CHINGUX 2014: sunshine in an empty place (1/1) for galaxygege
Title: Sunshine in an empty place
Author: chajatta
Recipient: galaxygege
Pairing/Focus: Baekhyun/Chanyeol and Baekhyun/Kyungsoo if you squint, Baekhyun focus
Rating: PG
Warnings: mental illness, drug use (prescription), major character death (pre-story), supernatural
Length: 9159 words
Summary: Baekhyun has seen ghosts for as long as he can remember, has heard more stories about death than he could possibly count, but sometimes it’s important to remember that living one’s own life to the fullest, creating one’s own story, is the most important.
Baekhyun has never been scared of ghosts.
His brother would tell him horror stories when they were younger, haunting tales of vengeful gwisin, legless undeads that floated through school corridors and hospital wards, seeking endlessly for victims. Baekhyun would listen raptly, soaking up every word until their mother would drag them apart, slapping the back of his brother’s legs with the palm of her hand for filling Baekhyun’s mind with such rubbish.
Baekhyun still remembers the sound of the smack against his brother’s bare legs.
It hadn’t been long before Baekhyun met his first ghost.
He’d heard it first, the barely there sound of footsteps padding down the creaky old staircase of their family home when everyone else was asleep. The soft whistle of a song Baekhyun couldn’t (and would never grow to) recognise at the dinner table when nobody was speaking.
Baekhyun had been patient. He hadn’t known how, but he’d somehow known, even as young as he had been, back then, that he was waiting for something.
His patience had been rewarded one bright spring morning, when he’d seen an elderly man join them for breakfast, sliding into one of the spare chairs as naturally as though he’d been doing it for years. He’d had a friendly face that Baekhyun had liked immediately and Baekhyun had felt nothing like the fear his brother had always tried to create with his stories as the old man had simply sat there, watching them serenely.
He’d risen with a polite smile when everyone was finished and Baekhyun remembers the way his jaw had dropped, swung open like it was on hinges, when the man disappeared backwards through the kitchen wall.
From then on Baekhyun had seen the man all over the house.
Always wearing the same knitted jumper and worn tartan slippers, he’d been nothing like the ghosts Baekhyun’s brother had described to him. Far from being vengeful, he’d been kind to Baekhyun from that very first meeting, always wishing him a good morning and asking Baekhyun how his day had been.
If he hadn’t told Baekhyun himself that he’d lived in this house since long before Baekhyun’s family had ever shown up, Baekhyun would never had known the old man was a ghost at all.
Naturally, it hadn’t been long before his parents had noticed something was wrong with their son.
“Who do you keep talking to, honey?” his mother had asked as she tucked him into bed and Baekhyun, sweet and innocent and yet to be jaded Baekhyun, had smiled as he lifted one chubby little arm and pointed to the old man lingering by the doorway with that tranquil smile on his face.
“Him!”
His mother’s face had grown progressively paler as Baekhyun had described the old man to her, told her all about the way he joined them for breakfast every morning, the way he told Baekhyun stories from when he was a child before he fell asleep at night, described every single physical detail, right down to the tear on the right cuff of his sweatshirt.
She’d tugged on his bed sheets a little too hard, tucked him in a little too aggressively, and she’d forgotten to kiss him goodnight for the first (but far from last) time that night, leaving his room with a stern warning that he must never, ever talk to the old man again.
Baekhyun hadn’t been able to sleep that night.
Baekhyun had never been particularly popular at school. But when he’d started seeing ghosts he’d rushed from quiet obscurity to hated outcast almost overnight.
He hadn’t even thought, the first time he’d seen a ghost at school. His brother’s favourite setting for his ghost stories had always been in schools, so when Baekhyun had seen a girl who had to be around his age walking sadly through the corridors, her tiny body fading in and out of view as she’d disappeared through classroom walls only to appear again at the other end of the corridor, Baekhyun hadn’t even stopped to think before he’d called out to her.
Her face had lit up. Baekhyun will never forget how beautiful her smile had been. But he will never forget the way his classmates had looked at him, either, when he’d called out to a girl that nobody else could see.
Nobody had really spoken to him after that. He’d never told anyone, his mother’s warning floating clearly in the back of his mind, but it was like they could sense something was wrong with him. The girl had smiled sadly at him and tried to hold his hand in the corner of the playground.
It hadn’t helped. If anything, it had only made things worse. But Baekhyun had appreciated her kindness all the same.
He remembers wishing she wasn’t dead as she stood beside his desk in class. Remembers forgetting himself, whispering to her under his breath. Remembers the sound of a chair scraping across the floor as someone had moved away from him.
Baekhyun hadn’t meant for it to happen like this.
As he’d grown older, he’d found himself seeing more and more ghosts, their spectral voices a constant white noise in the back of his mind that made it difficult to concentrate.
Of course, the more that Baekhyun zoned out at the back of the classroom, the more he found himself unable to hold back a reply that had been sitting on the tip of his tongue, the more the other children pulled away from him. The more they’d begun to whisper about him, their words cutting through the voices in Baekhyun’s head more easily than the lessons of his teachers or the concern of his parents.
Creepy, they’d call him. Freak. Weirdo. They all meant the same thing, really, but none of them hurt any less, whispered callously even when they knew Baekhyun was in earshot. Said even more loudly for it.
Baekhyun would pretend not to notice, just like his teachers did, when the other children kicked the back of his chair, giggling amongst themselves as Baekhyun’s head lowered until his nose was nearly pressed up against his workbook.
It was lonely, certainly, but Baekhyun had found a certain comfort in the company of ghosts. They, at least, would never call Baekhyun names, would never stick chewing gum to the back of his shirt or hide his homework at the end of the day.
It’s okay this way, Baekhyun had thought to himself, they’re just jealous, he’d try to convince himself, it’s okay.
Except there had come a point when it hadn’t been okay, and his teachers had been forced to stop ignoring Baekhyun.
Baekhyun remembers being eight years old and the head teacher calling for his mother.
He’d sat, trembling and afraid, in her huge office, staring down at his scabby knees as she’d told his mother, ‘Baekhyun is obviously a smart boy, but his behaviour is starting to become a concern. He doesn’t listen in class. His teachers say that he is a constant source of disruption, always talking to himself and never handing in his homework. He has isolated himself from the other children, refusing to interact with them during playtimes. Some of the other parents have complained that their children are frightened by him.’
Baekhyun remembers, vividly, wanting to scream. Wanting to scream that it wasn’t like that, that it wasn’t fair. But he’d looked up at his mother, waited with some childish hope that she would defend him, that she would say how that didn’t sound like her Baekhyun, her bright and bubbly little boy.
Instead, he’d seen how pinched her face had been, how grey her skin had looked, and he’d been reminded of how she’d told him to never tell anyone, that nobody must ever find out about his problem.
He’d known, then, even as young as he had been, that she thought he was a freak, too.
So he’d stayed silent. He’d bitten down hard on his bottom lip and refused to cry, even as he’d listened to his head teacher suggest that, ‘it might be within Baekhyun’s best interests to get some help.’
Even as he’d watched his mother nod and felt something that seemed suspiciously like his heart break.
Baekhyun doesn’t remember the name of his first psychiatrist.
He just remembers a man with a thick moustache that made him look like a walrus peering at him through thick-rimmed glasses, staring down at where Baekhyun had wedged himself between his parents like he was a particularly interesting insect on a slide. His office had smelt sterile, like a hospital, and Baekhyun remembers feeling an overwhelming sense of fear churning in his stomach at the stark reminder that everyone around him, even his own parents, thought he was sick.
Baekhyun had refused to answer any of the questions the doctor had asked him. His mother’s voice had sounded exasperated as she’d talked about what she thought was happening to her son.
Baekhyun had listened stubbornly as she’d explained, in a tone of voice Baekhyun would become all too painfully familiar with as he grew up, how Baekhyun was ‘imagining’ voices in his head, how Baekhyun ‘thought’ he was seeing people that weren’t really there.
He'd come away from that first nerve wracking assessment with a bottle of pills tucked safely away in his mother’s handbag and the confident assurances of his psychiatrist that sticking strictly to the medicine would have Baekhyun back to normal in no time.
Normal.
Baekhyun never did grow to like that man.
The medicine never did make Baekhyun feel normal. If anything, it made him positively miserable.
His mother had watched him like a hawk for that first month, pressing pills into his palm like they were sugary sweets before every meal, the tight lines around her mouth never quite smoothing all the way out.
They tasted like chalk in Baekhyun’s mouth.
But to their credit, he’d stopped seeing ghosts almost immediately. He remembers waking up that first morning, walking down to breakfast and, for the first time in more years than Baekhyun could even count, not seeing the old man at the breakfast table. He’d known, on some level, that he wouldn’t be there, hadn’t been able to hear the gentle patter of his feet around the house or the sound of him whistling a tune before the rest of the family had risen, but even still his absence had made something inside Baekhyun deflate.
And maybe, in all honesty, that was all his parents had wanted. They’d noticed how quiet he was, now, how Baekhyun kept his eyes firmly fixed to the ground in public with no friendly faces to look up and see, but if anything they’d just looked relieved.
They’d been so relieved that they’d carted Baekhyun back to his psychiatrist as soon as possible to relay his progress. Baekhyun remembers something like hatred curling in his stomach at the way the man’s mouth had curled into a condescending smile beneath his moustache.
He’d been taken off his pills.
The ghosts had returned to him almost as quickly as they’d left.
That period of Baekhyun’s life had ended up being one of his most miserable.
He’d tried to hide it from his parents, had tried to keep the smile from his face when he’d seen a ghost in the street, but he’d longed so much for company that once he was able to see again it had been impossible for Baekhyun to hide his joy.
His father had caught Baekhyun whispering to the old man before bed and he’d been on the phone to the hospital the second the sun had risen.
Baekhyun had kicked and screamed, fought so hard he’d been able to feel the hot press of tears against his eyelashes, but it hadn’t been enough to stop his parents hauling him back into that office, his father’s grip like iron on the back of his neck as they’d begged the doctor to try again to fix their son.
Baekhyun had sniffed furiously, bringing one hand up to smear the tears across his face but keeping his mouth stubbornly shut, as the doctor had agreed that they definitely needed to try ‘something a little stronger for little Baekhyun’s little problem.’
Looking back at it, Baekhyun is never sure whether he’d placed a mental block on that dark period of his life by himself, or whether it had been the influence of the medication that erased everything from his memory.
He remembers things more as feelings than solid memories, deep flushes of emotion that he can still recall now. He remembers exhaustion, constant and bone deep, laced with loneliness so crippling that he’d barely been able to stand the way his parents had smiled at him as the medicine had taken every bit of his self away, until he’d been little more than a shell longing for someone, anyone, in his life that would look at him like he was more than just a freak or a weirdo or the sick little son that needed to pop pills constantly to keep him sane.
Baekhyun remembers the fear, remembers it so strongly he can almost taste it across his tongue, of never feeling like himself, remembers the fear of being so achingly unhappy that he wanted it to stop, he wanted everything to just stop.
Baekhyun remembers taking control.
Baekhyun remembers the way he had stopped taking his medication.
And he remembers how seeing the undead again had felt so much like coming back to life.
Baekhyun had been good at keeping his little indiscretion secret from his family. His brother, he hadn’t cared at all what Baekhyun did anymore, had stopped caring about him back when they were still children, when Baekhyun had first shown signs of being different. His parents had been a little more difficult, but years of learning how to say exactly what the therapists wanted to hear had taught Baekhyun how to lie convincingly. As long as he kept his mouth shut and his head down, as long as he pretended like he couldn’t see the soft ripples of energy that pulsed in the air around the ghosts, his parents were happy.
Baekhyun was happy.
His act had been so thoroughly convincing that when Baekhyun was eighteen his parents had agreed to a freedom Baekhyun had been certain he’d never be allowed. They’d agreed for him to move away to university.
There had been conditions, of course. They still wanted Baekhyun to see a regular doctor, but his parents calling the hospital and asking them to contact Baekhyun’s new university had been such a small price to pay that he had agreed to it readily.
His mother had held Baekhyun’s face between her hands, had told him how proud she’d been of him, but it had been all Baekhyun could do to hold back his own smile as the old man hovered silently over her shoulder. It was all Baekhyun could do not to return his parting wave, turning his back on his family as the old man vanished through the kitchen wall.
It had felt like a new start.
More than he had for years, Baekhyun felt truly alive.
Baekhyun meets his new roommate almost as soon as he’s finished unpacking.
“I’m Kyungsoo,” he tells Baekhyun, voice spilling out of a heart shaped mouth, and his presence reinforces for Baekhyun, more than anything, more than the way he’d walked out of his childhood home without a single glance backwards, that this is a fresh start.
Kyungsoo looks at him without a single shadow of fear or disgust lurking in his eyes and Baekhyun finds himself relaxing almost before those words are even spoken.
Baekhyun leans back against the wall on his bed, curls his toes into the duvet of his bed, a carbon copy of Kyungsoo’s, as he watches the other boy arranging his belongings meticulously on his side of the room. Baekhyun chatters endlessly, eagerly, and the way it makes his chest feel so light when Kyungsoo replies to him just as easily lingers with Baekhyun even when the two of them say goodnight and curl up to sleep.
Baekhyun sleeps better than he has in years.
The university send him details of his first therapy session by email. It’s scheduled for a week before classes officially start, to help ensure you have all the necessary support and resources available to you to help you feel settled and at home in your new surroundings, the email had said.
Baekhyun glances up at Kyungsoo over the top of his phone, paranoid even despite himself, but Kyungsoo is settled on his bed with his computer on his lap and earphones in. He shoots Baekhyun a smile when he sees him looking, but he says nothing, eyes quickly flickering back down to his laptop screen. Baekhyun is intensely grateful that Kyungsoo, thus far, seems perfectly happy to allow Baekhyun as much privacy as he likes. It’s a welcome change, not to have someone breathing down his neck.
Baekhyun looks back down at his phone and the address of the university health centre glows up at him from the screen.
He sighs and tries to put it to the back of his mind.
His new therapist, it turns out, is absolutely nothing like Baekhyun had imagined he’d be.
Baekhyun is no stranger to doctors. He’d gone through enough of them as a child, passed around like a ragdoll at his local hospital, but the man that greets Baekhyun when he steps into the clinic is the complete antithesis of every white coated psychiatrist Baekhyun has ever encountered.
“I’m Dr. Kim,” he says brightly, gesturing for Baekhyun to take a seat. There’s a desk in the corner of the room, but Baekhyun is lead towards two plush armchairs and he sinks down silently, hands in his lap as the doctor sits opposite him, a blinding smile on his face, “But please call me Jongdae. We’re going to be seeing each quite a lot and I don’t want any of that stuffy formality to get in the way.”
He’s still directing that earnest smile at Baekhyun and Baekhyun is almost tempted to shield his eyes. If not from the force of his smile then from the bright, polka-dot bowtie that is settled against the hollow of his throat.
“Right,” Baekhyun says. Jongdae can’t be a day over thirty, Baekhyun thinks to himself as he studies the other man. Jongdae has a thick sheaf of notes in his lap, Baekhyun’s medical records, he can only imagine, but he hasn’t opened the file once since Baekhyun entered the room.
“Before we get started with all the heavy stuff, we should get to know each other a little better, right?” Jongdae starts, the corners of his mouth curling up like a cat’s, and Baekhyun blinks at him suspiciously. This isn’t how this is supposed to go. Baekhyun is accustomed to being studied like a lab specimen, is used to prying and personal questions about his childhood and his relationship with his parents, is used to prescriptions and tablets, but Jongdae is sitting across from him, asking Baekhyun about himself like this is a blind date and it poleaxes Baekhyun more than he is willing to admit.
He doesn’t say anything, but Jongdae seems completely unperturbed as he continues on, “I want us both to be able to be comfortable around each other, so I guess it’s only fair I tell you a bit about myself, too, right?”
The hour passes more quickly than Baekhyun had anticipated. Jongdae dominates the conversation, telling Baekhyun all about how he’d gone to Seoul National University to study psychology and that he was a diehard Doosan Bears fan. Baekhyun’s chest tightens when Jongdae mentions growing up in Gyeonggi and when Jongdae waves him goodbye at the end of the session, his smile a little more regretful as he tells Baekhyun they’ll get to work properly next time, Baekhyun thinks that this really isn’t how this is supposed to go.
He trudges back to the dorms, puzzled but not entirely unhappy, without the tightness across his shoulders and the lingering headaches that had plagued him after therapy sessions at home, and if any of it shows on his face when he gets back, Kyungsoo doesn’t say a word.
The university campus is so much bigger than Baekhyun had expected it to be.
He and Kyungsoo explore it together and Baekhyun finds it hard, sometimes, to concentrate when Kyungsoo speaks to him, when there are lives everywhere. If Kyungsoo takes his silence negatively he never says anything, content to walk along with Baekhyun in companionable quiet as they meander along the sloping grass of the courtyard, chase each other up the stone steps leading to the main building, until Baekhyun is panting and breathless, glancing over at Kyungsoo with pink cheeks, his body brimming with life like it hasn’t since he was a little boy.
Baekhyun is shocked, too, by just how many ghosts there are here. They wander the corridors between classes, linger, their edges just slightly faded and indistinct, outside classrooms and in the reception.
He tries not to acknowledge them when he’s with Kyungsoo, the memories of the way he’d been treated as a child still raw beneath the surface of his skin, but he just can’t help himself, sometimes. They light up when they realise he can see them, their mouths curling up at the edges, and Baekhyun can’t help the ache in his chest when his eyes flicker to a point over Kyungsoo’s shoulder, when he sees the tiny little scrap of joy he’s able to bring to them.
Most of them are just longing for someone to talk to. Baekhyun has always found some degree of comfort in that particular similarity.
Classes start and Baekhyun is happier than he can ever remember being.
He still keeps to himself, unconsciously choosing seats at the back of lecture theatres, a scar of the way he’d been treated as a child. When he was younger, much younger, before any of this had started, Baekhyun’s mother used to half-joke that if she wasn’t careful he was going to get snatched. But Baekhyun is hyperaware of the fact that he will be spending the next three years of his life with these people and he doesn’t want to spend any of that time dodging the same looks he has dodged all of his life.
That’s not to say he doesn’t try, though. Baekhyun approaches his course mates like a cautious deer and the way they respond to him, the way they look at him like he’s just another face in the crowd, like he’s just normal, has Baekhyun’s lungs expanding in his chest like a balloon.
Baekhyun should have known it wouldn’t be long before he started to deflate.
Baekhyun has heard so many stories, been told so many tales about how people died and why they felt unable to move on, but some still touch him so deeply that they’re impossible to forget.
They meet in the library.
It’s hard, sometimes, to find quiet. Especially here, especially now that Baekhyun is surrounded by noise and voices at every turn. The library is a haven, the sound of silence wrapping around him like a blanket the minute Baekhyun sets his laptop down at a desk in the corner.
He works in solitude for what feels like hours, and he’s so absorbed in the peace of everything, in the blessed emptiness inside his own head, that he visibly startles when someone passes right by his side, their bodies brushing when the man- no, no when the boy, he barely looks any older than Baekhyun, slips by him, his body slicing right through the solid wood of the table.
Baekhyun can’t stop the surprised little yelp that falls from his mouth and the boy turns to face him, the desk still cutting just below his waist as he surveys Baekhyun with wide eyes.
“Well this is new,” he says, his voice deeper than anything Baekhyun has ever heard, “you can actually see me right now?” He waves a hand out to the side and his eyebrows shoot up when Baekhyun’s eyes flicker to follow the movement.
“I can see you,” Baekhyun replies. His voice cracks and he clears his throat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just-“
The boy laughs, the sound of it effectively shattering any of the peace Baekhyun still had left. Somehow he finds he doesn’t mind too much. “You didn’t mean to startle me? Aren’t you a weird one.” He comes around to Baekhyun’s side, slides into the empty seat beside him, and lifts his hand into a jaunty little wave. “I’m Chanyeol.”
“You’re-“ Baekhyun starts quietly. He glances over his shoulder, self-conscious of the way his voice sounds overly loud in the quiet. Or maybe that’s just the years or paranoia setting in. Either way Chanyeol takes advantage of his tiny pause, his voice a low rumble that makes Baekhyun’s ribcage rattle.
“What, dead? Yeah. I know,” he says bluntly, but he doesn’t look angry. If anything Baekhyun could swear that’s curiosity in his eyes as he looks Baekhyun up and down.
“No, I mean, yes, you are, but I didn’t mean-“ Baekhyun clears his throat again and pitches his voice lower, “you look young, is all I was trying to say.” It sounds awkward even to his own ears.
Baekhyun knows, realistically, that not everyone is fortunate enough to live to a ripe age. He’s seen it with his own eyes, after all. But it still makes something twinge deep inside the cavity of his chest when he sees someone whose life has been snatched from them far too soon.
“Oh, yeah. It happened last year,” Chanyeol says solemnly, affecting a dreary tone of voice that Baekhyun can tell is only partly for show. “I was nineteen, with all the hopes of my parents that I would go on to follow in their footsteps, and my sister’s footsteps, to become a pharmacist. It was finals week. I never wanted to be a pharmacist. Honestly, I never even wanted to go to university.” He smiles a little sadly at Baekhyun. “I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to join a band and play guitar, to have loads of groupies and hear people screaming my name, but-“ he shrugs. “I didn’t want to disappoint my family, but I wasn’t doing well in class, either. I was convinced I was going to fail my exams, so I bought these pills off the internet, right? Said they were guaranteed to improve mental performance and reduce my need for sleep. Perfect. But I took too many and before I knew it,” Chanyeol draws a hand across his throat, “heart attack.”
Baekhyun stays silent but Chanyeol doesn’t let the silence deter him, filling the space between them easily. “I know, not exactly the way I would have chosen to go. Dying in the library isn’t very rock and roll, is it?” He laughs good naturedly, but Baekhyun can see the hurt lurking in his eyes. He wonders if this is the first time Chanyeol has ever relived the story of his death. Probably. Who else could he possibly tell?
“No,” Baekhyun says eventually, almost in a whisper, “no, it’s not really. I’m sorry.” Not that it counts for much, not that Baekhyun’s sorrow could ever really match up to the way Chanyeol must feel, to the way any of them must feel, but that doesn’t change his sentiment.
“Shit happens,” Chanyeol says, offhand, then he’s studying Baekhyun again, eyes roaming over his face. “So what’s your story, Baekhyun? You some kind of ghost whisperer?”
Baekhyun’s lips twitch into a smile and Chanyeol beams at him, teeth pearly white and perfectly straight. Baekhyun feels heat prickle across the back of his neck.
“That’s one way of putting it, I guess. I don’t know.” He taps his fingers against the keyboard of his laptop and Chanyeol leans in closer, peers at the screen. It casts a white glow over his face. From this angle Baekhyun can see the way his ears stick out from beneath his hair.
“Well, it’s nice to have somebody to talk to, either way,” Chanyeol pulls away from his laptop and aims that smile at him again. “Unless you’re going to try and exorcise me, or something. You’re not, right? Because I’m a good ghost, honest,” he teases and Baekhyun aches, aches in a way he shouldn’t, not for someone he’s only just met.
“I’m not going to exorcise you,” Baekhyun whispers, “I promise.”
They talk like that for hours, Baekhyun falling so easily into Chanyeol’s company that he barely even notices the sun disappearing below the horizon outside. The battery on his laptop gives up after three hours and Baekhyun is too busy trying to hold back his laughter to notice the way his phone lights up with every missed call from Kyungsoo.
It carries on for weeks.
Their friendship grows with all the power and intensity of a forest fire, blossoming into something Baekhyun can’t even explain, something he never felt like he would deserve.
The library becomes almost his second home, what with the way he spends hours upon hours there, just talking to Chanyeol, studying with him, teasing him like Baekhyun has never had anyone to tease before. Chanyeol calls him a weirdo, but coming from his mouth the familiar barb somehow loses all of its sting.
But Baekhyun is smart, is smarter than anyone has ever given him any credit for, and he knows he has to keep this friendship a secret.
He falls asleep too many times, face down in his books with nothing but Chanyeol’s booming laugh to rouse him and he knows, as much as he wants nothing more than to stay here, to stay hidden away in the secluded corner of the library that he has practically claimed as his own, that he has to leave. At least enough that his increasing absences aren’t great enough to rouse suspicion in anyone.
As subtle as he tries to be, as practiced as he is at lying to those closest to him, months of being out from the watchful eye of his parents has left Baekhyun careless, familiar routines and lies unravelling on his tongue without him even realising.
Kyungsoo is the first one to notice the change.
In all the months that Baekhyun has known Kyungsoo, has shared a room with him, has woken late for class and peered, dishevelled and still slow with sleep, to see Kyungsoo smiling knowingly at him, he has never been shy about speaking what is on his mind.
Yet his silence unnerves Baekhyun.
He doesn’t say anything, at first. But the way he looks at Baekhyun is different. There’s something there, in his eyes, that has Baekhyun’s skin crawling uncomfortably even as he tries to stifle a yawn behind his hand.
Something lingers on his face when Baekhyun sneaks in late at night, something dark and searching each time he glances up from his laptop, the white glow illuminating his face.
“Walk of shame?” he jokes the first time Baekhyun doesn’t make it home until the morning. Baekhyun hopes the grin he flashes at Kyungsoo isn’t as shaky as it feels as he darts into the bathroom to shower before class. He hopes it will be enough to distract Kyungsoo from asking questions.
It isn’t.
Even Jongdae starts to notice.
“You seem tired,” he says softly when Baekhyun sits down in his usual arm chair. Baekhyun feels his eyes sting and he knows they’d been bloodshot when he left the dorms this morning. It’s just that the need to be with Chanyeol is so strong inside him, itching his bones, and Baekhyun is almost a slave to it.
He’s spending more time at the library now than ever, skipping class whenever he feels like he can get away with it. It’s getting harder and harder for Baekhyun to pretend he cares, not when all he really wants is to feel something physical when Chanyeol sits beside him, when Chanyeol laughs at one of his own jokes and lays a pale hand over Baekhyun’s on top of the desk.
“I’ve been studying a lot,” Baekhyun answers, except he knows it’s a lie. He knows he and Chanyeol spend hardly any of their time studying now and he knows that his grades are dropping. “Finals are coming up and I’ve been working hard to make sure I’m prepared,” Baekhyun says smoothly, but he feels something heavy settle in his stomach when Jongdae levels him with a knowing look.
“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Baekhyun, but I have to ask,” he looks down at his clipboard and Baekhyun fights the urge to dig his fingers into his thighs. “Are you still taking your medication? You don’t seem to be coping as well as you did when you first arrived here and I know exam stress must be difficult to deal with, but the last couple of sessions you’ve seemed unsettled and if-“
“Of course I am,” Baekhyun snaps and he feels panic start to well up inside him when Jongdae looks slightly startled. “I’m sorry, I just mean that you don’t need to worry, I’m just a little tired with everything recently, that’s all.” He tries to smile, even as he thinks about the last bottle of pills Jongdae had given him, seal unbroken and tucked safely away inside his desk.
“Okay,” Jongdae says and Baekhyun feels the tension almost leak right out of him before Jongdae continues, “even still, I want to give you something to help you cope with the stress.”
Baekhyun watches as he stands from his seat and moves over to his desk. He scribbles out a prescription, tearing it from the notepad with one sharp tug, and comes back over to hand it to Baekhyun.
“You won’t have to take them for long, I promise,” he backs away from Baekhyun and Baekhyun has to make a conscious effort to keep his breathing steady as he stares down at the green sheet of paper in his hands. “Just until your exams are over and everything has settled down again. Then once you’re through that we’ll see about taking you off them and perhaps altering the current course of antipsychotics you’re taking. Maybe increasing your CBT sessions with me.”
He must see the look on Baekhyun’s face because his expression softens and his voice is soothing when he speaks again. “You know how important it is that we manage any symptoms before they begin to interfere in your day to day life, Baekhyun. This is just to ease things for you so you can focus on your studies, so please don’t look so worried.”
“Right, of course,” Baekhyun tries to sound unaffected, but as he stands and stuffs the new prescription into his backpack he knows he’s anything but.
It’s late when Baekhyun leaves Jongdae’s office, a light haze of rain falling from the sky and making the pavement glitter. Baekhyun knows he should really go home but almost unconsciously his feet tread the familiar path to the library.
He peels off his wet hoodie when he gets to his usual table and it isn’t long before Chanyeol puts in an appearance.
“You look like a drowned rat,” his deep voice jokes from behind Baekhyun. Baekhyun doesn’t turn to face him so Chanyeol comes around instead, sliding easily into the vacant chair next to him. There’s still the hint of a smile on his face, but his eyes are concerned and for a moment Baekhyun feels guilty as he looks at him.
Chanyeol who, despite everything, is so full of laughter and life, so full of love. Baekhyun remembers Chanyeol telling him how important it was to love life, to make the most of the time that you have, and how he wishes it hadn’t taken dying to teach him that lesson.
Baekhyun thinks about his own life and he can barely stand to look at him.
“What’s the matter? You look all serious. I don’t like it when you look serious,” Chanyeol tries again and he frowns when Baekhyun barely responds. “Hey, come on, you’re way prettier when you smile.”
Baekhyun just sighs and digs the prescription out of his rucksack, smoothes it out with shaking hands and pushes it across the desk.
“Tablets?” Chanyeol says, leaning in close to peer down at the sheet of paper. Of course, he can’t pick it up. “Are you sick?”
Baekhyun wants to laugh. Apparently so. At least, that’s what he’s always been told, hasn’t he?
“I shouldn’t even be able to see you,” he settles on eventually, voice soft as he watches Chanyeol uncurl, straightening up again in his chair until their eyes are level. “I… I see a doctor, once a week. A psychiatrist. I’m supposed to take medication so that I can’t see you. But I haven’t taken them for years.”
Both of Chanyeol’s eyebrows have disappeared up into his hairline. “Then you obviously don’t need any of that stuff.” He says eventually, “I mean, you want to see me, right? So just don’t take whatever they give you.”
“I do,” Baekhyun says immediately and he can feel the tension starting to build across his forehead, knotting uncomfortably around his temples. “But I’m- I never really cared about what my family thought of me. They only cared about having a normal son so the neighbours didn’t ask questions, but now I just feel like- my doctor, Jongdae, it’s like he actually gives a damn about me, and making sure I’m okay. I know my roommate is worried, too, and I actually give a shit about them, but I’m scared to go back on the pills again. Even these,” he nods down at the prescription on the table and it’s then that Baekhyun notices the way the expression on Chanyeol’s face has darkened.
His nose is wrinkled up and he’s looking at Baekhyun with something like distaste. “And I don’t give a damn about you? You don’t give a shit about me?” He accuses, but before Baekhyun can rebuke how ridiculous he’s being, because of course Baekhyun cares, he cares about Chanyeol the most, Chanyeol is ploughing on. “Come on, Baekhyun, you aren’t honestly going to fall for anything a psychiatrist tells you, are you? They’re all the same. And as for your roommate,” Chanyeol snorts, “why worry about him when you’ve got me?”
“But I-“ Baekhyun tries, but Chanyeol just rolls his eyes.
“You don’t need any of this shit, but you’ve obviously made your mind up about whose opinion is more important to you.”
Chanyeol rises from the chair before Baekhyun can move to try and stop him and, without so much as a backwards glance, he disappears through a row of bookshelves, leaving Baekhyun alone at the table.
The silence that presses down around him only makes his headache worse.
Chanyeol’s words still echo around Baekhyun’s head when he finally drags himself home. He stands almost motionless by his bed, hands spread out in front of him as he tries not to remember the ugly expression he’d seen on Chanyeol’s face.
Except his reality isn’t that much better. In one hand, he has the bottle of sleeping aids Jongdae had prescribed him, the pills rattling around, small and round and innocuous, in the clear bottle. In the other, clutched tightly in his palm so that Baekhyun can barely see the label through his clenched fingers, are his antipsychotics.
He’d popped the seal, but Baekhyun hadn’t been brave enough to unscrew the lid. Had been too cowardly to take one of the tablets out and feel the weight of it in his palm.
Baekhyun thinks about what Jongdae had said, about him seeming unsettled, and in his heart of hearts Baekhyun knows he’s right. He feels twitchy when he isn’t around Chanyeol, feels something crawling uncomfortably under his skin, and it scares him. Scares Baekhyun in a way he isn’t used to, in a way that the ghosts he has always seen have never made him feel before.
Baekhyun flinches visibly when he hears the sound of the lock sliding off the latch. He stuffs both bottles hastily into the front pocket of his hoodie and jumps to his feet, shuffling awkwardly next to the bed just in time for Kyungsoo to push the door open, face half hidden by a towering stack of takeout boxes.
“You’re in,” he says and Baekhyun can’t help the way his stomach flutters at the way Kyungsoo sounds so pleased to see him. Even as off with him as Baekhyun has been recently, even with as little as they’ve seen each other. “I bought pizza for us both. Come and help me.”
Baekhyun’s motions are jerky as he crosses their tiny dorm room to take the boxes into his arms. He keeps his head down when Kyungsoo’s fingers brush over his.
“You’re freezing,” Kyungsoo says softly, coming in close to Baekhyun and tilting his chin up to look at him, “and you’re soaked through. Where have you been all afternoon?”
Baekhyun shrugs but he doesn’t pull away from Kyungsoo’s touch, no matter how much it almost burns. “I’m sorry,” he says eventually, and Baekhyun hopes it sounds earnest as he steadfastly looks Kyungsoo in the eye, “I’m sorry for making you worry all the time.”
Kyungsoo softens and he releases Baekhyun’s chin with a clucking sound. “idiot,” he says fondly. He goes to sit on his bed and gestures for Baekhyun to follow, patting the space he’d deliberately left beside him. “Will you stay in with me tonight? Just us and some pizza, maybe a video game or two. Come on, Baekhyun, you need to take a night off from studying before you burn yourself out.”
Baekhyun hesitates. The grease from the pizzas is starting to soak through the cardboard onto his fingers and Baekhyun can feel the medicine bottles pressing into his stomach where the boxes are cradled against it. He thinks about Chanyeol, angry and alone in the library, but all he sees is Kyungsoo, looking expectantly up at him, and Baekhyun feels his answer even before it falls off the tip of his tongue.
Somewhere between slice twelve of meat feast pizza and round thirty seven of Crash Team Racing on Kyungsoo’s old PS1, Baekhyun falls asleep on Kyungsoo’s shoulder.
He doesn't remember it happening, but when he wakes sunlight is streaming in through the open window and Baekhyun is alone in Kyungsoo’s bed. His hoodie and t-shirt are folded neatly by his feet and Baekhyun’s panic doesn’t register until he sees two bottles of pills on Kyungsoo’s bedside table.
A million excuses and scenarios rush through Baekhyun’s foggy mind, but before he can settle on anything, before he can even push himself up into a sitting position, Kyungsoo is coming out of the bathroom.
He’s wearing his comfiest sweats and a towel around his shoulders and, when he sees that Baekhyun’s awake, the smile he directs towards him is the same as always.
“Morning sleepyhead,” he teases as Baekhyun pushes himself up onto his elbows, “you went out like a light last night and I didn’t want to disturb you, so I left you to sleep in my bed. I hope you don’t mind that I took some of your clothes.”
Kyungsoo continues to towel dry his hair like this hasn’t just changed absolutely everything between them. Baekhyun gapes at him, mouth a sleepy little ‘o’.
“That’s it?” Baekhyun’s voice is rough with sleep and he has to clear his throat a few times before he can speak again. “You’re not going to ask? I mean- you’re not bothered about-?”
For a split second Kyungsoo looks confused as he re-emerges from beneath his towel, but he must see the way Baekhyun’s nervous gaze flickers over to the side of the bed.
He folds his towel and carefully places it over the back of his desk chair before coming over to kneel on the bed next to Baekhyun. His cheeks are flushed from the heat of his shower and his damp hair sticks up in all directions like a bird’s nest. But Kyungsoo’s gaze doesn’t waver as he looks at Baekhyun.
“Should I be bothered?” He says, but he doesn’t pause to give Baekhyun a chance to answer. “I don’t care. You’re just you, Baekhyun, and you don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to.”
Baekhyun gets that familiar pole axed feeling in his gut again, the same way he had all those months ago, when he’d sat in Jongdae’s office for the first time. Kyungsoo is still staring down at him with those wide eyes of his and Baekhyun searches them fervently for any sign of fear, of disgust, but he sees nothing.
“You’re-“ Baekhyun starts, but he trails off quickly. It can’t be this easy. Kyungsoo should be calling him a freak right about now, should be recoiling with horror, not crawling closer to Baekhyun and looking at him the way he has always looked at him, like he’s worth more than anything Baekhyun ever thought.
“You’re my friend,” Kyungsoo says firmly, “that’s all I care about.”
Baekhyun’s throat feels tight and he clears it again before he starts to speak. “I can see ghosts,” he starts in an almost whisper, voice growing a little louder when Kyungsoo doesn’t laugh or pull away. “Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been able to see them and hear them. They talk to me, sometimes.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything, but his expression doesn’t alter and Baekhyun continues to force the words out. If he doesn’t tell Kyungsoo now, he’s scared he never will.
“I see a psychiatrist. That’s where I am, sometimes, when I disappear without telling you. I’m supposed to take those,” his eyes flicker over to the medicine bottles, “to stop me seeing them, but I stopped taking them years ago. They made me so sick and so miserable so I just- I refused to take them anymore. But now- now my doctor thinks I’m not coping, but I’m scared, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun wrings his hands together in his lap and he feels so exposed like this, half naked in Kyungsoo’s bed and baring his soul to Kyungsoo, whose facial expression still hasn’t changed one single inch.
“I’m scared because I’m not, I’m really not coping. But I can’t go back on that medication, I won’t. I’d rather die.”
Silence stretches between them and for a long moment Baekhyun is terrified that Kyungsoo has changed his mind, has realised that Baekhyun is a freak, just like the other children had said all those years ago. But then Kyungsoo leans forward to cradle Baekhyun’s cheeks in his hands and dips his head to press that soft, warm mouth to Baekhyun’s forehead.
“It’s okay,” he soothes and Baekhyun is suddenly aware of the way his whole body is trembling when Kyungsoo smoothes his fingers through Baekhyun’s hair. “I’m here, it’s okay.”
Kyungsoo smells like papaya and warm water as he pulls Baekhyun closer. He doesn’t say it, but Kyungsoo’s silent support slows the jackrabbit thundering of Baekhyun’s heart. He presses his nose into Kyungsoo’s neck gratefully and closes his eyes.
Baekhyun stops by the library before his appointment with Jongdae the following week.
He isn’t really sure what he expects to happen, but he waits for more than half an hour, tapping his fingers anxiously on the top of the desk, before Chanyeol shows up.
It’s been nearly a week since their falling out, if it could even be called that, and Baekhyun’s chest feels hollow when he sees the way Chanyeol scowls at him when he emerges from behind a stack of books.
“You’re back,” he says blankly, slowly coming closer to Baekhyun. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.”
Baekhyun shrugs. He knows he’s staring but he can’t help but try and take in every detail of Chanyeol’s body and his face, can’t help but try and commit every little bit of him to memory. This feels horribly like a goodbye that Baekhyun isn’t really ready for.
“I won’t apologise for the things that I said, if that’s why you’re here.” Chanyeol says spitefully and Baekhyun forces himself to smile.
“That’s not why I’m here. I just wanted to see you before my doctor’s appointment.”
Chanyeol raises both eyebrows and it’s such a familiar gesture on his face. Before Baekhyun knows it though, he’s frowning again. “So you’ve made your choice, then. You’re going to let them pump you full of drugs so you don’t have to put up with me anymore.”
Baekhyun reaches out for Chanyeol and, just as expected, his hand goes straight through Chanyeol’s bicep. “It won’t be like that at all,” he says gently, reluctantly withdrawing his hand and laying it back on the table. “I’m going to explain to him about everything, about the tablets and why I stopped taking them and- Jongdae’s reasonable. He’ll find another way to help me. I know he will.” Baekhyun pauses. “I trust him.”
Chanyeol snorts and looks away.
“Don’t you want me to be happy?” Baekhyun asks. He’s almost scared to hear Chanyeol’s answer but in the end he doesn’t even get one. Chanyeol keeps his face turned away, mouth downturned into a frown but sealed firmly shut.
Baekhyun doesn’t press it. He stands from his chair, the sound of it scraping across the floor almost obnoxiously loud between them. “I guess this is goodbye, then.” Baekhyun swings his bag onto his shoulder and he isn’t surprised, this time, when Chanyeol doesn’t answer him.
Baekhyun gives him one last fleeting look and then he turns away, shoulders set firmly as he walks out of the library.
He doesn’t glance back to see if Chanyeol even bothers to watch him go.
“I haven’t taken a single tablet since I was fifteen,” Baekhyun blurts out. It feels like a burden being lifted from his shoulders and Baekhyun wants to laugh at the expression on Jongdae’s face. It’s almost comical, the way his mouth drops open to expose too much teeth.
“You haven’t- Baekhyun are you serious?” Baekhyun nods and Jongdae stands from his seat, paces over to his desk, circles it once, before returning back to sit in front of Baekhyun. He’s still fidgeting even once he’s back in the armchair. Baekhyun feels a little bad. His mouth twitches a little, like he doesn’t know what to say, before he finally settles on, “why?”
“They made me miserable, Jongdae. They made me so goddamn unhappy. I know they were supposed to be for my own good, for my health, but nobody ever stopped to ask what I wanted. Nobody ever thought to ask how I might be feeling. They just shoved some drugs into my hand and so long as I kept on taking them and kept my mouth shut like a good little boy everyone was happy.”
Baekhyun takes a deep, shuddering breath and shakes his head. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy and I was the only one who cared enough to do something about it.”
Jongdae is staring at him with an implacable look on his face and Baekhyun, for one short, terrifying, moment, isn’t sure how he’s going to react.
“So you’ve been seeing the ghosts for all these years? Been hearing voices-?” Baekhyun nods and Jongdae sinks back in his chair, grip on his clipboard going slack so that it falls down into his lap. “Why are you telling me this now? If you were so good at hiding this from everyone, why are you admitting this to me now?”
“Because,” Baekhyun starts firmly, holding Jongdae gaze, “because you were right, I’m not coping. But I’m not sick, either, and I won’t be put back on those pills.” Jongdae had looked like he was about to interrupt but something about the fierce conviction in Baekhyun’s voice must make him reconsider.
“I don’t mind seeing them. Honestly? Most of the time, it’s kind of nice. They don’t try and hurt me, Jongdae. They don’t try and make me do terrible things. A lot of them are just sad, lonely people that want someone to talk to, and I understand that so much. But I also-“ Baekhyun finally breaks eye contact with Jongdae and his cheeks heat up a little with embarrassment. “I also know that I have people who care about me, now, living people, that I can reach out and touch and hold, that I actually trust and I just- I just want to be able to find a balance between everything. I want you to help me reach a balance.”
Jongdae stays silent for the longest time and Baekhyun is just starting to worry again when he lifts his head to see Jongdae smiling more than a little fondly at him.
“I think that was incredibly brave, what you just did,” he says quietly, his normally loud voice pitched low and soft. “Telling me all that. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. We’ll work through every single day together if that’s what it takes to help you find a way to manage this without medication, if that’s what you want.”
Baekhyun can feel his eyes stinging and he frowns down at the floor to try and hide it. He wants to reach out for Jongdae, wants that reassurance of physical contact, just like the almost bone crushing hug that Kyungsoo had given him just hours before when he’d left the dorm for this appointment. He’s startled when Jongdae reaches out for it first, clasping one small hand firmly around Baekhyun’s. “You’ve been treated badly, Baekhyun, by a lot of people. Even by professionals who should have known better. But I just want to help you, whatever way you think is best for you. That’s all I want.”
Baekhyun lets out a hiccupping little laugh and clutches onto Jongdae’s hand, so tightly he’s sure to leave crescent moon shaped little indents where his nails dig in to Jongdae’s skin.
“A friend once told me how important it is to forget about what others think, to learn how to put yourself first and live the life that makes you happy. That’s all I want.” Baekhyun is sure his smile is as watery as his voice as he looks up at Jongdae, as he thinks about Kyungsoo, with his perfectly round eyes and heart shaped smile, of Chanyeol, and his hard learnt lessons and bone rattling laugh. Of himself, of him, Byun Baekhyun, and the life that he is determined not to waste one more minute of.
“From this minute onwards I’m putting my happiness first. I think I’ve earnt it.”
Author: chajatta
Recipient: galaxygege
Pairing/Focus: Baekhyun/Chanyeol and Baekhyun/Kyungsoo if you squint, Baekhyun focus
Rating: PG
Warnings: mental illness, drug use (prescription), major character death (pre-story), supernatural
Length: 9159 words
Summary: Baekhyun has seen ghosts for as long as he can remember, has heard more stories about death than he could possibly count, but sometimes it’s important to remember that living one’s own life to the fullest, creating one’s own story, is the most important.
Baekhyun has never been scared of ghosts.
His brother would tell him horror stories when they were younger, haunting tales of vengeful gwisin, legless undeads that floated through school corridors and hospital wards, seeking endlessly for victims. Baekhyun would listen raptly, soaking up every word until their mother would drag them apart, slapping the back of his brother’s legs with the palm of her hand for filling Baekhyun’s mind with such rubbish.
Baekhyun still remembers the sound of the smack against his brother’s bare legs.
It hadn’t been long before Baekhyun met his first ghost.
He’d heard it first, the barely there sound of footsteps padding down the creaky old staircase of their family home when everyone else was asleep. The soft whistle of a song Baekhyun couldn’t (and would never grow to) recognise at the dinner table when nobody was speaking.
Baekhyun had been patient. He hadn’t known how, but he’d somehow known, even as young as he had been, back then, that he was waiting for something.
His patience had been rewarded one bright spring morning, when he’d seen an elderly man join them for breakfast, sliding into one of the spare chairs as naturally as though he’d been doing it for years. He’d had a friendly face that Baekhyun had liked immediately and Baekhyun had felt nothing like the fear his brother had always tried to create with his stories as the old man had simply sat there, watching them serenely.
He’d risen with a polite smile when everyone was finished and Baekhyun remembers the way his jaw had dropped, swung open like it was on hinges, when the man disappeared backwards through the kitchen wall.
From then on Baekhyun had seen the man all over the house.
Always wearing the same knitted jumper and worn tartan slippers, he’d been nothing like the ghosts Baekhyun’s brother had described to him. Far from being vengeful, he’d been kind to Baekhyun from that very first meeting, always wishing him a good morning and asking Baekhyun how his day had been.
If he hadn’t told Baekhyun himself that he’d lived in this house since long before Baekhyun’s family had ever shown up, Baekhyun would never had known the old man was a ghost at all.
Naturally, it hadn’t been long before his parents had noticed something was wrong with their son.
“Who do you keep talking to, honey?” his mother had asked as she tucked him into bed and Baekhyun, sweet and innocent and yet to be jaded Baekhyun, had smiled as he lifted one chubby little arm and pointed to the old man lingering by the doorway with that tranquil smile on his face.
“Him!”
His mother’s face had grown progressively paler as Baekhyun had described the old man to her, told her all about the way he joined them for breakfast every morning, the way he told Baekhyun stories from when he was a child before he fell asleep at night, described every single physical detail, right down to the tear on the right cuff of his sweatshirt.
She’d tugged on his bed sheets a little too hard, tucked him in a little too aggressively, and she’d forgotten to kiss him goodnight for the first (but far from last) time that night, leaving his room with a stern warning that he must never, ever talk to the old man again.
Baekhyun hadn’t been able to sleep that night.
Baekhyun had never been particularly popular at school. But when he’d started seeing ghosts he’d rushed from quiet obscurity to hated outcast almost overnight.
He hadn’t even thought, the first time he’d seen a ghost at school. His brother’s favourite setting for his ghost stories had always been in schools, so when Baekhyun had seen a girl who had to be around his age walking sadly through the corridors, her tiny body fading in and out of view as she’d disappeared through classroom walls only to appear again at the other end of the corridor, Baekhyun hadn’t even stopped to think before he’d called out to her.
Her face had lit up. Baekhyun will never forget how beautiful her smile had been. But he will never forget the way his classmates had looked at him, either, when he’d called out to a girl that nobody else could see.
Nobody had really spoken to him after that. He’d never told anyone, his mother’s warning floating clearly in the back of his mind, but it was like they could sense something was wrong with him. The girl had smiled sadly at him and tried to hold his hand in the corner of the playground.
It hadn’t helped. If anything, it had only made things worse. But Baekhyun had appreciated her kindness all the same.
He remembers wishing she wasn’t dead as she stood beside his desk in class. Remembers forgetting himself, whispering to her under his breath. Remembers the sound of a chair scraping across the floor as someone had moved away from him.
Baekhyun hadn’t meant for it to happen like this.
As he’d grown older, he’d found himself seeing more and more ghosts, their spectral voices a constant white noise in the back of his mind that made it difficult to concentrate.
Of course, the more that Baekhyun zoned out at the back of the classroom, the more he found himself unable to hold back a reply that had been sitting on the tip of his tongue, the more the other children pulled away from him. The more they’d begun to whisper about him, their words cutting through the voices in Baekhyun’s head more easily than the lessons of his teachers or the concern of his parents.
Creepy, they’d call him. Freak. Weirdo. They all meant the same thing, really, but none of them hurt any less, whispered callously even when they knew Baekhyun was in earshot. Said even more loudly for it.
Baekhyun would pretend not to notice, just like his teachers did, when the other children kicked the back of his chair, giggling amongst themselves as Baekhyun’s head lowered until his nose was nearly pressed up against his workbook.
It was lonely, certainly, but Baekhyun had found a certain comfort in the company of ghosts. They, at least, would never call Baekhyun names, would never stick chewing gum to the back of his shirt or hide his homework at the end of the day.
It’s okay this way, Baekhyun had thought to himself, they’re just jealous, he’d try to convince himself, it’s okay.
Except there had come a point when it hadn’t been okay, and his teachers had been forced to stop ignoring Baekhyun.
Baekhyun remembers being eight years old and the head teacher calling for his mother.
He’d sat, trembling and afraid, in her huge office, staring down at his scabby knees as she’d told his mother, ‘Baekhyun is obviously a smart boy, but his behaviour is starting to become a concern. He doesn’t listen in class. His teachers say that he is a constant source of disruption, always talking to himself and never handing in his homework. He has isolated himself from the other children, refusing to interact with them during playtimes. Some of the other parents have complained that their children are frightened by him.’
Baekhyun remembers, vividly, wanting to scream. Wanting to scream that it wasn’t like that, that it wasn’t fair. But he’d looked up at his mother, waited with some childish hope that she would defend him, that she would say how that didn’t sound like her Baekhyun, her bright and bubbly little boy.
Instead, he’d seen how pinched her face had been, how grey her skin had looked, and he’d been reminded of how she’d told him to never tell anyone, that nobody must ever find out about his problem.
He’d known, then, even as young as he had been, that she thought he was a freak, too.
So he’d stayed silent. He’d bitten down hard on his bottom lip and refused to cry, even as he’d listened to his head teacher suggest that, ‘it might be within Baekhyun’s best interests to get some help.’
Even as he’d watched his mother nod and felt something that seemed suspiciously like his heart break.
Baekhyun doesn’t remember the name of his first psychiatrist.
He just remembers a man with a thick moustache that made him look like a walrus peering at him through thick-rimmed glasses, staring down at where Baekhyun had wedged himself between his parents like he was a particularly interesting insect on a slide. His office had smelt sterile, like a hospital, and Baekhyun remembers feeling an overwhelming sense of fear churning in his stomach at the stark reminder that everyone around him, even his own parents, thought he was sick.
Baekhyun had refused to answer any of the questions the doctor had asked him. His mother’s voice had sounded exasperated as she’d talked about what she thought was happening to her son.
Baekhyun had listened stubbornly as she’d explained, in a tone of voice Baekhyun would become all too painfully familiar with as he grew up, how Baekhyun was ‘imagining’ voices in his head, how Baekhyun ‘thought’ he was seeing people that weren’t really there.
He'd come away from that first nerve wracking assessment with a bottle of pills tucked safely away in his mother’s handbag and the confident assurances of his psychiatrist that sticking strictly to the medicine would have Baekhyun back to normal in no time.
Normal.
Baekhyun never did grow to like that man.
The medicine never did make Baekhyun feel normal. If anything, it made him positively miserable.
His mother had watched him like a hawk for that first month, pressing pills into his palm like they were sugary sweets before every meal, the tight lines around her mouth never quite smoothing all the way out.
They tasted like chalk in Baekhyun’s mouth.
But to their credit, he’d stopped seeing ghosts almost immediately. He remembers waking up that first morning, walking down to breakfast and, for the first time in more years than Baekhyun could even count, not seeing the old man at the breakfast table. He’d known, on some level, that he wouldn’t be there, hadn’t been able to hear the gentle patter of his feet around the house or the sound of him whistling a tune before the rest of the family had risen, but even still his absence had made something inside Baekhyun deflate.
And maybe, in all honesty, that was all his parents had wanted. They’d noticed how quiet he was, now, how Baekhyun kept his eyes firmly fixed to the ground in public with no friendly faces to look up and see, but if anything they’d just looked relieved.
They’d been so relieved that they’d carted Baekhyun back to his psychiatrist as soon as possible to relay his progress. Baekhyun remembers something like hatred curling in his stomach at the way the man’s mouth had curled into a condescending smile beneath his moustache.
He’d been taken off his pills.
The ghosts had returned to him almost as quickly as they’d left.
That period of Baekhyun’s life had ended up being one of his most miserable.
He’d tried to hide it from his parents, had tried to keep the smile from his face when he’d seen a ghost in the street, but he’d longed so much for company that once he was able to see again it had been impossible for Baekhyun to hide his joy.
His father had caught Baekhyun whispering to the old man before bed and he’d been on the phone to the hospital the second the sun had risen.
Baekhyun had kicked and screamed, fought so hard he’d been able to feel the hot press of tears against his eyelashes, but it hadn’t been enough to stop his parents hauling him back into that office, his father’s grip like iron on the back of his neck as they’d begged the doctor to try again to fix their son.
Baekhyun had sniffed furiously, bringing one hand up to smear the tears across his face but keeping his mouth stubbornly shut, as the doctor had agreed that they definitely needed to try ‘something a little stronger for little Baekhyun’s little problem.’
Looking back at it, Baekhyun is never sure whether he’d placed a mental block on that dark period of his life by himself, or whether it had been the influence of the medication that erased everything from his memory.
He remembers things more as feelings than solid memories, deep flushes of emotion that he can still recall now. He remembers exhaustion, constant and bone deep, laced with loneliness so crippling that he’d barely been able to stand the way his parents had smiled at him as the medicine had taken every bit of his self away, until he’d been little more than a shell longing for someone, anyone, in his life that would look at him like he was more than just a freak or a weirdo or the sick little son that needed to pop pills constantly to keep him sane.
Baekhyun remembers the fear, remembers it so strongly he can almost taste it across his tongue, of never feeling like himself, remembers the fear of being so achingly unhappy that he wanted it to stop, he wanted everything to just stop.
Baekhyun remembers taking control.
Baekhyun remembers the way he had stopped taking his medication.
And he remembers how seeing the undead again had felt so much like coming back to life.
Baekhyun had been good at keeping his little indiscretion secret from his family. His brother, he hadn’t cared at all what Baekhyun did anymore, had stopped caring about him back when they were still children, when Baekhyun had first shown signs of being different. His parents had been a little more difficult, but years of learning how to say exactly what the therapists wanted to hear had taught Baekhyun how to lie convincingly. As long as he kept his mouth shut and his head down, as long as he pretended like he couldn’t see the soft ripples of energy that pulsed in the air around the ghosts, his parents were happy.
Baekhyun was happy.
His act had been so thoroughly convincing that when Baekhyun was eighteen his parents had agreed to a freedom Baekhyun had been certain he’d never be allowed. They’d agreed for him to move away to university.
There had been conditions, of course. They still wanted Baekhyun to see a regular doctor, but his parents calling the hospital and asking them to contact Baekhyun’s new university had been such a small price to pay that he had agreed to it readily.
His mother had held Baekhyun’s face between her hands, had told him how proud she’d been of him, but it had been all Baekhyun could do to hold back his own smile as the old man hovered silently over her shoulder. It was all Baekhyun could do not to return his parting wave, turning his back on his family as the old man vanished through the kitchen wall.
It had felt like a new start.
More than he had for years, Baekhyun felt truly alive.
Baekhyun meets his new roommate almost as soon as he’s finished unpacking.
“I’m Kyungsoo,” he tells Baekhyun, voice spilling out of a heart shaped mouth, and his presence reinforces for Baekhyun, more than anything, more than the way he’d walked out of his childhood home without a single glance backwards, that this is a fresh start.
Kyungsoo looks at him without a single shadow of fear or disgust lurking in his eyes and Baekhyun finds himself relaxing almost before those words are even spoken.
Baekhyun leans back against the wall on his bed, curls his toes into the duvet of his bed, a carbon copy of Kyungsoo’s, as he watches the other boy arranging his belongings meticulously on his side of the room. Baekhyun chatters endlessly, eagerly, and the way it makes his chest feel so light when Kyungsoo replies to him just as easily lingers with Baekhyun even when the two of them say goodnight and curl up to sleep.
Baekhyun sleeps better than he has in years.
The university send him details of his first therapy session by email. It’s scheduled for a week before classes officially start, to help ensure you have all the necessary support and resources available to you to help you feel settled and at home in your new surroundings, the email had said.
Baekhyun glances up at Kyungsoo over the top of his phone, paranoid even despite himself, but Kyungsoo is settled on his bed with his computer on his lap and earphones in. He shoots Baekhyun a smile when he sees him looking, but he says nothing, eyes quickly flickering back down to his laptop screen. Baekhyun is intensely grateful that Kyungsoo, thus far, seems perfectly happy to allow Baekhyun as much privacy as he likes. It’s a welcome change, not to have someone breathing down his neck.
Baekhyun looks back down at his phone and the address of the university health centre glows up at him from the screen.
He sighs and tries to put it to the back of his mind.
His new therapist, it turns out, is absolutely nothing like Baekhyun had imagined he’d be.
Baekhyun is no stranger to doctors. He’d gone through enough of them as a child, passed around like a ragdoll at his local hospital, but the man that greets Baekhyun when he steps into the clinic is the complete antithesis of every white coated psychiatrist Baekhyun has ever encountered.
“I’m Dr. Kim,” he says brightly, gesturing for Baekhyun to take a seat. There’s a desk in the corner of the room, but Baekhyun is lead towards two plush armchairs and he sinks down silently, hands in his lap as the doctor sits opposite him, a blinding smile on his face, “But please call me Jongdae. We’re going to be seeing each quite a lot and I don’t want any of that stuffy formality to get in the way.”
He’s still directing that earnest smile at Baekhyun and Baekhyun is almost tempted to shield his eyes. If not from the force of his smile then from the bright, polka-dot bowtie that is settled against the hollow of his throat.
“Right,” Baekhyun says. Jongdae can’t be a day over thirty, Baekhyun thinks to himself as he studies the other man. Jongdae has a thick sheaf of notes in his lap, Baekhyun’s medical records, he can only imagine, but he hasn’t opened the file once since Baekhyun entered the room.
“Before we get started with all the heavy stuff, we should get to know each other a little better, right?” Jongdae starts, the corners of his mouth curling up like a cat’s, and Baekhyun blinks at him suspiciously. This isn’t how this is supposed to go. Baekhyun is accustomed to being studied like a lab specimen, is used to prying and personal questions about his childhood and his relationship with his parents, is used to prescriptions and tablets, but Jongdae is sitting across from him, asking Baekhyun about himself like this is a blind date and it poleaxes Baekhyun more than he is willing to admit.
He doesn’t say anything, but Jongdae seems completely unperturbed as he continues on, “I want us both to be able to be comfortable around each other, so I guess it’s only fair I tell you a bit about myself, too, right?”
The hour passes more quickly than Baekhyun had anticipated. Jongdae dominates the conversation, telling Baekhyun all about how he’d gone to Seoul National University to study psychology and that he was a diehard Doosan Bears fan. Baekhyun’s chest tightens when Jongdae mentions growing up in Gyeonggi and when Jongdae waves him goodbye at the end of the session, his smile a little more regretful as he tells Baekhyun they’ll get to work properly next time, Baekhyun thinks that this really isn’t how this is supposed to go.
He trudges back to the dorms, puzzled but not entirely unhappy, without the tightness across his shoulders and the lingering headaches that had plagued him after therapy sessions at home, and if any of it shows on his face when he gets back, Kyungsoo doesn’t say a word.
The university campus is so much bigger than Baekhyun had expected it to be.
He and Kyungsoo explore it together and Baekhyun finds it hard, sometimes, to concentrate when Kyungsoo speaks to him, when there are lives everywhere. If Kyungsoo takes his silence negatively he never says anything, content to walk along with Baekhyun in companionable quiet as they meander along the sloping grass of the courtyard, chase each other up the stone steps leading to the main building, until Baekhyun is panting and breathless, glancing over at Kyungsoo with pink cheeks, his body brimming with life like it hasn’t since he was a little boy.
Baekhyun is shocked, too, by just how many ghosts there are here. They wander the corridors between classes, linger, their edges just slightly faded and indistinct, outside classrooms and in the reception.
He tries not to acknowledge them when he’s with Kyungsoo, the memories of the way he’d been treated as a child still raw beneath the surface of his skin, but he just can’t help himself, sometimes. They light up when they realise he can see them, their mouths curling up at the edges, and Baekhyun can’t help the ache in his chest when his eyes flicker to a point over Kyungsoo’s shoulder, when he sees the tiny little scrap of joy he’s able to bring to them.
Most of them are just longing for someone to talk to. Baekhyun has always found some degree of comfort in that particular similarity.
Classes start and Baekhyun is happier than he can ever remember being.
He still keeps to himself, unconsciously choosing seats at the back of lecture theatres, a scar of the way he’d been treated as a child. When he was younger, much younger, before any of this had started, Baekhyun’s mother used to half-joke that if she wasn’t careful he was going to get snatched. But Baekhyun is hyperaware of the fact that he will be spending the next three years of his life with these people and he doesn’t want to spend any of that time dodging the same looks he has dodged all of his life.
That’s not to say he doesn’t try, though. Baekhyun approaches his course mates like a cautious deer and the way they respond to him, the way they look at him like he’s just another face in the crowd, like he’s just normal, has Baekhyun’s lungs expanding in his chest like a balloon.
Baekhyun should have known it wouldn’t be long before he started to deflate.
Baekhyun has heard so many stories, been told so many tales about how people died and why they felt unable to move on, but some still touch him so deeply that they’re impossible to forget.
They meet in the library.
It’s hard, sometimes, to find quiet. Especially here, especially now that Baekhyun is surrounded by noise and voices at every turn. The library is a haven, the sound of silence wrapping around him like a blanket the minute Baekhyun sets his laptop down at a desk in the corner.
He works in solitude for what feels like hours, and he’s so absorbed in the peace of everything, in the blessed emptiness inside his own head, that he visibly startles when someone passes right by his side, their bodies brushing when the man- no, no when the boy, he barely looks any older than Baekhyun, slips by him, his body slicing right through the solid wood of the table.
Baekhyun can’t stop the surprised little yelp that falls from his mouth and the boy turns to face him, the desk still cutting just below his waist as he surveys Baekhyun with wide eyes.
“Well this is new,” he says, his voice deeper than anything Baekhyun has ever heard, “you can actually see me right now?” He waves a hand out to the side and his eyebrows shoot up when Baekhyun’s eyes flicker to follow the movement.
“I can see you,” Baekhyun replies. His voice cracks and he clears his throat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just-“
The boy laughs, the sound of it effectively shattering any of the peace Baekhyun still had left. Somehow he finds he doesn’t mind too much. “You didn’t mean to startle me? Aren’t you a weird one.” He comes around to Baekhyun’s side, slides into the empty seat beside him, and lifts his hand into a jaunty little wave. “I’m Chanyeol.”
“You’re-“ Baekhyun starts quietly. He glances over his shoulder, self-conscious of the way his voice sounds overly loud in the quiet. Or maybe that’s just the years or paranoia setting in. Either way Chanyeol takes advantage of his tiny pause, his voice a low rumble that makes Baekhyun’s ribcage rattle.
“What, dead? Yeah. I know,” he says bluntly, but he doesn’t look angry. If anything Baekhyun could swear that’s curiosity in his eyes as he looks Baekhyun up and down.
“No, I mean, yes, you are, but I didn’t mean-“ Baekhyun clears his throat again and pitches his voice lower, “you look young, is all I was trying to say.” It sounds awkward even to his own ears.
Baekhyun knows, realistically, that not everyone is fortunate enough to live to a ripe age. He’s seen it with his own eyes, after all. But it still makes something twinge deep inside the cavity of his chest when he sees someone whose life has been snatched from them far too soon.
“Oh, yeah. It happened last year,” Chanyeol says solemnly, affecting a dreary tone of voice that Baekhyun can tell is only partly for show. “I was nineteen, with all the hopes of my parents that I would go on to follow in their footsteps, and my sister’s footsteps, to become a pharmacist. It was finals week. I never wanted to be a pharmacist. Honestly, I never even wanted to go to university.” He smiles a little sadly at Baekhyun. “I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to join a band and play guitar, to have loads of groupies and hear people screaming my name, but-“ he shrugs. “I didn’t want to disappoint my family, but I wasn’t doing well in class, either. I was convinced I was going to fail my exams, so I bought these pills off the internet, right? Said they were guaranteed to improve mental performance and reduce my need for sleep. Perfect. But I took too many and before I knew it,” Chanyeol draws a hand across his throat, “heart attack.”
Baekhyun stays silent but Chanyeol doesn’t let the silence deter him, filling the space between them easily. “I know, not exactly the way I would have chosen to go. Dying in the library isn’t very rock and roll, is it?” He laughs good naturedly, but Baekhyun can see the hurt lurking in his eyes. He wonders if this is the first time Chanyeol has ever relived the story of his death. Probably. Who else could he possibly tell?
“No,” Baekhyun says eventually, almost in a whisper, “no, it’s not really. I’m sorry.” Not that it counts for much, not that Baekhyun’s sorrow could ever really match up to the way Chanyeol must feel, to the way any of them must feel, but that doesn’t change his sentiment.
“Shit happens,” Chanyeol says, offhand, then he’s studying Baekhyun again, eyes roaming over his face. “So what’s your story, Baekhyun? You some kind of ghost whisperer?”
Baekhyun’s lips twitch into a smile and Chanyeol beams at him, teeth pearly white and perfectly straight. Baekhyun feels heat prickle across the back of his neck.
“That’s one way of putting it, I guess. I don’t know.” He taps his fingers against the keyboard of his laptop and Chanyeol leans in closer, peers at the screen. It casts a white glow over his face. From this angle Baekhyun can see the way his ears stick out from beneath his hair.
“Well, it’s nice to have somebody to talk to, either way,” Chanyeol pulls away from his laptop and aims that smile at him again. “Unless you’re going to try and exorcise me, or something. You’re not, right? Because I’m a good ghost, honest,” he teases and Baekhyun aches, aches in a way he shouldn’t, not for someone he’s only just met.
“I’m not going to exorcise you,” Baekhyun whispers, “I promise.”
They talk like that for hours, Baekhyun falling so easily into Chanyeol’s company that he barely even notices the sun disappearing below the horizon outside. The battery on his laptop gives up after three hours and Baekhyun is too busy trying to hold back his laughter to notice the way his phone lights up with every missed call from Kyungsoo.
It carries on for weeks.
Their friendship grows with all the power and intensity of a forest fire, blossoming into something Baekhyun can’t even explain, something he never felt like he would deserve.
The library becomes almost his second home, what with the way he spends hours upon hours there, just talking to Chanyeol, studying with him, teasing him like Baekhyun has never had anyone to tease before. Chanyeol calls him a weirdo, but coming from his mouth the familiar barb somehow loses all of its sting.
But Baekhyun is smart, is smarter than anyone has ever given him any credit for, and he knows he has to keep this friendship a secret.
He falls asleep too many times, face down in his books with nothing but Chanyeol’s booming laugh to rouse him and he knows, as much as he wants nothing more than to stay here, to stay hidden away in the secluded corner of the library that he has practically claimed as his own, that he has to leave. At least enough that his increasing absences aren’t great enough to rouse suspicion in anyone.
As subtle as he tries to be, as practiced as he is at lying to those closest to him, months of being out from the watchful eye of his parents has left Baekhyun careless, familiar routines and lies unravelling on his tongue without him even realising.
Kyungsoo is the first one to notice the change.
In all the months that Baekhyun has known Kyungsoo, has shared a room with him, has woken late for class and peered, dishevelled and still slow with sleep, to see Kyungsoo smiling knowingly at him, he has never been shy about speaking what is on his mind.
Yet his silence unnerves Baekhyun.
He doesn’t say anything, at first. But the way he looks at Baekhyun is different. There’s something there, in his eyes, that has Baekhyun’s skin crawling uncomfortably even as he tries to stifle a yawn behind his hand.
Something lingers on his face when Baekhyun sneaks in late at night, something dark and searching each time he glances up from his laptop, the white glow illuminating his face.
“Walk of shame?” he jokes the first time Baekhyun doesn’t make it home until the morning. Baekhyun hopes the grin he flashes at Kyungsoo isn’t as shaky as it feels as he darts into the bathroom to shower before class. He hopes it will be enough to distract Kyungsoo from asking questions.
It isn’t.
Even Jongdae starts to notice.
“You seem tired,” he says softly when Baekhyun sits down in his usual arm chair. Baekhyun feels his eyes sting and he knows they’d been bloodshot when he left the dorms this morning. It’s just that the need to be with Chanyeol is so strong inside him, itching his bones, and Baekhyun is almost a slave to it.
He’s spending more time at the library now than ever, skipping class whenever he feels like he can get away with it. It’s getting harder and harder for Baekhyun to pretend he cares, not when all he really wants is to feel something physical when Chanyeol sits beside him, when Chanyeol laughs at one of his own jokes and lays a pale hand over Baekhyun’s on top of the desk.
“I’ve been studying a lot,” Baekhyun answers, except he knows it’s a lie. He knows he and Chanyeol spend hardly any of their time studying now and he knows that his grades are dropping. “Finals are coming up and I’ve been working hard to make sure I’m prepared,” Baekhyun says smoothly, but he feels something heavy settle in his stomach when Jongdae levels him with a knowing look.
“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Baekhyun, but I have to ask,” he looks down at his clipboard and Baekhyun fights the urge to dig his fingers into his thighs. “Are you still taking your medication? You don’t seem to be coping as well as you did when you first arrived here and I know exam stress must be difficult to deal with, but the last couple of sessions you’ve seemed unsettled and if-“
“Of course I am,” Baekhyun snaps and he feels panic start to well up inside him when Jongdae looks slightly startled. “I’m sorry, I just mean that you don’t need to worry, I’m just a little tired with everything recently, that’s all.” He tries to smile, even as he thinks about the last bottle of pills Jongdae had given him, seal unbroken and tucked safely away inside his desk.
“Okay,” Jongdae says and Baekhyun feels the tension almost leak right out of him before Jongdae continues, “even still, I want to give you something to help you cope with the stress.”
Baekhyun watches as he stands from his seat and moves over to his desk. He scribbles out a prescription, tearing it from the notepad with one sharp tug, and comes back over to hand it to Baekhyun.
“You won’t have to take them for long, I promise,” he backs away from Baekhyun and Baekhyun has to make a conscious effort to keep his breathing steady as he stares down at the green sheet of paper in his hands. “Just until your exams are over and everything has settled down again. Then once you’re through that we’ll see about taking you off them and perhaps altering the current course of antipsychotics you’re taking. Maybe increasing your CBT sessions with me.”
He must see the look on Baekhyun’s face because his expression softens and his voice is soothing when he speaks again. “You know how important it is that we manage any symptoms before they begin to interfere in your day to day life, Baekhyun. This is just to ease things for you so you can focus on your studies, so please don’t look so worried.”
“Right, of course,” Baekhyun tries to sound unaffected, but as he stands and stuffs the new prescription into his backpack he knows he’s anything but.
It’s late when Baekhyun leaves Jongdae’s office, a light haze of rain falling from the sky and making the pavement glitter. Baekhyun knows he should really go home but almost unconsciously his feet tread the familiar path to the library.
He peels off his wet hoodie when he gets to his usual table and it isn’t long before Chanyeol puts in an appearance.
“You look like a drowned rat,” his deep voice jokes from behind Baekhyun. Baekhyun doesn’t turn to face him so Chanyeol comes around instead, sliding easily into the vacant chair next to him. There’s still the hint of a smile on his face, but his eyes are concerned and for a moment Baekhyun feels guilty as he looks at him.
Chanyeol who, despite everything, is so full of laughter and life, so full of love. Baekhyun remembers Chanyeol telling him how important it was to love life, to make the most of the time that you have, and how he wishes it hadn’t taken dying to teach him that lesson.
Baekhyun thinks about his own life and he can barely stand to look at him.
“What’s the matter? You look all serious. I don’t like it when you look serious,” Chanyeol tries again and he frowns when Baekhyun barely responds. “Hey, come on, you’re way prettier when you smile.”
Baekhyun just sighs and digs the prescription out of his rucksack, smoothes it out with shaking hands and pushes it across the desk.
“Tablets?” Chanyeol says, leaning in close to peer down at the sheet of paper. Of course, he can’t pick it up. “Are you sick?”
Baekhyun wants to laugh. Apparently so. At least, that’s what he’s always been told, hasn’t he?
“I shouldn’t even be able to see you,” he settles on eventually, voice soft as he watches Chanyeol uncurl, straightening up again in his chair until their eyes are level. “I… I see a doctor, once a week. A psychiatrist. I’m supposed to take medication so that I can’t see you. But I haven’t taken them for years.”
Both of Chanyeol’s eyebrows have disappeared up into his hairline. “Then you obviously don’t need any of that stuff.” He says eventually, “I mean, you want to see me, right? So just don’t take whatever they give you.”
“I do,” Baekhyun says immediately and he can feel the tension starting to build across his forehead, knotting uncomfortably around his temples. “But I’m- I never really cared about what my family thought of me. They only cared about having a normal son so the neighbours didn’t ask questions, but now I just feel like- my doctor, Jongdae, it’s like he actually gives a damn about me, and making sure I’m okay. I know my roommate is worried, too, and I actually give a shit about them, but I’m scared to go back on the pills again. Even these,” he nods down at the prescription on the table and it’s then that Baekhyun notices the way the expression on Chanyeol’s face has darkened.
His nose is wrinkled up and he’s looking at Baekhyun with something like distaste. “And I don’t give a damn about you? You don’t give a shit about me?” He accuses, but before Baekhyun can rebuke how ridiculous he’s being, because of course Baekhyun cares, he cares about Chanyeol the most, Chanyeol is ploughing on. “Come on, Baekhyun, you aren’t honestly going to fall for anything a psychiatrist tells you, are you? They’re all the same. And as for your roommate,” Chanyeol snorts, “why worry about him when you’ve got me?”
“But I-“ Baekhyun tries, but Chanyeol just rolls his eyes.
“You don’t need any of this shit, but you’ve obviously made your mind up about whose opinion is more important to you.”
Chanyeol rises from the chair before Baekhyun can move to try and stop him and, without so much as a backwards glance, he disappears through a row of bookshelves, leaving Baekhyun alone at the table.
The silence that presses down around him only makes his headache worse.
Chanyeol’s words still echo around Baekhyun’s head when he finally drags himself home. He stands almost motionless by his bed, hands spread out in front of him as he tries not to remember the ugly expression he’d seen on Chanyeol’s face.
Except his reality isn’t that much better. In one hand, he has the bottle of sleeping aids Jongdae had prescribed him, the pills rattling around, small and round and innocuous, in the clear bottle. In the other, clutched tightly in his palm so that Baekhyun can barely see the label through his clenched fingers, are his antipsychotics.
He’d popped the seal, but Baekhyun hadn’t been brave enough to unscrew the lid. Had been too cowardly to take one of the tablets out and feel the weight of it in his palm.
Baekhyun thinks about what Jongdae had said, about him seeming unsettled, and in his heart of hearts Baekhyun knows he’s right. He feels twitchy when he isn’t around Chanyeol, feels something crawling uncomfortably under his skin, and it scares him. Scares Baekhyun in a way he isn’t used to, in a way that the ghosts he has always seen have never made him feel before.
Baekhyun flinches visibly when he hears the sound of the lock sliding off the latch. He stuffs both bottles hastily into the front pocket of his hoodie and jumps to his feet, shuffling awkwardly next to the bed just in time for Kyungsoo to push the door open, face half hidden by a towering stack of takeout boxes.
“You’re in,” he says and Baekhyun can’t help the way his stomach flutters at the way Kyungsoo sounds so pleased to see him. Even as off with him as Baekhyun has been recently, even with as little as they’ve seen each other. “I bought pizza for us both. Come and help me.”
Baekhyun’s motions are jerky as he crosses their tiny dorm room to take the boxes into his arms. He keeps his head down when Kyungsoo’s fingers brush over his.
“You’re freezing,” Kyungsoo says softly, coming in close to Baekhyun and tilting his chin up to look at him, “and you’re soaked through. Where have you been all afternoon?”
Baekhyun shrugs but he doesn’t pull away from Kyungsoo’s touch, no matter how much it almost burns. “I’m sorry,” he says eventually, and Baekhyun hopes it sounds earnest as he steadfastly looks Kyungsoo in the eye, “I’m sorry for making you worry all the time.”
Kyungsoo softens and he releases Baekhyun’s chin with a clucking sound. “idiot,” he says fondly. He goes to sit on his bed and gestures for Baekhyun to follow, patting the space he’d deliberately left beside him. “Will you stay in with me tonight? Just us and some pizza, maybe a video game or two. Come on, Baekhyun, you need to take a night off from studying before you burn yourself out.”
Baekhyun hesitates. The grease from the pizzas is starting to soak through the cardboard onto his fingers and Baekhyun can feel the medicine bottles pressing into his stomach where the boxes are cradled against it. He thinks about Chanyeol, angry and alone in the library, but all he sees is Kyungsoo, looking expectantly up at him, and Baekhyun feels his answer even before it falls off the tip of his tongue.
Somewhere between slice twelve of meat feast pizza and round thirty seven of Crash Team Racing on Kyungsoo’s old PS1, Baekhyun falls asleep on Kyungsoo’s shoulder.
He doesn't remember it happening, but when he wakes sunlight is streaming in through the open window and Baekhyun is alone in Kyungsoo’s bed. His hoodie and t-shirt are folded neatly by his feet and Baekhyun’s panic doesn’t register until he sees two bottles of pills on Kyungsoo’s bedside table.
A million excuses and scenarios rush through Baekhyun’s foggy mind, but before he can settle on anything, before he can even push himself up into a sitting position, Kyungsoo is coming out of the bathroom.
He’s wearing his comfiest sweats and a towel around his shoulders and, when he sees that Baekhyun’s awake, the smile he directs towards him is the same as always.
“Morning sleepyhead,” he teases as Baekhyun pushes himself up onto his elbows, “you went out like a light last night and I didn’t want to disturb you, so I left you to sleep in my bed. I hope you don’t mind that I took some of your clothes.”
Kyungsoo continues to towel dry his hair like this hasn’t just changed absolutely everything between them. Baekhyun gapes at him, mouth a sleepy little ‘o’.
“That’s it?” Baekhyun’s voice is rough with sleep and he has to clear his throat a few times before he can speak again. “You’re not going to ask? I mean- you’re not bothered about-?”
For a split second Kyungsoo looks confused as he re-emerges from beneath his towel, but he must see the way Baekhyun’s nervous gaze flickers over to the side of the bed.
He folds his towel and carefully places it over the back of his desk chair before coming over to kneel on the bed next to Baekhyun. His cheeks are flushed from the heat of his shower and his damp hair sticks up in all directions like a bird’s nest. But Kyungsoo’s gaze doesn’t waver as he looks at Baekhyun.
“Should I be bothered?” He says, but he doesn’t pause to give Baekhyun a chance to answer. “I don’t care. You’re just you, Baekhyun, and you don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to.”
Baekhyun gets that familiar pole axed feeling in his gut again, the same way he had all those months ago, when he’d sat in Jongdae’s office for the first time. Kyungsoo is still staring down at him with those wide eyes of his and Baekhyun searches them fervently for any sign of fear, of disgust, but he sees nothing.
“You’re-“ Baekhyun starts, but he trails off quickly. It can’t be this easy. Kyungsoo should be calling him a freak right about now, should be recoiling with horror, not crawling closer to Baekhyun and looking at him the way he has always looked at him, like he’s worth more than anything Baekhyun ever thought.
“You’re my friend,” Kyungsoo says firmly, “that’s all I care about.”
Baekhyun’s throat feels tight and he clears it again before he starts to speak. “I can see ghosts,” he starts in an almost whisper, voice growing a little louder when Kyungsoo doesn’t laugh or pull away. “Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been able to see them and hear them. They talk to me, sometimes.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything, but his expression doesn’t alter and Baekhyun continues to force the words out. If he doesn’t tell Kyungsoo now, he’s scared he never will.
“I see a psychiatrist. That’s where I am, sometimes, when I disappear without telling you. I’m supposed to take those,” his eyes flicker over to the medicine bottles, “to stop me seeing them, but I stopped taking them years ago. They made me so sick and so miserable so I just- I refused to take them anymore. But now- now my doctor thinks I’m not coping, but I’m scared, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun wrings his hands together in his lap and he feels so exposed like this, half naked in Kyungsoo’s bed and baring his soul to Kyungsoo, whose facial expression still hasn’t changed one single inch.
“I’m scared because I’m not, I’m really not coping. But I can’t go back on that medication, I won’t. I’d rather die.”
Silence stretches between them and for a long moment Baekhyun is terrified that Kyungsoo has changed his mind, has realised that Baekhyun is a freak, just like the other children had said all those years ago. But then Kyungsoo leans forward to cradle Baekhyun’s cheeks in his hands and dips his head to press that soft, warm mouth to Baekhyun’s forehead.
“It’s okay,” he soothes and Baekhyun is suddenly aware of the way his whole body is trembling when Kyungsoo smoothes his fingers through Baekhyun’s hair. “I’m here, it’s okay.”
Kyungsoo smells like papaya and warm water as he pulls Baekhyun closer. He doesn’t say it, but Kyungsoo’s silent support slows the jackrabbit thundering of Baekhyun’s heart. He presses his nose into Kyungsoo’s neck gratefully and closes his eyes.
Baekhyun stops by the library before his appointment with Jongdae the following week.
He isn’t really sure what he expects to happen, but he waits for more than half an hour, tapping his fingers anxiously on the top of the desk, before Chanyeol shows up.
It’s been nearly a week since their falling out, if it could even be called that, and Baekhyun’s chest feels hollow when he sees the way Chanyeol scowls at him when he emerges from behind a stack of books.
“You’re back,” he says blankly, slowly coming closer to Baekhyun. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.”
Baekhyun shrugs. He knows he’s staring but he can’t help but try and take in every detail of Chanyeol’s body and his face, can’t help but try and commit every little bit of him to memory. This feels horribly like a goodbye that Baekhyun isn’t really ready for.
“I won’t apologise for the things that I said, if that’s why you’re here.” Chanyeol says spitefully and Baekhyun forces himself to smile.
“That’s not why I’m here. I just wanted to see you before my doctor’s appointment.”
Chanyeol raises both eyebrows and it’s such a familiar gesture on his face. Before Baekhyun knows it though, he’s frowning again. “So you’ve made your choice, then. You’re going to let them pump you full of drugs so you don’t have to put up with me anymore.”
Baekhyun reaches out for Chanyeol and, just as expected, his hand goes straight through Chanyeol’s bicep. “It won’t be like that at all,” he says gently, reluctantly withdrawing his hand and laying it back on the table. “I’m going to explain to him about everything, about the tablets and why I stopped taking them and- Jongdae’s reasonable. He’ll find another way to help me. I know he will.” Baekhyun pauses. “I trust him.”
Chanyeol snorts and looks away.
“Don’t you want me to be happy?” Baekhyun asks. He’s almost scared to hear Chanyeol’s answer but in the end he doesn’t even get one. Chanyeol keeps his face turned away, mouth downturned into a frown but sealed firmly shut.
Baekhyun doesn’t press it. He stands from his chair, the sound of it scraping across the floor almost obnoxiously loud between them. “I guess this is goodbye, then.” Baekhyun swings his bag onto his shoulder and he isn’t surprised, this time, when Chanyeol doesn’t answer him.
Baekhyun gives him one last fleeting look and then he turns away, shoulders set firmly as he walks out of the library.
He doesn’t glance back to see if Chanyeol even bothers to watch him go.
“I haven’t taken a single tablet since I was fifteen,” Baekhyun blurts out. It feels like a burden being lifted from his shoulders and Baekhyun wants to laugh at the expression on Jongdae’s face. It’s almost comical, the way his mouth drops open to expose too much teeth.
“You haven’t- Baekhyun are you serious?” Baekhyun nods and Jongdae stands from his seat, paces over to his desk, circles it once, before returning back to sit in front of Baekhyun. He’s still fidgeting even once he’s back in the armchair. Baekhyun feels a little bad. His mouth twitches a little, like he doesn’t know what to say, before he finally settles on, “why?”
“They made me miserable, Jongdae. They made me so goddamn unhappy. I know they were supposed to be for my own good, for my health, but nobody ever stopped to ask what I wanted. Nobody ever thought to ask how I might be feeling. They just shoved some drugs into my hand and so long as I kept on taking them and kept my mouth shut like a good little boy everyone was happy.”
Baekhyun takes a deep, shuddering breath and shakes his head. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy and I was the only one who cared enough to do something about it.”
Jongdae is staring at him with an implacable look on his face and Baekhyun, for one short, terrifying, moment, isn’t sure how he’s going to react.
“So you’ve been seeing the ghosts for all these years? Been hearing voices-?” Baekhyun nods and Jongdae sinks back in his chair, grip on his clipboard going slack so that it falls down into his lap. “Why are you telling me this now? If you were so good at hiding this from everyone, why are you admitting this to me now?”
“Because,” Baekhyun starts firmly, holding Jongdae gaze, “because you were right, I’m not coping. But I’m not sick, either, and I won’t be put back on those pills.” Jongdae had looked like he was about to interrupt but something about the fierce conviction in Baekhyun’s voice must make him reconsider.
“I don’t mind seeing them. Honestly? Most of the time, it’s kind of nice. They don’t try and hurt me, Jongdae. They don’t try and make me do terrible things. A lot of them are just sad, lonely people that want someone to talk to, and I understand that so much. But I also-“ Baekhyun finally breaks eye contact with Jongdae and his cheeks heat up a little with embarrassment. “I also know that I have people who care about me, now, living people, that I can reach out and touch and hold, that I actually trust and I just- I just want to be able to find a balance between everything. I want you to help me reach a balance.”
Jongdae stays silent for the longest time and Baekhyun is just starting to worry again when he lifts his head to see Jongdae smiling more than a little fondly at him.
“I think that was incredibly brave, what you just did,” he says quietly, his normally loud voice pitched low and soft. “Telling me all that. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. We’ll work through every single day together if that’s what it takes to help you find a way to manage this without medication, if that’s what you want.”
Baekhyun can feel his eyes stinging and he frowns down at the floor to try and hide it. He wants to reach out for Jongdae, wants that reassurance of physical contact, just like the almost bone crushing hug that Kyungsoo had given him just hours before when he’d left the dorm for this appointment. He’s startled when Jongdae reaches out for it first, clasping one small hand firmly around Baekhyun’s. “You’ve been treated badly, Baekhyun, by a lot of people. Even by professionals who should have known better. But I just want to help you, whatever way you think is best for you. That’s all I want.”
Baekhyun lets out a hiccupping little laugh and clutches onto Jongdae’s hand, so tightly he’s sure to leave crescent moon shaped little indents where his nails dig in to Jongdae’s skin.
“A friend once told me how important it is to forget about what others think, to learn how to put yourself first and live the life that makes you happy. That’s all I want.” Baekhyun is sure his smile is as watery as his voice as he looks up at Jongdae, as he thinks about Kyungsoo, with his perfectly round eyes and heart shaped smile, of Chanyeol, and his hard learnt lessons and bone rattling laugh. Of himself, of him, Byun Baekhyun, and the life that he is determined not to waste one more minute of.
“From this minute onwards I’m putting my happiness first. I think I’ve earnt it.”