2014: once upon a dream (for EVERYONE)
For: EVERYONE
From: ANONYMOUS until December 30, 2014
Title: once upon a dream
Rating: G
Pairing(s)/Focus: Baekhyun/Tao
Length: 6,376 words
Summary: A fantastic idea hits famous manhwa author Byun Baekhyun, right after the completion of his latest popular series. While brainstorming, he drifts off to sleep… and wakes up in his own story?
Notes: I think I was completely on crack while planning and writing this. Special thanks to Senpaii for so many things that could’ve almost gone wrong in here. Nonetheless, I had a really fun time writing this, so thank you for the fun prompt, and I hope you like this, recipient! *w* (P.S. I think I’ve written Baekhyun to be overly shoujo manga heroine-like, but I really… like that.)
It is a slow, chilly December evening, and with the weather slowly becoming colder, it would be a lovely night to drag out the blankets and waste time watching TV and eating heated leftover pasta from last night, snuggled in the cocoon of blankets.
If only. Baekhyun’s phone rings from the other side of the couch, and he reaches out, stretching his arm as far as he can. He has to set his bowl of pasta down before just barely managing to grab his phone. He huffs, wincing at the volume of the ringtone before picking up.
“Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo’s voice is fuzzy over the telephone, and Baekhyun cringes, inching away from the receiver. “The publisher is asking if you’ll be publishing anything over the Christmas break or not.”
“Are you serious? I didn’t think Jonghyun-hyung was such a demanding publisher-in-charge,” Baekhyun whines, “we just published the last chapter of Edge of Silver last week and he wants a new thing over the break?”
“It’s exactly because your Edge of Silver was so well-received that they’re reconsidering whether to publish the December/January issue since they rarely ever do. It’s all for you, ” Kyungsoo mutters, exasperated.
Baekhyun hears muffled crying in the background as Kyungsoo sighs into the phone. “Is that your baby cousin?” He asks, “have you gone back just to babysit her? Why couldn’t you babysit me too? I’m having leftovers from yesterday for dinner?”
Another sigh. “She’s crying because she heard your voice. Anyway, can you please address the issue at hand? Jonghyun-hyung said he was going to track me down soon if I don’t reply him in three days.”
From the corner of his eye, Baekhyun stares at the TV but doesn’t register anything the tour guide on the programme is saying. “I’ll let you know by tomorrow, then,” a pause, “happy holidays anyway, Kyungsoo,” he answers, and before Kyungsoo says anything, he hangs up.
Wriggling out of the blankets, he lets out a long exhale before dumping the remaining pasta into the trash.
-
It’s not like Baekhyun is lazy to write, draw, or anything. It’s not like he doesn’t want to give more to fans, not that he minds the affection from his readers or anything, but… as he strolls along the busy streets of Apgujeong, he realizes.
He freezes on the spot because, well, yeah. He’s out of ideas. Meekly, he clutches the straps of his backpack and walks by a large bookstore. He’s this close to pulling his phone out and telling Kyungsoo that he won’t be submitting anything this time until a few girls rush by him, clutching copies of the final volume of Edge of Silver, wide grins on their faces.
“I got them!” A girl squeals to two other girls, “the last few copies off the shelves!”
They immediately flip through the pages, even though the snow is starting to pile along the roadsides, and the tips of their ears and their cheeks are tinged red. “Tao is so good-looking here, as always… it’s like the more Mr. Byun draws Tao, the more charming he becomes!”
“Ah,” the tallest girl says, “but this is the last volume, right…”
Mr. Byun Baekhyun in question flushes at the realization that he is eavesdropping on a conversation between his readers and dashes off to the nearest supermarket. There, he yanks his phone out of his pocket with numb fingers and makes a call to Kyungsoo excitedly. “Kyungsoo? Tell Jonghyun to cease his hunt. I will draw something for the new issue.”
“You sound really excited - did you find inspiration somewhere?”
“Yeah, I think I did. Call me when you’re coming back, and help me say hi to the little devil you’re babysitting!”
Baekhyun slips the phone back into his pocket, and prepares to stack up cans of coffee for his upcoming drawing session.
The air is still cold as he walks home from there, but he feels warm all over - and so he decides, that this new installment shall be a gift for his readers - a spinoff to Edge of Silver!
-
Now, the coffee is in the fridge, and the lights in his house are all switched off except the one on his work desk, and there is a box of early Christmas cookies from his friendly neighbors he received several hours ago, and yeah, he should probably start brainstorming.
Baekhyun wants to write something for his readers, perhaps something about romance that can showcase his main character’s charms and hopefully to satisfy the reader’s wishes to see another more attractive side to him. Except…
Except Tao, the main character of Edge of Silver, is a fearless young prince of an abandoned kingdom ruined by the betrayal of his dearest relatives, with fiery red hair, piercing golden eyes and a heart to get revenge and justice for his destroyed home. He travels through cities and countries, meets good friends, and slays enemies, but… he… has never had a love interest. How was he going to write this?
Should he change Tao’s personality and just keep his appearance? Should he change the setting to, let’s say, to a school life instead? Anyway, he still has to come up with a design for his love interest…
…After a torturous research session on the internet for inspiration, he roughly sketches the design of the female lead, and begins to draw.
-
Baekhyun has to thank the stack of romance mangas and novels from his favorite authors he has at home for the sudden influx of ideas he’s receiving now. Perhaps it’s because he has been writing adventure for too long, that all his suppressed romantic fantasies are escaping him only now. Well, as long as it benefits him, all is well.
Twenty pages into the rough draft - Baekhyun sets down his pencil and sinks into his chair. It’s three at night, he notes as he rubs at his eyes blearily, but it’s nice to know that he’s made such immense progress. He thinks about getting some coffee and continuing drawing into the night, but he’s too lazy to get up, so he ends up admiring his character designs and his rough plot as of now. He closes his sketchbook, and on the first page, scribbles Endless Winter on the cover.
Before he knows it, his head suddenly feels too heavy, and he blinks slowly before drifting off to sleep.
-
Baekhyun wakes up to the dull and familiar sound of a school bell chiming. He blinks several times, and sits up. The sudden movement makes his head spin and he has to catch his breath before he can open his eyes again.
It wasn’t him hearing things then - he really is in a lecture hall, the left side of his face numb from sleeping on the small retractable desk and drool on his empty notebook. Is he dreaming? He’s pretty sure he ended things with formal education some years ago. The bell chimes again, signaling the end of the lecture and Baekhyun watches, blankly, as people begin to pack their bags and leave.
“You’ve been asleep the whole lecture,” the person on his right says, nudging him with a notebook. “These are the notes I copied, if you want them.”
“Ah, I-” Baekhyun fumbles for a bit, before turning to the person and getting probably the biggest shock of his life. It’s Tao! The protagonist of his own series, I designed this god damned face, he thinks, but of course. It’s real life Tao. He can’t believe this. “Thank you, but I don’t think I will need it.”
He can’t be mistaken - the flaming red hair and smoldering gold eyes are the ones he’s had nurtured over years and years of drawing. It was just last year when he received a fanmail requesting that he drew a realistic version of Tao; and so he did, and published the colored drawing to one of his affiliated manhwa magazines. The drawing received so much love from his female readers that the publishers at that time tried talking him into releasing more realistic drawings of Tao.
Well, Baekhyun had rejected the offer, despite the fans’ constant pleas and his publishers insisting it would boost readership for Edge of Silver. After all, Tao was drawn to be a fictional character in manhwa style, not to be realistic. Besides, red hair and golden eyes probably won’t look realistic anyway…
But here is real life Tao, with his red hair and golden eyes, which probably should stand out from the crowd, but no one seems to be making a ruckus over him. Tao nods without a word, and then holds out a packet of tissue. “Then you might need this? For your…” he doesn’t continue, but eyes Baekhyun’s notebook, stained with drool.
With a start, Baekhyun realizes that whatever blasphemy is happening right now is whatever he drew in his draft before he fell asleep. Now, he can’t even tell dreams apart from reality, but this doesn’t feel like a dream…
“Well, then I guess I shall be going, then. I have a class now. See you around,” Tao says, leaving the tissues on Baekhyun’s desk. This doesn’t happen in his storyboard, maybe because the female lead accepted his help and all, but still-
“Wait, what’s your name?”
“I’m Tao,” he answers, without turning back.
“I’m Baekhyun,” he says, but Tao is already gone.
The lecture hall is beginning to be filled by students for the next lecture, and Baekhyun hurriedly stuffs his things into his backpack on the floor and dashes out of the hall.
-
Baekhyun guesses it’s lunch time, since the cafeteria is so packed that he had to take fifteen minutes to maneuver through the human jam, and many groups of students are relaxing on the empty field, enjoying their lunch. From where he’s sitting, under a huge tree, Baekhyun sighs and pinches his left cheek. It hurts, but the pain is slightly diffused probably because he was sleeping on it just now. So this isn’t a dream? But Baekhyun is definitely not a student, right? Did he travel back in time, then? But he doesn’t recall his college feeling so grandiose and new…
Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t even realize when Tao has plopped next to him with an extra sandwich.
“Not even eating lunch?” Tao asks, handing him a sandwich.
I drew this too, Baekhyun thinks, and thinks of ways he could thwart the story again, but it would be outright mean to do anything else except accepting it for now. So he takes it, and eats reluctantly. He doesn’t even belong here, he wants to shout, I made you, he also wants to say, but what if all these were real? His cheek hurt, too.
“I’ve always seen you in the social science lectures, but I’ve never spoken to you - today is my first attempt. Does this shock you?” Tao says through a mouth of tomatoes and lettuce, eyes looking far into the sky.
Baekhyun wrote that line, too. He wonders if he’s unknowingly created a dream universe just by writing and drawing, or if he’s simply too caught up in this plot that he’s dreaming about it. It’s such a pity that these lines were meant for his pretty female protagonist and not to be wasted on the creator. He thinks about what he wrote for the girl’s reply-“Your red hair stands out in the hall as well, so I’ve seen you a lot too - it’s not that shocking.”
Tao’s eyes widen a little, and he stops chewing. “What’s your name?”
Oh yeah, he never got to hear it. “Baekhyun.”
“That’s a nice name,” Tao mutters. “Do you have any classes left, by the way? I’m done for the day, and the next hour classes are starting soon so if you have them you need to go.”
“You make it sound like I’m new here,” Baekhyun laughs, “but I don’t know where my timetable went,” he lies, “I only remembered the morning lectures, so I’m lost for the afternoon.”
“Okay, let’s ditch class then. Do you want to go home?”
Home, Baekhyun thinks, but he doesn’t know where that is, in this world.
“Nope. Let’s go somewhere else.”
-
If Baekhyun didn’t know better, he wouldn’t have imagined somewhere else to be the arcade, but he knows, because he wrote it. It is actually such a pity because he’s spoiling the surprises before he even sees it himself. What’s going to happen next is that Tao will win him a cute plush toy from the UFO catcher machines, and because Tao is so good at that, he wins them extra toys so they will have matching plush bunnies.
As Baekhyun watches Tao knit his brows together in concentration trying to catch the toys, he wonders idly how he can change the plot of his own story. It’s getting kind of boring, having everything going by his plans…
“Seriously…” Tao mutters, shoving his fifth dollar note into the machine. “Why can’t I catch any?”
Baekhyun leans against the side of the machine and chuckles. Well, looks like it isn’t going all according to his plans, anyway.
-
They end up leaving the arcade center with only one successfully captured plush toy (after sixteen tries-even the ahjumma at the counter was beginning to take interest in the futile attempts), and it isn’t a bunny - it’s a huge brown cat with a long tail. Its eyes are beady and bright amber and the ends of its eyes slant up and for a horrifying moment Baekhyun is reminded of Tao. He shudders, and quickens his pace to catch up to Tao, who is still complaining about his incompetency, promising to buy Baekhyun more toys instead.
-
They part ways at the crossroad outside the mall. It’s cold - too cold - for students clad in nothing more than the standard winter school uniform and nothing else. Baekhyun can feel the tips of his fingers numbing slowly, so he clutches on to the cat plush toy tighter in his hands. Tao doesn’t look at Baekhyun when he says goodbye, just runs his fingers through Baekhyun’s hair and leaves without a second glance.
When Baekhyun realizes he doesn’t have a home to go to (or rather, he doesn’t know where that is, because Dream Baekhyun shouldn’t be homeless), he runs up to Tao and yanks at the sleeve of his blazer, panting.
Tao turns around, a quizzical look on his face.
“Uh, I… I had a huge fight with my parents yesterday, so I really don’t want to go home. Is it okay if I crash at your place instead? I mean, it’s fine if it’s inconvenient - I can always go to the sauna, you know-”
“’s fine,” Tao interjects with a soft voice. “I live alone.”
Baekhyun heaves a heavy sigh internally. Of course he knows. This is so silly.
“But,” Tao continues, “it’s already Friday. Are you going to go home tomorrow? Won’t your family be worried if you don’t go home on the weekends?”
“How can I be rebellious if I just go home tomorrow?” Baekhyun retorts, pouting, “I need to at least brave through the weekend outside.”
Baekhyun is extremely bad at lying. Since young, he’s never had successfully lied once - or maybe just once, when he was in middle school and had to fake a stomachache to skip school because he didn’t let his parents sign his test papers. Kyungsoo had told him, in more recent years that Baekhyun’s lies never go through because he’s too obvious when he lies. His eyes dart everywhere except the person he’s lying to, he fiddles with his fingers unnecessarily and he gulps too often. He hopes these don’t show now - or that Tao was just a bad observer.
“Okay,” Tao just says, eyes not looking at Baekhyun as well. “Follow me, then.”
Tao’s legs are long and his strides are quick and fast, so Baekhyun has some trouble catching up. He wonders if his girl protagonist will manage fine, but that is manhwa, and this is Baekhyun, Baekhyun and his stumpy, short legs. He brushes off those thoughts and walks faster, puffs of hot exhale leaving his lips and the icy chill biting at his cheeks.
-
“Just leave your stuff wherever you want to - I’ll go start the shower and prepare the guest room,” Tao says after switching the heater system on, tossing his bag on the couch and yanking his tie off.
“You don’t have to trouble yourself, I’m fine with sleeping on the couch.”
Tao cracks a smile when he turns behind. “Just be good and listen to me.”
Baekhyun’s cheeks flush, but he blames it on the heater in the apartment.
-
Tao makes decent food - decent is an understatement when Baekhyun is already demanding for seconds when Tao is only halfway through his plate of fried rice. Baekhyun knows that Tao is perfect in all aspects because he crafted him with his own hands, but it’s still nice being able to enjoy such nice food and have a warm apartment to house him in the harsh winter.
Besides, the back view of Tao in a singlet and sweatpants at the stove is kinda nice. Baekhyun now can empathize with his female readers for being infatuated with his character.
“What’re you staring at?”
Baekhyun snaps out of his reverie and realizes that Tao is already sitting at the table again, and the smell of fried rice under his nose makes Baekhyun grin. “You’re a real great cook!”
Tao cracks a smile, and answers after a while. “You’re really weird, you know. We just met today, and I told you that I’ve been noticing you for a long time, and you invited me to go to the mall, and now you’re in the house of a guy you just met for not even a full day.”
“It feels like I’ve known you for a while,” Baekhyun smiles back, and, well, it’s not even a lie. “Besides, you don’t look like a bad guy to me. I have no money, no good grades, and no looks, so you probably can’t profit off me in any way…”
Wordlessly, Tao stands up to move his empty plate into the sink. “You’re really dense too, Baekhyun. Anyway, good night. I’m tired, so I’m sleeping first. You can leave the dishes there if you don’t wanna do them - I’ll do it when I wake up. Good night.”
“What… do you mean by I’m dense?” Baekhyun blurts, hands tightly fisted in the thin material of Tao’s singlet.
“Why do you think I only talked to you today even though I’ve always seen you, always watched you?” Tao murmurs, not facing Baekhyun. “I had no courage, but today I finally decided to talk to you, to befriend you, and you responded so readily, so I… I’m at a loss…”
“Could it be that you…” Baekhyun trails off, but he knows. Tao likes the female protagonist, he knows - but this is Baekhyun, and instead of always looking over the story as the creator, he’s feeling Tao’s emotions first-hand, and it throws him off guard. “Wait, so you think that I’m an easy guy and now you’re disappointed or something?”
“I’m not disappointed, I’m just… taken aback? I’ve always prepared myself for rejection…” The tips of Tao’s ears are turning red, and even though Baekhyun can’t see Tao’s face, he’s sure Tao’s blushing too.
“Rejection? But you… I…”
Tao pulls Baekhyun along so that they’re both draped over the couch. It’s a snug fit - if Baekhyun wriggled a little, Tao would fall off the couch. The beating of Tao’s heart is loud against Baekhyun’s back and he lets it resonate through his frame.
“Just sleep. Good night.”
There are no blankets over them, and the snow continues to fall outside, but Baekhyun feels so warm. He lets the fried rice settle in his stomach and lets slumber claim him.
-
Baekhyun wakes up to sizzling sounds and the smell of fried eggs and bacon. Wait, he’s about a hundred percent positive that Kyungsoo isn’t back from his vacation yet and he’s never hired any housekeeper, so…? It couldn’t be that his mother decided to visit him out of no reason, could it?
“You’re awake,” Tao says, face hovering over Baekhyun’s.
Baekhyun gasps in shock and sits up so fast that his forehead knocks against Tao’s chin. “I-I’m sorry! Are you okay?”
“As okay as I can be,” Tao replies, rubbing his chin with a small smile. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
“It was fine,” Baekhyun replies, and is shocked by how coarse his voice sounds and the sting in his throat. “Eh?”
Tao raises an eyebrow in question as Baekhyun feels his cheeks and neck for his temperature. Tao just leans in close and presses their foreheads together. “Hmm… it feels like you caught a cold.”
“A cold? But I was still fine yesterday!” Baekhyun tries to argue, but starts to cough.
Tao sighs. “Just stay here, okay? Looks like someone won’t get to eat good food today.” Baekhyun is about to retort but Tao presses a finger against Baekhyun’s flushed lips. “Shh, we don’t want your throat to die. I’ll go find medicine.”
-
Somehow, Baekhyun ends up sitting on the couch with a cooling pack on his forehead and a surgical mask over half of his face. He can’t even watch TV properly because he has to tilt his head up slightly to ensure that the cooling pack doesn’t fall off, and his stomach keeps grumbling because Tao is taking his own sweet time cooking porridge for Baekhyun.
He’s on the verge of falling asleep when Tao finally sets the bowl of hot porridge on the coffee table before Baekhyun. Baekhyun hurriedly wolfs down a spoonful of steaming porridge before he shrieks at the scalding hotness in his mouth. He curses after swallowing the mouthful, and then sticks his tongue out in defeat. “Ith tho hot,” he whines, wriggling his tongue as he sighs.
Tao doesn’t say anything for a moment, but leans down to capture Baekhyun’s tongue and gently sucks on it. “What an idiot.”
Baekhyun tries to say something, but all that leaves him are puffs of air and incoherent syllables. “You-I-it still hurts, why did you-”
“Didn’t I tell you? You’re dense. Please stop seducing me like that - my self-control might really snap one of these days,” Tao sighs, ending up having to blow the porridge until it’s not that hot and feeding it to Baekhyun.
“S-seducing, you say,” Baekhyun mutters, after the porridge’s finished, and Tao’s bustling in the kitchen, “when did I do that.”
“You always do,” Tao grumbles, suddenly appearing next to Baekhyun on the couch.
Baekhyun’s thankful for the mask for it blocks half of his blushing from view, but he still can’t stop sinking into the couch. “Well, it wasn’t intentional, then.”
“Following a guy to his house without question, insisting to sleep on the couch, and then leaving your tongue hanging... like that… I couldn’t stop myself if I wanted to, anyway.”
Tao begins to lean in closer to Baekhyun, and Baekhyun’s already so deep into the couch that he doesn’t have threshold to retreat to anymore. This is bad, but his heart is beating too fast, and the increasing proximity only clouds his mind even more. Baekhyun meets Tao’s gaze, and quickly averts his eyes after seeing the intense look in Tao’s eyes.
Sighing, Tao swiftly yanks Baekhyun’s mask down to place a soft kiss on Baekhyun’s lips before ruffling his hair. “I’ll be going to get groceries, so you can rest for a while.”
“It’s contagious, stupid!” Baekhyun yells at Tao’s back right before he opens the apartment door.
“And that’s all you’re concerned with?” Tao replies with a huge grin on his face, and Baekhyun freezes on the couch for a full minute even after the door has shut, hands over his face, as if he could cover his embarrassment up.
Baekhyun angrily hugs the cat plush toy and wills all his emotions away. He’s also really against taking naps in the day because he could be using sleep hours to do more productive things, but the medicine sets in and he feels so drowsy that he blacks out on the couch before he knows it.
-
When he wakes up, he instinctively feels his forehead for the cooling pack but he feels nothing. His eyelids flutter open as he stares at the floor for the fallen pack, and then he realizes. That he’s sitting upright in his office chair, in front of his work desk, and the words Endless Winter in pencil on the cover of his sketchbook is smudged, and is most probably also imprinted on the side of his face.
The windows are shut but Baekhyun still can see the thick layers of snow settling on the rooftops and sides of roads as people bustle about their daily lives and routines. Had it really… been just a dream? He checks his phone to see that his call with Kyungsoo had just been two days ago, the day before the dream. With shaky hands, he flips through the sketchbook and his heart aches whenever he comes across scenes that happened to him in the dream.
Really… had it really just been a dream? It had felt so real, and his cheeks even hurt when he pinched himself. The emotions had felt so real, even the feeling of the beginning of frostbite on his cheeks, the warm, fuzzy feeling at the bottom of his stomach as he ate Tao’s fried rice, the way Tao’s arms felt around him as they fell asleep on the couch, and the way the cat plushie felt in his arms. He doesn’t even feel ill now, and his throat isn’t burning anymore.
All that Baekhyun feels now is cheated and the bitter feeling of betrayal, even though Tao has done nothing wrong, even though Tao doesn’t even exist. Teardrops fall on his sketchbook and it takes him a while to register the fact that he’s crying.
He wipes the tears off his sketchbook and resumes drawing the manhwa, so focused that he forgets to eat and sleep until the doorbell rings, some days later.
It’s Kyungsoo. He’s back with bags of side dishes that his mom makes for him every time he visits, and he always shares them with Baekhyun since he practically drops by here every day. “You-have you been eating properly?” Is the first thing Kyungsoo says when Baekhyun opens the door.
“No,” Baekhyun answers sheepishly, and Kyungsoo only sighs as he stores the food into the refrigerator.
“My mom would eat me alive if I were half as much as a workaholic as you are. Was your inspiration this time really that inspiring? I’ve never seen you this haggard while working before.”
“Yeah,” Baekhyun just answers, smiling. “By the way, do you know how to make fried rice?”
-
“Who doesn’t?” is what Kyungsoo had said, but Baekhyun, after eating, still thinks that Tao has the better fried rice.
-
“What?” Kyungsoo says, eyes huge as he looks over Baekhyun’s work. “You - this is the fastest I’ve ever seen you do anything, especially for manhwa,” he gapes, “how long more to go?”
Baekhyun shrugs. “No idea. Probably gonna end soon, though, although I don’t know if I should give them a happy ending or an open one.”
“Your readers confuse me so much. Sometimes their mails say they hope Tao too gets the happiness he deserves, and some other times they wish that Tao would remain fully as theirs. They confuse me so much,” Kyungsoo sighs.
“The happiness… he deserves…” Baekhyun repeats, resisting the chill that runs down his spine.
-
Baekhyun ends up finishing the sequel way before the requested deadline and Jonghyun, for the first time since they worked together, cried out of joy and treated both Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to dinner. The ending turned out to be a happy one and even Jonghyun said that it moved him so it should be no problem satisfying the readers.
Despite all that, despite the approval of everyone in charge of his work, Baekhyun still feels the tinge of guilt and regret when he looks at the cover of his now worn-out sketchbook. How is dream Tao doing right now? Did dream Baekhyun return to his rightful place, or did Baekhyun disappear in that world forever? Would Tao forget him and move on, or would he continue to pine for someone who would never come back - and never belonged in the first place?
-
It’s entirely pleasant and also surprising to see how well-received Endless Winter is by his readers, both old and new fans. Critics have been mostly positive, praising Tao’s growth as an all-around character with endless charm and the female lead’s supportive role in showcasing Tao like that. Others have commented that it felt realistic and relatable, as if the author had experienced something like that himself.
Well… that isn’t entirely unreal, too.
He’s taking a routine jog around the neighborhood in the evening before he jogs past the neighborhood bookstore. Curious about the reception of his new release here, he goes in to ask about the sales. When he reaches the counter, he looks up, but his jaw drops instead. It’s… Tao?
Wait, of course, it isn’t his Tao. This Tao, while all his features look identical to Tao’s, his hair is ash blond and his eyes are a dark brown; normal. No red hair, no golden eyes. Baekhyun looks around, embarrassed, and his gaze lands on Tao’s name tag instead. It says Zi Tao with a cute panda face after the name, and it’s this time that Baekhyun gasps, out loud.
“Mr. Byun? Are you here to check out your sales? You can come with me-” Zi Tao pauses at Baekhyun’s expression, then lets out a chuckle. “It’s… kinda cool, right?”
Baekhyun tilts his head in question, not speaking since he’s still doubting his ability to behave like a proper human at this point in time.
“I’ve always wanted to meet the guy who drew someone like me, in manhwa or in realistic portraits. I couldn’t believe it at first - not only do we look identical, even the names are almost similar. This isn’t an alias,” Zi Tao points at his name tag, “I’m not Korean.”
“I,” Baekhyun finally speaks, “went to Taiwan and was fascinated by the Chinese character for peach, which happened to be Tao, so I just used it…”
Zi Tao laughs again. “You don’t have to explain yourself. Besides, if it’s more comfortable for you, you can call me Tao. I don’t mind it - my friends do that all the time.”
The small talk ends when they reach the manhwa and manga section in the bookstore. There are groups of girls huddled around the corner, reading, as always, and this scene always seems to touch Baekhyun, no matter how many times he’s seen it, or experienced it. In more memorable days, some fans even approach him for an autograph. Once, it got so out of hand that the bookstore staff was deployed to become security guards so that Baekhyun could leave safely.
“Don’t people say anything about you… looking like Tao? Like readers, and such?” Baekhyun asks, holding up a copy of the manhwa magazine that he frequently publishes in.
“They always do,” Tao grins, “they think I have some relations to you, that’s why I got featured in the manhwa.”
“I’m so sorry,” Baekhyun gulps, “I never thought something like this would happen. Trust me; I was also quite surprised when I first saw you at the counter.”
Tao laughs, a low, tinkling sound in a quiet corner of a bookstore, and some girls look over in curiosity.
“Zi Tao is laughing? He rarely ever does…” comes a whisper.
“Ah, is that Byun Baekhyun?”
“Oh my, it really is! Do you think we could get an autograph…?”
Baekhyun’s heart skips a beat before he sets down the magazine, flashes an apologetic smile to Tao and dashes out of the store. “I’ll see you sometime again!”
“Eh? He’s gone!”
Tao straightens the magazine stacks on display silently, and gestures for the readers to be quiet. For the remaining of his shift, he stares at the entrance of the store, and wonders when sometime is.
-
When Baekhyun gets home, his face is flushed red from running and Kyungsoo doesn’t even bother a greeting as he bustles in the kitchen, preparing dinner. “A welcome home would be nice, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun grumbles.
“I think that sometimes you forget that I’m your editor, and not your maid,” Kyungsoo replies without bite. “What happened outside? You rarely ever get so agitated over bookstore visits.”
“That’s not something to talk about when my stomach is still empty.”
-
“What? So you met… Tao? Like, in real life?” Kyungsoo gapes in between mouths of tofu stew and rice. Baekhyun bites back a chuckle at the ridiculous sight.
“Please, eat properly. Yeah, I met someone like that… unbelievable, huh.”
“This is way more than a coincidence, man.”
Baekhyun resists the urge to spill about his weird dream, that weirdly realistic dream, and that he couldn’t agree more that it’s way more than coincidence - fate? Was God playing a mean trick on him? Is this karma or something?
He watches as the snow piles up on the ledge outside the windows, as Kyungsoo complains about the TV channels with their endless Christmas-themed shows, and drifts off to sleep with the fascinating yet odd scent of peach lingering in his mind.
-
Baekhyun thinks he doesn’t deserve the feeling of crushing disappointment every morning when he wakes up and realizes he isn’t going to continue the dream ever again. Well, even though he now can see Tao anytime he wants (him being a college student working part-time odd jobs actually benefitted Baekhyun in this sense), he still can’t forget the warm, sweet swelling feeling in the pits of his stomach that he had felt in the dream. If he could relive it…
“Can you not space out in the bathroom again?” Kyungsoo’s voice is heavy, laden with sleep, and he yawns. “Some of us just want to pee in the morning without having to wait for someone who takes eons in the bathroom.”
“Wake up earlier than me next time, then,” Baekhyun replies, but he knows he’s in the wrong. As an apology, he takes the time to make Kyungsoo coffee before he leaves.
-
Sometime comes early for Tao, and in fact, keeps coming. Baekhyun drops by the bookstore like a regular customer nowadays, and always buys something before he leaves. The other day, it was an art guidebook for Kyungsoo, and last time it was a Knitting for Dummies, for his mum, he had said, and today, he’s buying a cookbook on fried rice.
“You like fried rice?” Tao asks, scanning the item.
Baekhyun nods absentmindedly, biting back the “because of you”, because he knows that they’re not the same person, and that he should forget the dream as quickly as he can, but it’s so difficult to forget when he relives the dream every night-
“I’m just looking for a particular flavor, so I want to try making it myself…”
Tao doesn’t probe further, just hands over the change and waves goodbye as Baekhyun leaves without so much of a second glance, eyes fixed to the ground and brows knitted together as if in deep thought.
-
After the dream, Baekhyun has been constantly thinking about the conflict between fate and coincidence. He’s stopped visiting the bookstore for a while, planning to clear his head of Tao, and mainly the dream. He’s pretty sure it’s no coincidence that they meet again, at a neighborhood café, when none of them has told each other they would be here. But is it a coincidence when they happen to have the same favorite drinks?
-
It gets quite awkward when they haven’t spoken in a while and Baekhyun looks like a petrified puppy caught red-handed. “Are you busier recently? You haven’t been coming ‘round recently. Even the other employees are starting to miss you.”
What about you? Baekhyun wants to say, but hurriedly sips his drink instead. “Yeah. I-I’m in the talks of a new serialization or collaboration with another author with my editor and publisher, so I really don’t have spare time off my hands…”
“I see,” Tao just replies curtly. “Here I thought you were avoiding me…”
“Avoiding you? Why would I do that?”
“Well, for starters, you always look so scared when I’m around. Recently, you also don’t look so happy whenever you come to the bookstore, too. I thought I might’ve been giving you pressure unconsciously for looking like your character, so-”
“-you’re mistaken,” Baekhyun interrupts. “I’m just really stressed nowadays, you know, I’ve had recurring dreams and shit like that so I can’t really focus on anything… It’s not your fault, is what I’m trying to say.”
“Really?” Tao heaves a sigh of relief, but before he can continue, Baekhyun’s phone rings.
Baekhyun’s about to reject the call when Tao stops him. “Just answer it. I don’t mind.”
“I - I have to go,” Baekhyun says, eyes downcast.
“Bye,” Tao says, a small smile on his face, “sometimes I wish we could’ve more time to talk about more things, though.”
Baekhyun blushes. “There’s always a next time - and don’t worry, I’ll pop by the store as usual again, once my hands are free!”
-
When Baekhyun reaches home, Kyungsoo’s not there yet, so he sinks to the floor and clutches the shirt over his heart with shaky fingers. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to struggle with coincidence and fate, and when he’s going to be free of the haunting dream, and how long more he can endure being around Tao just like that, as a normal friend; not when all he remembers is Tao’s warm embrace and the faint scent of rain and peaches.
-
As the sun sets and the sky slowly turns darker, Tao finishes the cup of coffee and heads back home, watches the streetlights flicker on and wonders when next time will come for him this time.
From: ANONYMOUS until December 30, 2014
Title: once upon a dream
Rating: G
Pairing(s)/Focus: Baekhyun/Tao
Length: 6,376 words
Summary: A fantastic idea hits famous manhwa author Byun Baekhyun, right after the completion of his latest popular series. While brainstorming, he drifts off to sleep… and wakes up in his own story?
Notes: I think I was completely on crack while planning and writing this. Special thanks to Senpaii for so many things that could’ve almost gone wrong in here. Nonetheless, I had a really fun time writing this, so thank you for the fun prompt, and I hope you like this, recipient! *w* (P.S. I think I’ve written Baekhyun to be overly shoujo manga heroine-like, but I really… like that.)
It is a slow, chilly December evening, and with the weather slowly becoming colder, it would be a lovely night to drag out the blankets and waste time watching TV and eating heated leftover pasta from last night, snuggled in the cocoon of blankets.
If only. Baekhyun’s phone rings from the other side of the couch, and he reaches out, stretching his arm as far as he can. He has to set his bowl of pasta down before just barely managing to grab his phone. He huffs, wincing at the volume of the ringtone before picking up.
“Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo’s voice is fuzzy over the telephone, and Baekhyun cringes, inching away from the receiver. “The publisher is asking if you’ll be publishing anything over the Christmas break or not.”
“Are you serious? I didn’t think Jonghyun-hyung was such a demanding publisher-in-charge,” Baekhyun whines, “we just published the last chapter of Edge of Silver last week and he wants a new thing over the break?”
“It’s exactly because your Edge of Silver was so well-received that they’re reconsidering whether to publish the December/January issue since they rarely ever do. It’s all for you, ” Kyungsoo mutters, exasperated.
Baekhyun hears muffled crying in the background as Kyungsoo sighs into the phone. “Is that your baby cousin?” He asks, “have you gone back just to babysit her? Why couldn’t you babysit me too? I’m having leftovers from yesterday for dinner?”
Another sigh. “She’s crying because she heard your voice. Anyway, can you please address the issue at hand? Jonghyun-hyung said he was going to track me down soon if I don’t reply him in three days.”
From the corner of his eye, Baekhyun stares at the TV but doesn’t register anything the tour guide on the programme is saying. “I’ll let you know by tomorrow, then,” a pause, “happy holidays anyway, Kyungsoo,” he answers, and before Kyungsoo says anything, he hangs up.
Wriggling out of the blankets, he lets out a long exhale before dumping the remaining pasta into the trash.
-
It’s not like Baekhyun is lazy to write, draw, or anything. It’s not like he doesn’t want to give more to fans, not that he minds the affection from his readers or anything, but… as he strolls along the busy streets of Apgujeong, he realizes.
He freezes on the spot because, well, yeah. He’s out of ideas. Meekly, he clutches the straps of his backpack and walks by a large bookstore. He’s this close to pulling his phone out and telling Kyungsoo that he won’t be submitting anything this time until a few girls rush by him, clutching copies of the final volume of Edge of Silver, wide grins on their faces.
“I got them!” A girl squeals to two other girls, “the last few copies off the shelves!”
They immediately flip through the pages, even though the snow is starting to pile along the roadsides, and the tips of their ears and their cheeks are tinged red. “Tao is so good-looking here, as always… it’s like the more Mr. Byun draws Tao, the more charming he becomes!”
“Ah,” the tallest girl says, “but this is the last volume, right…”
Mr. Byun Baekhyun in question flushes at the realization that he is eavesdropping on a conversation between his readers and dashes off to the nearest supermarket. There, he yanks his phone out of his pocket with numb fingers and makes a call to Kyungsoo excitedly. “Kyungsoo? Tell Jonghyun to cease his hunt. I will draw something for the new issue.”
“You sound really excited - did you find inspiration somewhere?”
“Yeah, I think I did. Call me when you’re coming back, and help me say hi to the little devil you’re babysitting!”
Baekhyun slips the phone back into his pocket, and prepares to stack up cans of coffee for his upcoming drawing session.
The air is still cold as he walks home from there, but he feels warm all over - and so he decides, that this new installment shall be a gift for his readers - a spinoff to Edge of Silver!
-
Now, the coffee is in the fridge, and the lights in his house are all switched off except the one on his work desk, and there is a box of early Christmas cookies from his friendly neighbors he received several hours ago, and yeah, he should probably start brainstorming.
Baekhyun wants to write something for his readers, perhaps something about romance that can showcase his main character’s charms and hopefully to satisfy the reader’s wishes to see another more attractive side to him. Except…
Except Tao, the main character of Edge of Silver, is a fearless young prince of an abandoned kingdom ruined by the betrayal of his dearest relatives, with fiery red hair, piercing golden eyes and a heart to get revenge and justice for his destroyed home. He travels through cities and countries, meets good friends, and slays enemies, but… he… has never had a love interest. How was he going to write this?
Should he change Tao’s personality and just keep his appearance? Should he change the setting to, let’s say, to a school life instead? Anyway, he still has to come up with a design for his love interest…
…After a torturous research session on the internet for inspiration, he roughly sketches the design of the female lead, and begins to draw.
-
Baekhyun has to thank the stack of romance mangas and novels from his favorite authors he has at home for the sudden influx of ideas he’s receiving now. Perhaps it’s because he has been writing adventure for too long, that all his suppressed romantic fantasies are escaping him only now. Well, as long as it benefits him, all is well.
Twenty pages into the rough draft - Baekhyun sets down his pencil and sinks into his chair. It’s three at night, he notes as he rubs at his eyes blearily, but it’s nice to know that he’s made such immense progress. He thinks about getting some coffee and continuing drawing into the night, but he’s too lazy to get up, so he ends up admiring his character designs and his rough plot as of now. He closes his sketchbook, and on the first page, scribbles Endless Winter on the cover.
Before he knows it, his head suddenly feels too heavy, and he blinks slowly before drifting off to sleep.
-
Baekhyun wakes up to the dull and familiar sound of a school bell chiming. He blinks several times, and sits up. The sudden movement makes his head spin and he has to catch his breath before he can open his eyes again.
It wasn’t him hearing things then - he really is in a lecture hall, the left side of his face numb from sleeping on the small retractable desk and drool on his empty notebook. Is he dreaming? He’s pretty sure he ended things with formal education some years ago. The bell chimes again, signaling the end of the lecture and Baekhyun watches, blankly, as people begin to pack their bags and leave.
“You’ve been asleep the whole lecture,” the person on his right says, nudging him with a notebook. “These are the notes I copied, if you want them.”
“Ah, I-” Baekhyun fumbles for a bit, before turning to the person and getting probably the biggest shock of his life. It’s Tao! The protagonist of his own series, I designed this god damned face, he thinks, but of course. It’s real life Tao. He can’t believe this. “Thank you, but I don’t think I will need it.”
He can’t be mistaken - the flaming red hair and smoldering gold eyes are the ones he’s had nurtured over years and years of drawing. It was just last year when he received a fanmail requesting that he drew a realistic version of Tao; and so he did, and published the colored drawing to one of his affiliated manhwa magazines. The drawing received so much love from his female readers that the publishers at that time tried talking him into releasing more realistic drawings of Tao.
Well, Baekhyun had rejected the offer, despite the fans’ constant pleas and his publishers insisting it would boost readership for Edge of Silver. After all, Tao was drawn to be a fictional character in manhwa style, not to be realistic. Besides, red hair and golden eyes probably won’t look realistic anyway…
But here is real life Tao, with his red hair and golden eyes, which probably should stand out from the crowd, but no one seems to be making a ruckus over him. Tao nods without a word, and then holds out a packet of tissue. “Then you might need this? For your…” he doesn’t continue, but eyes Baekhyun’s notebook, stained with drool.
With a start, Baekhyun realizes that whatever blasphemy is happening right now is whatever he drew in his draft before he fell asleep. Now, he can’t even tell dreams apart from reality, but this doesn’t feel like a dream…
“Well, then I guess I shall be going, then. I have a class now. See you around,” Tao says, leaving the tissues on Baekhyun’s desk. This doesn’t happen in his storyboard, maybe because the female lead accepted his help and all, but still-
“Wait, what’s your name?”
“I’m Tao,” he answers, without turning back.
“I’m Baekhyun,” he says, but Tao is already gone.
The lecture hall is beginning to be filled by students for the next lecture, and Baekhyun hurriedly stuffs his things into his backpack on the floor and dashes out of the hall.
-
Baekhyun guesses it’s lunch time, since the cafeteria is so packed that he had to take fifteen minutes to maneuver through the human jam, and many groups of students are relaxing on the empty field, enjoying their lunch. From where he’s sitting, under a huge tree, Baekhyun sighs and pinches his left cheek. It hurts, but the pain is slightly diffused probably because he was sleeping on it just now. So this isn’t a dream? But Baekhyun is definitely not a student, right? Did he travel back in time, then? But he doesn’t recall his college feeling so grandiose and new…
Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t even realize when Tao has plopped next to him with an extra sandwich.
“Not even eating lunch?” Tao asks, handing him a sandwich.
I drew this too, Baekhyun thinks, and thinks of ways he could thwart the story again, but it would be outright mean to do anything else except accepting it for now. So he takes it, and eats reluctantly. He doesn’t even belong here, he wants to shout, I made you, he also wants to say, but what if all these were real? His cheek hurt, too.
“I’ve always seen you in the social science lectures, but I’ve never spoken to you - today is my first attempt. Does this shock you?” Tao says through a mouth of tomatoes and lettuce, eyes looking far into the sky.
Baekhyun wrote that line, too. He wonders if he’s unknowingly created a dream universe just by writing and drawing, or if he’s simply too caught up in this plot that he’s dreaming about it. It’s such a pity that these lines were meant for his pretty female protagonist and not to be wasted on the creator. He thinks about what he wrote for the girl’s reply-“Your red hair stands out in the hall as well, so I’ve seen you a lot too - it’s not that shocking.”
Tao’s eyes widen a little, and he stops chewing. “What’s your name?”
Oh yeah, he never got to hear it. “Baekhyun.”
“That’s a nice name,” Tao mutters. “Do you have any classes left, by the way? I’m done for the day, and the next hour classes are starting soon so if you have them you need to go.”
“You make it sound like I’m new here,” Baekhyun laughs, “but I don’t know where my timetable went,” he lies, “I only remembered the morning lectures, so I’m lost for the afternoon.”
“Okay, let’s ditch class then. Do you want to go home?”
Home, Baekhyun thinks, but he doesn’t know where that is, in this world.
“Nope. Let’s go somewhere else.”
-
If Baekhyun didn’t know better, he wouldn’t have imagined somewhere else to be the arcade, but he knows, because he wrote it. It is actually such a pity because he’s spoiling the surprises before he even sees it himself. What’s going to happen next is that Tao will win him a cute plush toy from the UFO catcher machines, and because Tao is so good at that, he wins them extra toys so they will have matching plush bunnies.
As Baekhyun watches Tao knit his brows together in concentration trying to catch the toys, he wonders idly how he can change the plot of his own story. It’s getting kind of boring, having everything going by his plans…
“Seriously…” Tao mutters, shoving his fifth dollar note into the machine. “Why can’t I catch any?”
Baekhyun leans against the side of the machine and chuckles. Well, looks like it isn’t going all according to his plans, anyway.
-
They end up leaving the arcade center with only one successfully captured plush toy (after sixteen tries-even the ahjumma at the counter was beginning to take interest in the futile attempts), and it isn’t a bunny - it’s a huge brown cat with a long tail. Its eyes are beady and bright amber and the ends of its eyes slant up and for a horrifying moment Baekhyun is reminded of Tao. He shudders, and quickens his pace to catch up to Tao, who is still complaining about his incompetency, promising to buy Baekhyun more toys instead.
-
They part ways at the crossroad outside the mall. It’s cold - too cold - for students clad in nothing more than the standard winter school uniform and nothing else. Baekhyun can feel the tips of his fingers numbing slowly, so he clutches on to the cat plush toy tighter in his hands. Tao doesn’t look at Baekhyun when he says goodbye, just runs his fingers through Baekhyun’s hair and leaves without a second glance.
When Baekhyun realizes he doesn’t have a home to go to (or rather, he doesn’t know where that is, because Dream Baekhyun shouldn’t be homeless), he runs up to Tao and yanks at the sleeve of his blazer, panting.
Tao turns around, a quizzical look on his face.
“Uh, I… I had a huge fight with my parents yesterday, so I really don’t want to go home. Is it okay if I crash at your place instead? I mean, it’s fine if it’s inconvenient - I can always go to the sauna, you know-”
“’s fine,” Tao interjects with a soft voice. “I live alone.”
Baekhyun heaves a heavy sigh internally. Of course he knows. This is so silly.
“But,” Tao continues, “it’s already Friday. Are you going to go home tomorrow? Won’t your family be worried if you don’t go home on the weekends?”
“How can I be rebellious if I just go home tomorrow?” Baekhyun retorts, pouting, “I need to at least brave through the weekend outside.”
Baekhyun is extremely bad at lying. Since young, he’s never had successfully lied once - or maybe just once, when he was in middle school and had to fake a stomachache to skip school because he didn’t let his parents sign his test papers. Kyungsoo had told him, in more recent years that Baekhyun’s lies never go through because he’s too obvious when he lies. His eyes dart everywhere except the person he’s lying to, he fiddles with his fingers unnecessarily and he gulps too often. He hopes these don’t show now - or that Tao was just a bad observer.
“Okay,” Tao just says, eyes not looking at Baekhyun as well. “Follow me, then.”
Tao’s legs are long and his strides are quick and fast, so Baekhyun has some trouble catching up. He wonders if his girl protagonist will manage fine, but that is manhwa, and this is Baekhyun, Baekhyun and his stumpy, short legs. He brushes off those thoughts and walks faster, puffs of hot exhale leaving his lips and the icy chill biting at his cheeks.
-
“Just leave your stuff wherever you want to - I’ll go start the shower and prepare the guest room,” Tao says after switching the heater system on, tossing his bag on the couch and yanking his tie off.
“You don’t have to trouble yourself, I’m fine with sleeping on the couch.”
Tao cracks a smile when he turns behind. “Just be good and listen to me.”
Baekhyun’s cheeks flush, but he blames it on the heater in the apartment.
-
Tao makes decent food - decent is an understatement when Baekhyun is already demanding for seconds when Tao is only halfway through his plate of fried rice. Baekhyun knows that Tao is perfect in all aspects because he crafted him with his own hands, but it’s still nice being able to enjoy such nice food and have a warm apartment to house him in the harsh winter.
Besides, the back view of Tao in a singlet and sweatpants at the stove is kinda nice. Baekhyun now can empathize with his female readers for being infatuated with his character.
“What’re you staring at?”
Baekhyun snaps out of his reverie and realizes that Tao is already sitting at the table again, and the smell of fried rice under his nose makes Baekhyun grin. “You’re a real great cook!”
Tao cracks a smile, and answers after a while. “You’re really weird, you know. We just met today, and I told you that I’ve been noticing you for a long time, and you invited me to go to the mall, and now you’re in the house of a guy you just met for not even a full day.”
“It feels like I’ve known you for a while,” Baekhyun smiles back, and, well, it’s not even a lie. “Besides, you don’t look like a bad guy to me. I have no money, no good grades, and no looks, so you probably can’t profit off me in any way…”
Wordlessly, Tao stands up to move his empty plate into the sink. “You’re really dense too, Baekhyun. Anyway, good night. I’m tired, so I’m sleeping first. You can leave the dishes there if you don’t wanna do them - I’ll do it when I wake up. Good night.”
“What… do you mean by I’m dense?” Baekhyun blurts, hands tightly fisted in the thin material of Tao’s singlet.
“Why do you think I only talked to you today even though I’ve always seen you, always watched you?” Tao murmurs, not facing Baekhyun. “I had no courage, but today I finally decided to talk to you, to befriend you, and you responded so readily, so I… I’m at a loss…”
“Could it be that you…” Baekhyun trails off, but he knows. Tao likes the female protagonist, he knows - but this is Baekhyun, and instead of always looking over the story as the creator, he’s feeling Tao’s emotions first-hand, and it throws him off guard. “Wait, so you think that I’m an easy guy and now you’re disappointed or something?”
“I’m not disappointed, I’m just… taken aback? I’ve always prepared myself for rejection…” The tips of Tao’s ears are turning red, and even though Baekhyun can’t see Tao’s face, he’s sure Tao’s blushing too.
“Rejection? But you… I…”
Tao pulls Baekhyun along so that they’re both draped over the couch. It’s a snug fit - if Baekhyun wriggled a little, Tao would fall off the couch. The beating of Tao’s heart is loud against Baekhyun’s back and he lets it resonate through his frame.
“Just sleep. Good night.”
There are no blankets over them, and the snow continues to fall outside, but Baekhyun feels so warm. He lets the fried rice settle in his stomach and lets slumber claim him.
-
Baekhyun wakes up to sizzling sounds and the smell of fried eggs and bacon. Wait, he’s about a hundred percent positive that Kyungsoo isn’t back from his vacation yet and he’s never hired any housekeeper, so…? It couldn’t be that his mother decided to visit him out of no reason, could it?
“You’re awake,” Tao says, face hovering over Baekhyun’s.
Baekhyun gasps in shock and sits up so fast that his forehead knocks against Tao’s chin. “I-I’m sorry! Are you okay?”
“As okay as I can be,” Tao replies, rubbing his chin with a small smile. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
“It was fine,” Baekhyun replies, and is shocked by how coarse his voice sounds and the sting in his throat. “Eh?”
Tao raises an eyebrow in question as Baekhyun feels his cheeks and neck for his temperature. Tao just leans in close and presses their foreheads together. “Hmm… it feels like you caught a cold.”
“A cold? But I was still fine yesterday!” Baekhyun tries to argue, but starts to cough.
Tao sighs. “Just stay here, okay? Looks like someone won’t get to eat good food today.” Baekhyun is about to retort but Tao presses a finger against Baekhyun’s flushed lips. “Shh, we don’t want your throat to die. I’ll go find medicine.”
-
Somehow, Baekhyun ends up sitting on the couch with a cooling pack on his forehead and a surgical mask over half of his face. He can’t even watch TV properly because he has to tilt his head up slightly to ensure that the cooling pack doesn’t fall off, and his stomach keeps grumbling because Tao is taking his own sweet time cooking porridge for Baekhyun.
He’s on the verge of falling asleep when Tao finally sets the bowl of hot porridge on the coffee table before Baekhyun. Baekhyun hurriedly wolfs down a spoonful of steaming porridge before he shrieks at the scalding hotness in his mouth. He curses after swallowing the mouthful, and then sticks his tongue out in defeat. “Ith tho hot,” he whines, wriggling his tongue as he sighs.
Tao doesn’t say anything for a moment, but leans down to capture Baekhyun’s tongue and gently sucks on it. “What an idiot.”
Baekhyun tries to say something, but all that leaves him are puffs of air and incoherent syllables. “You-I-it still hurts, why did you-”
“Didn’t I tell you? You’re dense. Please stop seducing me like that - my self-control might really snap one of these days,” Tao sighs, ending up having to blow the porridge until it’s not that hot and feeding it to Baekhyun.
“S-seducing, you say,” Baekhyun mutters, after the porridge’s finished, and Tao’s bustling in the kitchen, “when did I do that.”
“You always do,” Tao grumbles, suddenly appearing next to Baekhyun on the couch.
Baekhyun’s thankful for the mask for it blocks half of his blushing from view, but he still can’t stop sinking into the couch. “Well, it wasn’t intentional, then.”
“Following a guy to his house without question, insisting to sleep on the couch, and then leaving your tongue hanging... like that… I couldn’t stop myself if I wanted to, anyway.”
Tao begins to lean in closer to Baekhyun, and Baekhyun’s already so deep into the couch that he doesn’t have threshold to retreat to anymore. This is bad, but his heart is beating too fast, and the increasing proximity only clouds his mind even more. Baekhyun meets Tao’s gaze, and quickly averts his eyes after seeing the intense look in Tao’s eyes.
Sighing, Tao swiftly yanks Baekhyun’s mask down to place a soft kiss on Baekhyun’s lips before ruffling his hair. “I’ll be going to get groceries, so you can rest for a while.”
“It’s contagious, stupid!” Baekhyun yells at Tao’s back right before he opens the apartment door.
“And that’s all you’re concerned with?” Tao replies with a huge grin on his face, and Baekhyun freezes on the couch for a full minute even after the door has shut, hands over his face, as if he could cover his embarrassment up.
Baekhyun angrily hugs the cat plush toy and wills all his emotions away. He’s also really against taking naps in the day because he could be using sleep hours to do more productive things, but the medicine sets in and he feels so drowsy that he blacks out on the couch before he knows it.
-
When he wakes up, he instinctively feels his forehead for the cooling pack but he feels nothing. His eyelids flutter open as he stares at the floor for the fallen pack, and then he realizes. That he’s sitting upright in his office chair, in front of his work desk, and the words Endless Winter in pencil on the cover of his sketchbook is smudged, and is most probably also imprinted on the side of his face.
The windows are shut but Baekhyun still can see the thick layers of snow settling on the rooftops and sides of roads as people bustle about their daily lives and routines. Had it really… been just a dream? He checks his phone to see that his call with Kyungsoo had just been two days ago, the day before the dream. With shaky hands, he flips through the sketchbook and his heart aches whenever he comes across scenes that happened to him in the dream.
Really… had it really just been a dream? It had felt so real, and his cheeks even hurt when he pinched himself. The emotions had felt so real, even the feeling of the beginning of frostbite on his cheeks, the warm, fuzzy feeling at the bottom of his stomach as he ate Tao’s fried rice, the way Tao’s arms felt around him as they fell asleep on the couch, and the way the cat plushie felt in his arms. He doesn’t even feel ill now, and his throat isn’t burning anymore.
All that Baekhyun feels now is cheated and the bitter feeling of betrayal, even though Tao has done nothing wrong, even though Tao doesn’t even exist. Teardrops fall on his sketchbook and it takes him a while to register the fact that he’s crying.
He wipes the tears off his sketchbook and resumes drawing the manhwa, so focused that he forgets to eat and sleep until the doorbell rings, some days later.
It’s Kyungsoo. He’s back with bags of side dishes that his mom makes for him every time he visits, and he always shares them with Baekhyun since he practically drops by here every day. “You-have you been eating properly?” Is the first thing Kyungsoo says when Baekhyun opens the door.
“No,” Baekhyun answers sheepishly, and Kyungsoo only sighs as he stores the food into the refrigerator.
“My mom would eat me alive if I were half as much as a workaholic as you are. Was your inspiration this time really that inspiring? I’ve never seen you this haggard while working before.”
“Yeah,” Baekhyun just answers, smiling. “By the way, do you know how to make fried rice?”
-
“Who doesn’t?” is what Kyungsoo had said, but Baekhyun, after eating, still thinks that Tao has the better fried rice.
-
“What?” Kyungsoo says, eyes huge as he looks over Baekhyun’s work. “You - this is the fastest I’ve ever seen you do anything, especially for manhwa,” he gapes, “how long more to go?”
Baekhyun shrugs. “No idea. Probably gonna end soon, though, although I don’t know if I should give them a happy ending or an open one.”
“Your readers confuse me so much. Sometimes their mails say they hope Tao too gets the happiness he deserves, and some other times they wish that Tao would remain fully as theirs. They confuse me so much,” Kyungsoo sighs.
“The happiness… he deserves…” Baekhyun repeats, resisting the chill that runs down his spine.
-
Baekhyun ends up finishing the sequel way before the requested deadline and Jonghyun, for the first time since they worked together, cried out of joy and treated both Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to dinner. The ending turned out to be a happy one and even Jonghyun said that it moved him so it should be no problem satisfying the readers.
Despite all that, despite the approval of everyone in charge of his work, Baekhyun still feels the tinge of guilt and regret when he looks at the cover of his now worn-out sketchbook. How is dream Tao doing right now? Did dream Baekhyun return to his rightful place, or did Baekhyun disappear in that world forever? Would Tao forget him and move on, or would he continue to pine for someone who would never come back - and never belonged in the first place?
-
It’s entirely pleasant and also surprising to see how well-received Endless Winter is by his readers, both old and new fans. Critics have been mostly positive, praising Tao’s growth as an all-around character with endless charm and the female lead’s supportive role in showcasing Tao like that. Others have commented that it felt realistic and relatable, as if the author had experienced something like that himself.
Well… that isn’t entirely unreal, too.
He’s taking a routine jog around the neighborhood in the evening before he jogs past the neighborhood bookstore. Curious about the reception of his new release here, he goes in to ask about the sales. When he reaches the counter, he looks up, but his jaw drops instead. It’s… Tao?
Wait, of course, it isn’t his Tao. This Tao, while all his features look identical to Tao’s, his hair is ash blond and his eyes are a dark brown; normal. No red hair, no golden eyes. Baekhyun looks around, embarrassed, and his gaze lands on Tao’s name tag instead. It says Zi Tao with a cute panda face after the name, and it’s this time that Baekhyun gasps, out loud.
“Mr. Byun? Are you here to check out your sales? You can come with me-” Zi Tao pauses at Baekhyun’s expression, then lets out a chuckle. “It’s… kinda cool, right?”
Baekhyun tilts his head in question, not speaking since he’s still doubting his ability to behave like a proper human at this point in time.
“I’ve always wanted to meet the guy who drew someone like me, in manhwa or in realistic portraits. I couldn’t believe it at first - not only do we look identical, even the names are almost similar. This isn’t an alias,” Zi Tao points at his name tag, “I’m not Korean.”
“I,” Baekhyun finally speaks, “went to Taiwan and was fascinated by the Chinese character for peach, which happened to be Tao, so I just used it…”
Zi Tao laughs again. “You don’t have to explain yourself. Besides, if it’s more comfortable for you, you can call me Tao. I don’t mind it - my friends do that all the time.”
The small talk ends when they reach the manhwa and manga section in the bookstore. There are groups of girls huddled around the corner, reading, as always, and this scene always seems to touch Baekhyun, no matter how many times he’s seen it, or experienced it. In more memorable days, some fans even approach him for an autograph. Once, it got so out of hand that the bookstore staff was deployed to become security guards so that Baekhyun could leave safely.
“Don’t people say anything about you… looking like Tao? Like readers, and such?” Baekhyun asks, holding up a copy of the manhwa magazine that he frequently publishes in.
“They always do,” Tao grins, “they think I have some relations to you, that’s why I got featured in the manhwa.”
“I’m so sorry,” Baekhyun gulps, “I never thought something like this would happen. Trust me; I was also quite surprised when I first saw you at the counter.”
Tao laughs, a low, tinkling sound in a quiet corner of a bookstore, and some girls look over in curiosity.
“Zi Tao is laughing? He rarely ever does…” comes a whisper.
“Ah, is that Byun Baekhyun?”
“Oh my, it really is! Do you think we could get an autograph…?”
Baekhyun’s heart skips a beat before he sets down the magazine, flashes an apologetic smile to Tao and dashes out of the store. “I’ll see you sometime again!”
“Eh? He’s gone!”
Tao straightens the magazine stacks on display silently, and gestures for the readers to be quiet. For the remaining of his shift, he stares at the entrance of the store, and wonders when sometime is.
-
When Baekhyun gets home, his face is flushed red from running and Kyungsoo doesn’t even bother a greeting as he bustles in the kitchen, preparing dinner. “A welcome home would be nice, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun grumbles.
“I think that sometimes you forget that I’m your editor, and not your maid,” Kyungsoo replies without bite. “What happened outside? You rarely ever get so agitated over bookstore visits.”
“That’s not something to talk about when my stomach is still empty.”
-
“What? So you met… Tao? Like, in real life?” Kyungsoo gapes in between mouths of tofu stew and rice. Baekhyun bites back a chuckle at the ridiculous sight.
“Please, eat properly. Yeah, I met someone like that… unbelievable, huh.”
“This is way more than a coincidence, man.”
Baekhyun resists the urge to spill about his weird dream, that weirdly realistic dream, and that he couldn’t agree more that it’s way more than coincidence - fate? Was God playing a mean trick on him? Is this karma or something?
He watches as the snow piles up on the ledge outside the windows, as Kyungsoo complains about the TV channels with their endless Christmas-themed shows, and drifts off to sleep with the fascinating yet odd scent of peach lingering in his mind.
-
Baekhyun thinks he doesn’t deserve the feeling of crushing disappointment every morning when he wakes up and realizes he isn’t going to continue the dream ever again. Well, even though he now can see Tao anytime he wants (him being a college student working part-time odd jobs actually benefitted Baekhyun in this sense), he still can’t forget the warm, sweet swelling feeling in the pits of his stomach that he had felt in the dream. If he could relive it…
“Can you not space out in the bathroom again?” Kyungsoo’s voice is heavy, laden with sleep, and he yawns. “Some of us just want to pee in the morning without having to wait for someone who takes eons in the bathroom.”
“Wake up earlier than me next time, then,” Baekhyun replies, but he knows he’s in the wrong. As an apology, he takes the time to make Kyungsoo coffee before he leaves.
-
Sometime comes early for Tao, and in fact, keeps coming. Baekhyun drops by the bookstore like a regular customer nowadays, and always buys something before he leaves. The other day, it was an art guidebook for Kyungsoo, and last time it was a Knitting for Dummies, for his mum, he had said, and today, he’s buying a cookbook on fried rice.
“You like fried rice?” Tao asks, scanning the item.
Baekhyun nods absentmindedly, biting back the “because of you”, because he knows that they’re not the same person, and that he should forget the dream as quickly as he can, but it’s so difficult to forget when he relives the dream every night-
“I’m just looking for a particular flavor, so I want to try making it myself…”
Tao doesn’t probe further, just hands over the change and waves goodbye as Baekhyun leaves without so much of a second glance, eyes fixed to the ground and brows knitted together as if in deep thought.
-
After the dream, Baekhyun has been constantly thinking about the conflict between fate and coincidence. He’s stopped visiting the bookstore for a while, planning to clear his head of Tao, and mainly the dream. He’s pretty sure it’s no coincidence that they meet again, at a neighborhood café, when none of them has told each other they would be here. But is it a coincidence when they happen to have the same favorite drinks?
-
It gets quite awkward when they haven’t spoken in a while and Baekhyun looks like a petrified puppy caught red-handed. “Are you busier recently? You haven’t been coming ‘round recently. Even the other employees are starting to miss you.”
What about you? Baekhyun wants to say, but hurriedly sips his drink instead. “Yeah. I-I’m in the talks of a new serialization or collaboration with another author with my editor and publisher, so I really don’t have spare time off my hands…”
“I see,” Tao just replies curtly. “Here I thought you were avoiding me…”
“Avoiding you? Why would I do that?”
“Well, for starters, you always look so scared when I’m around. Recently, you also don’t look so happy whenever you come to the bookstore, too. I thought I might’ve been giving you pressure unconsciously for looking like your character, so-”
“-you’re mistaken,” Baekhyun interrupts. “I’m just really stressed nowadays, you know, I’ve had recurring dreams and shit like that so I can’t really focus on anything… It’s not your fault, is what I’m trying to say.”
“Really?” Tao heaves a sigh of relief, but before he can continue, Baekhyun’s phone rings.
Baekhyun’s about to reject the call when Tao stops him. “Just answer it. I don’t mind.”
“I - I have to go,” Baekhyun says, eyes downcast.
“Bye,” Tao says, a small smile on his face, “sometimes I wish we could’ve more time to talk about more things, though.”
Baekhyun blushes. “There’s always a next time - and don’t worry, I’ll pop by the store as usual again, once my hands are free!”
-
When Baekhyun reaches home, Kyungsoo’s not there yet, so he sinks to the floor and clutches the shirt over his heart with shaky fingers. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to struggle with coincidence and fate, and when he’s going to be free of the haunting dream, and how long more he can endure being around Tao just like that, as a normal friend; not when all he remembers is Tao’s warm embrace and the faint scent of rain and peaches.
-
As the sun sets and the sky slowly turns darker, Tao finishes the cup of coffee and heads back home, watches the streetlights flicker on and wonders when next time will come for him this time.