying all alone in his boyfriend's sphere. The thought of being apart from Chanyeol made him feel physically ill, but staying alone where they used to be together all the time was even worse. Baekhyun gritted his teeth and wrapped his arms around himself as he forced down his longing and need for his boyfriend. The morning news pulled him out of his misery.
Baekhyun didn't know the face of Chanyeol's ex de facto, but he knew the name, Kim Taehyung. His corpse was missing his hands and classified him unmistakably as one of the thousand-hands murderer's victims.
Baekhyun stared at the pictures of the newest and all the former victims the news showed along the report and felt his stomach turning in uneasiness as he noticed the last victim's eyes ...so familiar and not unlike his own. He grabbed his violin with shaking fingers, because it was beside him and he needed the comfort of it in his hands.
As he listened to the report he stared at his hands, imagining them covered in blood and missing fingers, but the image was so horrible that it left him gasping with his heart beating wildly in his chest. A weird thought crossed his mind and his boyfriend's face flashed in front of his eyes, months ago at the Han River when they had first met.
He felt almost dizzy when he got up and left his apartment to enter Chanyeol's. As sparsely decorated as it was, Chanyeol had a shelf full of books and important documents. Maybe a box of pictures, too, and that was exactly what Baekhyun was searching for.
He laid down his violin on top of Chanyeol's living room table and then stood up on his tiptoes to search the highest shelf. He found what he was looking for almost immediately and pulled the shoebox he had grabbed down to open it as he sat down on the floor. Inside of it there were pictures, some of Kim Taehyung, a few of Chanyeol, but most of him, Baekhyun. From before he had started to see Chanyeol, all the years back even before he had moved in here.
Baekhyun let the pictures fall down with shaking fingers, his heart beating wildly when he realized that his boyfriend had most probably stalked him, at least a little and what this meant. There was only one reason why Chanyeol would have done that.
The way they had met at the river months ago flashed through his mind again and he whimpered quietly to himself.
When he turned to close the shoebox another picture caught his eyes. It was one of a girl, a pretty little thing with white skin and large eyes. Baekhyun knew who she was, Bae Juhyun, but three years ago her unblemished skin had been just as rotten just as eaten by fish as Kim Taehyung's. She, too, had been a victim of the thousand-hands killer, and in her case, too, the police had never found her missing digits.
Baekhyun let the picture fall back into the box with shaking fingers, his eyes following it as it landed on something hidden on the bottom of it. His face was ashen when he reached out and traced the tip of one finger against the hard metal of a gun.
"My god, Chanyeol-" he breathed out, his voice breaking as the impossible dreadfulness of the situation occurred to him. He closed his hands around the cold barrel, his stomach turning as he realized the absurdity of everything. He gripped around the gun for a moment longer, but then pulled his hand back, his fingers catching on more metal, a needle and a sharp edge. With a gasp he jerked back, but it was too late. Blood smudged some of the pictures in the box and Baekhyun cried out in dread when he realized what he had done.
He closed the shoebox hastily and with terror numbing his body put it back on its place on the highest shelf. His head was spinning and his stomach lurching. The image of the gun kept tormenting him and he almost fled back to his apartment.
He spent the rest of the day in his bed, sobbing into his injured hand. Only hours later, when he heard Chanyeol returning from his trip did he remember his violin forgotten on his boyfriend's glass table.
Chanyeol was unusually quiet when he knocked on Baekhyun's door the next morning.
He was in his coat- his uniform and shoes. In his hands he had Baekhyun's violin, in his other the shoebox with the pictures. Baekhyun's eyes widened and he swallowed when he saw it, his stomach clenching in both fear and pain. Chanyeol's eyes looked heartbroken when he hesitated to let him in.
In the end Baekhyun quietly stepped aside, letting his boyfriend in and closing the door as Chanyeol walked into Baekhyun's bedroom and sat down on his bed. The way he looked at him made Baekhyun shudder in nervousness.
"You found my treasure box," Chanyeol said quietly and his lips pulled into halfhearted smile that was more forced than anything else. Baekhyun wordlessly nodded.
"Taehyung was found in the river yesterday I heard," Chanyeol continued and his eyes stared at Baekhyun's every reaction to his words. "Same as Juhyun. And Yunho hyung. And Taemin and Minseok hyung and Jongin." Chanyeol laughed, but it wasn't a happy one. "All my exes ended up dead in the river. All their pretty hands gone- ah! Makes you kinda wonder about you, doesn't it Baek?"
Baekhyun swallowed, but stared wide-eyed at his boyfriend.
"I've been watching you for so long Baek. I've known you for so long, too- I've always... I've always wanted you."
Chanyeol sighed and dropped the box in his hands. The photos spilled from it and scattered across Baekhyun's bedroom floor. Chanyeol tilted his head and then slowly pulled the gun out of his halter hidden underneath the coat. Baekhyun trembled and his legs almost gave way when his boyfriend smiled sadly and aimed at him.
"Come now, Baekhyun. You snooped around and I'm afraid you saw too much. I would have loved to spend more time with you, but you aren't clueless anymore, are you?"
"Chanyeol-" Baekhyun finally croaked out, his eyes wide with fear when his boyfriend curled his finger around the trigger and- laughed, lowering the gun again, but not taking it away from where it still aimed at Baekhyun.
"Don't you have a shoebox of pictures, too, that you want to share with me?" Chanyeol chuckled, but he sounded heartbroken. When Baekhyun shook his head he laughed harder, almost sobbing, before he got up and walked to him. He nudged him with his gun as he stared down at him, every speck of amusement gone from his eyes which were icy cold when he told Baekhyun to move.
"You know why I'm here Baek," he said softly and Baekhyun felt like crying at the way Chanyeol's voice sounded so soothingly soft. He nodded, tears sliding down his cheeks as he let Chanyeol force him through his apartment.
"Show me your shoebox," Chanyeol muttered when he pushed Baekhyun roughly into the kitchen, another sad smile spreading on his lips when Baekhyun's smaller body crashed against the hard fridge.
Baekhyun whimpered and when he turned to face Chanyeol his boyfriend's eyes were gleaming and hard, suppressing sadness and something akin to pain.
"It's in there, huh. Open it!"
And Baekhyun did, breathing a soundless prayer as his shaking hands closed around the handle of the fridge's door, pulling abruptly as hard as he could in the opposite direction of what Chanyeol had expected.
The steel door crashed against Chanyeol's hand that was holding the gun and Baekhyun smashed his elbow into Chanyeol's chest the moment his knee sunk deep between his boyfriend's legs. Chanyeol didn't even have time to scream when Baekhyun leaped for the gun and whacked it across his face.
"Asshole," Baekhyun spat as he climbed over Chanyeol's motionless body on the floor, the gun in his hand as he turned to grab the fridge's door. He frowned at the contents, always angry at the fact that his collection was missing the last pieces.
Kim Taehyung's dainty hands that should have been cut and frozen right along the other six pairs of hands were missing. But back that night when he had gotten rid of Taehyung's body and had texted Chanyeol with the dead boy's phone to come find him by the river side to coincidentally find Baekhyun instead, his neighbor had been too fast and Baekhyun had been forced to throw the hands into the river as well instead of carrying them home in his violin case as usual.
Back then he had wondered how Chanyeol had been so quick to find him, but not anymore. Baekhyun scoffed as he stared at the badge neatly pinned on Chanyeol's uniform underneath the thick coat. His boyfriend and love interest of years was a fucking cop- just Baekhyun's fucking luck.
"Fucking asshole," he spat again, this time more heartfelt as he softly kicked Chanyeol's face. All this rudeness and all the lies when Baekhyun had been so nice to kill all the worthless people Chanyeol had decided to date before him. Just because of their fucking hands- because Park Chanyeol was obsessed with pretty hands.
"Who's the freak now, you fucking psycho," Baekhyun laughed when he finally closed the door of his fridge.
Then came the tears. He sat down next to Chanyeol and wailed into his hands, utterly devastated that the boy he had loved and followed and watched for years had turned out to be a cop- the one that would get him in the end, because Baekhyun knew he wouldn't be able to kill him.
"Busted," Baekhyun sobbed as he got up and reached for the gun. He weighted it in his hands for a moment, before he carefully laid it besides Chanyeol and went to grab his violin instead.
The play was over, and he couldn't kill Chanyeol to save himself and his cover, because living without Chanyeol was pointless. He only lived to be with him.
Baekhyun left the apartment quietly and went to the river to play.
It was past midnight and Baekhyun sat on the brittle stone stairs leading to the Han River, his favorite place in the whole city.
In his hands he clutched his violin absentmindedly, his eyes staring motionlessly at the impervious, black water.
This was where he and Chanyeol had met for the first time, in a summer night just like tonight. And this was where Chanyeol would come and find him, and then kill him.
It only made sense, he had seen the pain and madness in Chanyeol's eyes when he had aimed at him with the gun. Baekhyun had killed each and every of his lovers in the past ten years and he couldn't even fathom the many things he must have felt while he had pretended to be Baekhyun's boyfriend, playing right along the tragedy.
Or maybe it was a comedy, because for everything that had went so ironically wrong Baekhyun found himself laughing and then sobbing as he cried. He cried for a long while, mourning the loss of the life he finally had with Chanyeol after years of getting rid of anything between them. How foolish he must have looked to Chanyeol, how dumb and disgusting to fall into every lie Chanyeol had built upon his own.
Baekhyun closed his eyes when he heard footsteps coming closer and then picked up his violin to clutch it to his heart. The gentle press of hard metal against his skull had him turning his head to face Chanyeol.
But there was no one. Just a pale hand pulling the trigger.
-
a/n: Chanyeol loved Baekhyun, too. Had Baekhyun not snooped around and found the photos (and badge) Chanyeol would have played pretend until forever.
So. Who do you think killed Baekhyun in the end?