can i keep you (3/3) [for jinxbynature]

[beefnbubbletea]

part one part two


Get a grip, Sehun had to tell himself. He didn’t have anything on you then, and he won’t have anything on you now.

They’d been sitting awkwardly around the small round table, waiting for Baekhyun to come back and save them from each other. Or rather, save Sehun from being the subject of Chanyeol’s incessantly judging eyes for much longer.

It was amazing that he’d even survived the past hour, but he supposed he had Baekhyun to thank for that. The second the guy stepped on stage, the trail of menacing questions spilling forth from Chanyeol’s mouth had stopped abruptly, as if it was a bottle being stoppered by a cork.

Nothing was more enrapturing than a Baekhyun in his element. It was enough to make anything stop dead in its tracks. Whatever his less-than-joyful companion might have said after the very first note of his voice resonating through the room would have fallen onto Sehun’s very love-drunk, very deaf ears, anyway.

But with Baekhyun’s performance over, Sehun couldn’t keep ignoring Chanyeol anymore. Not when he might as well be breathing down his neck, so heavily was he leaning on the marble tabletop in trying to get as near to Sehun as possible.

“So,” he began, face splitting in half from his grinning. “You’re the guy Baekhyun’s been talking about.”

Sehun cleared his throat before speaking up. “I guess I am. I mean, I wouldn’t know, would I?” He was going for confident, but the hope and happiness suddenly rocketing up his chest at the thought that Baekhyun had actually told other people about him came through.

And he didn’t know if it was his training, or the fact that he had abnormally large ears, but Chanyeol caught the slight tremor straightaway, mistaking it as an effect of his intimidating ways upon Sehun. “Who would have thought that you’d be Baek’s boyfriend? Because,” he said, inching closer, “I could have sworn you told me you weren’t into men.”

“What,” Sehun spluttered, hands going up in defense. “I never told you that I-”

“Oh but you did.” Chanyeol waved his hand around in the air, swatting away at an invisible fly. “You said so. When I asked if you had something going on with Kim. Were you lying to me, Sehun-ah?”

“But you’ve got it wrong, Detective Park,” Sehun asserted through the thundering of his pulse. “I said I wasn’t into Minseok. Just Minseok. Believe me,” he said, suddenly feeling very sure of the words he was uttering. “I am very much into Baekhyun.”

“Okay.” Chanyeol returned after a pause, but the distrust in his tone had not left. “Does Baekhyun know about Minseok, then? Wait, scratch that,” he said, slapping his forehead dramatically, as if saying silly me. “Does my sweet little Baekhyun know anything about you?”

“Baekhyun knows enough about me.”

“Even about the extra room in your basement?”

Sehun’s grasp on his glass of beer involuntarily tightened in his surprise. “Wait- How did you- Wh- What are you talking about? Th- There’s no such thing.”

“Oh, but there is. I’ve finally got my hands on the plan for your building,” Chanyeol pushed on smugly. “Maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong place.“

He was starting to break into cold sweat in his seat, despite the chill running around the place. Get a fucking grip. Sehun knew that couldn’t risk showing off how nervous he was to Chanyeol.

The detective was like a cavity, a pain at the back of your teeth, the type that constantly pressed and pressed on, occasionally bursting with pain so intense it was as if your gums were being seared against a the surface of a hot pan. Sehun knew, that if he revealed even a smidgen of his guilt, Chanyeol would persist until he broke down from the unbearable pressure. So get a motherfucking grip.

Plus, what do I have to be afraid of? Sehun reminded himself. Minseok’s not there anymore. He’s gone for good. I’d made sure of it.

“Or maybe,” and so he spoke up, tone mirroring the malice in Chanyeol’s own, “you’re simply not as good as you think you are.” Sehun felt triumphant at the momentary faltering of the smile on the other man’s face. “And our relationship isn’t connected to the past. Especially when... whatever happened was of no consequence to who I am.”

Chanyeol burst into hysterical chuckling, forced and now devoid of any of the humour he’d flaunted before, banging his palms exaggeratedly onto his own lap. ”Sure,” he said, hands on his knees shaking from rage, “like what you did to Minseok was of no consequence?”

That made Sehun see red. “I fucking said-”

“Are you guys alright?”

Sehun turned around to see a concerned Baekhyun, already small eyes squinted as they dart between his best friend and his (might-as-well-be)boyfriend, obviously having caught the tail end of their conversation. It’s nothing, he opened his mouth to say, but he was cut off by Chanyeol snorting mockingly at him - or the situation, Sehun couldn’t tell - from the other end.

“Oh, it’s nothing, Baek. We were joking around. Didn’t I say you shouldn’t worry your pretty self over it?” He ruffled the smaller’s hair up to a messy mess above his head.

It was probably a gesture of familiarity between the two, but it made Sehun’s blood boil. Especially since the way Chanyeol had been treating Baekhyun all night - belittling, almost - didn’t bode well with him..

“Word of advise, though, Baek,” the man began again, his tone light but meaning anything but, “you better watch out for this one. He has a temper.”

Sehun was a moment away from losing control and showing Chanyeol first-hand just how right he was when Baekhyun pulled away from his friend and interjected sternly. “No he doesn’t.” He frowned, indignant and defensive. “You must have said something to rile him up.”

Chanyeol looked taken aback, as if Baekhyun had never stood up against him before then. “Why, my Baekkie,” he spat, not even attempting to keep up his playful facade anymore. “I always knew you were too trusting. Didn’t know you were stupid too.”

That was it.

“Shut the fuck up.” Sehun stood and grabbed his jacket, draping it over Baekhyun before linking their fingers together and tugging him towards the exit. “I’m not sticking around to hear you insult my boyfriend. We’re leaving.” He felt Baekhyun’s placating squeeze on his hand, the gentle hyung he muttered to calm him down, but Sehun couldn’t care less. He couldn’t be around Chanyeol for even a second longer. He’d punch him across that annoying mug of his, of that he was sure.

But just before they entered the cold night outside, Sehun glanced back.

The fury he saw on Chanyeol’s face unsettled him.



It wasn’t that hard to dispose of Minseok. Sehun wondered why he didn’t think about it sooner.

The funeral home had ties with the district’s crematorium, a big gray building with two-storey tall chimneys located on the outskirts of the city. Sehun could see why it was placed so far away, that evening where he volunteered to drive unclaimed bodies - bodies of clients whose relatives had changed their minds about splurging for a plot of land at the local cemetery for their burial - up there to burn.

Those chimneys spewed black smoke, saturated with the stench of death. Perhaps it was an exaggeration: that if it hadn’t been common knowledge that those fumes came from a fuel of human flesh, then it wouldn’t come off as any different than smoke from a fireplace.

But Sehun had faced, smelled, worse.

He’d woken up earlier than usual. He couldn’t sleep anyway. That voice in his head was noisy, almost overbearingly so the night before. Get rid of him echoed in his brain as he drifted off to a restless slumber, and get rid of him were the first words out of his mouth the moment he’d jolted awake sweating in his bed.

Sehun had been avoiding the basement for a few days by then. He’d figured it was best to leave Minseok alone and allow the lye do its job. Let the chemical corrode his skin until it slid off his muscles, let it eat through those muscles until they split free from his bones, let it melt those bones down into damp dust.

Well, it was that, and the fact that it had absolutely stank down there.

He’d been on the job for nearly ten years. He’d seen clients brought in with half their faces gone, with a missing limb here and there. It had made him queasy when he’d started out, but he’d gotten used to it. He was a genius at his job, anyway. He could restore anybody to their former beauty; most times even exceeding that.

But the smell of decaying bodies wasn’t something he reckoned he’d ever get used to. There was one summer, where the electricity had cut off on their street for a few days, and the rot began to set into the clients in their little morgue.

It wasn’t just plain stinky. That adjective didn’t do it justice. It was more than deeply unpleasant, the way the public toilets downtown would smell.

No. Rotting flesh was downright offensive. The odor invaded anything and everything, sticking to clothes and the walls, permeating into hair and skin, pervading and masking everything else until it was the only thing that remained.

His resolve that morning must have been outstanding, then. Sehun had plowed through the task of upending what used to be Minseok into a large black bag, disregarding the fact that he was about to vomit until he’d stuff it all into the fridge upstairs.

When it’s cold it stinks less.

Joonmyeon was most surprised when Sehun offered to take over the crematorium-run for the week. “You just... never really liked doing these things, did you,” the manager said, and rightly so. “You’ve always liked only the... aesthetically pleasing bits of the business. You told me as much.” When Sehun insisted he didn’t look any less amused, but ceased his questioning nonetheless. “Oh, alright,” he conceded. “The client list is on my desk. I’ve already told Jongdae we have thirteen bodies.”

He’d made a stop by his apartment before he headed off into the freeway to pick the bag up, grabbing some other incriminating things along the way; the lye and the casket, the syringes of formalin he’d prepared so that he could easily inject them into Minseok on routine back when he still cared to preserve him, still wanted to keep him. Need to get rid of all the evidence too, the voice chanted as he rushed back to the funeral home van. Not a trace to be left behind..

The relief that washed over him once he’d finally deposited the load over to the caretaker was such a welcomed feeling, eventhough the man had given him shit about coming with an extra item in tow.

“My invoice here said there are thirteen bodies,” he told Sehun with a disapproving look. “Not thirteen bodies and a bag. This is gonna cost you more.” He grimaced as a waft of what was inside it hit him. “And what the heck is in there?”

Sehun began to answer, mouth open as the wheels in his head worked at a thousand revolutions a second to come up with a worthy lie.

But Jongdae stopped him. “Quit thinking,” he ordered him, a hand held up to prove his point. “That was a rhetorical question. I don’t really care.” He drew up another form, tapping impatiently at a blank space near the bottom. “Sign here. Wait a second and I’ll draw up another one for the additional bag.”

Oh no, Sehun panicked. If this gets to Joonmyeon he’ll know. “Could you maybe,” so Sehun said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, “make that one up to me, and not the funeral home’s account?”

Jongdae frowned, obviously confused. “Why? Isn’t it from one and the same place?”

“It’s just - Joonmyeon’s instructions.”

If the other man was suspicious of Sehun he didn’t show it. Or like he said, he really didn’t care.

Sehun liked it.

Jongdae looked like the kind of person Sehun had expected he’d find in such a place. Sullen, couldn’t-care-less-for-the-world type, someone who might have stomped his feet and whined ‘you’re ruining my life’ at his parents as a teenager. In other words: he was a person who could be impetuous enough to settle this without much fuss.

It cost Sehun a bomb in the end, if the number on his bill was any indication. But he didn’t care that his wallet was lighter, if it meant the burden on his shoulders were too.

As Sehun walked away from the building, excited at the prospect of meeting Baekhyun for supper, he realized that he was feeling no remorse. Nothing of the sort at all, given the gravity of what he had done. He wondered briefly where his good conscience had disappeared to, and if - like the bodies in the large incinerator behind him - it had long ago turned into ash.



If given a choice between being happy or being content, Sehun would choose the latter with absolutely no hesitation. And he thought, that despite all the crap he’d gone through, he had been.

Sehun loved his job. He made a nice living. He had nice-ish colleagues who could pass for friends (well, maybe; the verdict’s yet to be out on Zitao). He had a nice apartment big enough for three for cheap. He had lovers who’d come and go, and one who could never leave.

He was content with all that he had. Not necessarily happy, but he wouldn’t have had any complaints.

But now he was so very happy. He couldn’t remember ever being happier in his thirty years.

Until he met Baekhyun, Sehun never realized just how numb being content had made him. He went through the rigors of daily life the way a robot would, as if programmed to do the same thing at the exact same time, every single day.

He was unfeeling.

Almost lifeless.

But Baekhyun was just so... filled to the brim with life.

It was there in the way he did the most ordinary of things. Like jumping out of bed instead of dragging his own body out of it when waking up. Singing in the shower instead of just standing underneath it. Dancing some funny dance on his tippy-toes instead of just standing still when talking to an already-smitten Joonmyeon, or when teasing a steadily-amused Zitao. Reading lines out of books as if he were the characters themselves, screaming when they screamed, giggling when they giggled.

This liveliness, this energy, whatever this was that Baekhyun had in droves was something that Sehun wanted to bottle up. Hog it all to himself, never to share. Something he wanted to keep.

Baekhyun was like an infectious fever from which there was no escape, one that crawled under skin and stayed put. Sehun knew that he had certainly been infected. Whenever he was around the younger guy he could burst into any song, ease into any dance, shout from any rooftop. He felt as if he’d been pushed out of monotony, and upwards and up until he’d reached cloud nine.

But this was also why, if anyone were to ask, Sehun would have said that his preference to being content was justified.

He was a firm believer in what goes up, must come down. Happiness, with its connotations of floating on a cloud - something so insubstantial and easily dissipated - terrified him.

Sehun would much rather contentment: being on level ground, something solid, something sure.

Being as high up as he was then just didn’t sit right with him. Pretty soon the cloud would disappear from underneath his feet, leaving nothing else waiting for him but the plummet down.

Baekhyun made him so so happy.

It meant that the drop would be that much deeper.



I’m just being paranoid, right?

Sehun peeked above the rim of his glasses to stare at the spot on the opposite street where he thought he’d seen Jongdae just a few seconds ago, before a bus passed by and the scrawny figure disappeared.

He almost laughed loudly in hysterics, because these past few weeks had been bizarre.

It started with a string of odd phone calls. The sort where the person at the other end of the line just breathed down receiver instead of saying anything.

Sehun didn’t let it bother him that much in the beginning, thinking it was just some sort of prank. A few bored teenagers, maybe. Couldn’t say he hadn’t done it a few times back when he was one, and Jongin had thought it a good idea.

But it happened again and again, always in the dead of night, when he wanted to do nothing else but watch Baekhyun sleep and have a fitful rest.

And then the sightings began.

Not obviously at first. Just shadows tailing behind him as he was walking home, quick flashes of a scurrying silhouette caught by the corners of his eyes.

He thought it was Chanyeol fucking with him. It would have made sense. He was an asshole, but he clearly cared for Baekhyun; the falling out must have thrown more gasoline on the pyre of hate he so obviously had already built in Sehun’s honour. Wouldn’t discount Chanyeol from using such by-the-book scare tactics either. The man had crazy written on him from head to toe.

But he was proved wrong one day, when his tormentor decided that he’d show himself, in the form of the crematorium’s caretaker, a guy he’d met and talked to for all of twenty minutes.

What if - No, it couldn’t be. There was no way he’d know, right?

Sehun had been really careful about it. Okay, so he supposed giving away his real name to Jongdae when he wrote the bill up wasn’t the smartest of things to do. But it wasn’t as if he had a choice. Joonmyeon finding out secondhand from Jongdae that his employee had lied about his name would have looked more suspicious.

He’d made sure to jostle some extra money Jongdae’s way to make him shut up anyway. And the man looked discrete enough, like he didn’t care if there were ten dead bodies inside that bag. As long as he got paid, he’d keep his mouth shut.

And Sehun did make sure of that. So that should leave him out of the woods.

Right?

That certainly didn’t explain why Jongdae was suddenly hounding him, his gaunt face manifested in Sehun’s mind as twisted into a smirk, teasing, taunting, the stuff of his nightmares and reality blurred together.

It certainly didn’t explain why he was suddenly there on his doorstep at odd hours of the morning, either.



It wasn’t that Sehun had thought he’d ever kill again. It was just that, after so many hours spent retracing his steps the night he’d put a knife through Minseok, he’d dissembled and reevaluated enough of them to conclude that if he had to do it all over again, it would be done in a manner that was a whole lot cleaner.

No blood would have been spilled, for one. Such a tedious thing to scrub out of Sehun’s carpets, such copious amounts of bleach needed to ensure no trace of it remained on and in the tiling of his kitchen floor. He thought that, yeah, the weapon of his choice would probably be poison instead. Something like the strychnine they use for some of the clients back at the home.

He could have easily slipped it into Minseok’s food. Sehun probably wouldn’t even put so much in one go. He would have let Minseok reach his demise slowly, meal by meal, let the poison seep into his muscles and suffocate him from the inside as they gradually became so stiff he would have struggled to breathe.

Once he’d finally keeled over to die, Sehun would have spent hours moulding the lifeless vessel into the Minseok he’d adored most: the one with sexed-out hair and sexed-out body, the arch of his back bent that much more, the lilting of the corners of his lips just that little bit crooked, graced with the kind of pretty and serene smile Sehun had craved all the time but had only been rewarded with after a slap to his cheek or a sharp word to his heart.

He knew that the strychnine, when mixed with formalin, would have preserved Minseok that way for as long as Sehun wanted to keep him.

And he would have been content with that.

But the formalin alone hadn’t been enough. Sehun should have anticipated the side effects of too much of it over too long. It left the skin dry and gray, so waxen in quality that it appeared to be steadily drooping off of Minseok’s skull. It left his eyes open wide and gaping, the retina hard as a rock, the cornea glazed over by something white and putrid.

Sehun thought that he could deal with it. Minseok was still there. Minseok was still his.

Then Baekhyun came along and was so alive that he was reminded all the more that Minseok was dead dead dead every single time he’d looked at him.

So if he had to kill Minseok or anybody again, he would have been more careful with it. Less impulsive, less.... unplanned.

But Jongdae tested his patience too much. It got Sehun irritated.

And so very angry.



“Mr. Oh Sehun,” Jongdae stated rather than asked, stepping pass him and into the unit before Sehun could slam the door in his face. “I came bearing business.”

The smirk he wore suggested it would be one that would be of benefit only on his part. Sehun remained quiet, hand gripped tight around the doorknob, trying to push the anxiety and bubbling anger in his stomach down as he followed his unwelcomed guest further into the apartment.

“I’ve been following you around for days, don’t you know?” Jongdae propped himself ungracefully onto the marbletop of the kitchen island. “You haven’t noticed?”

Sehun fought the urge to roll his eyes. Of course this man was a bragger. “You weren’t exactly stealthy,” he sneered, folding his arms across his chest. “You were being fucking obvious, as a matter of fact.”

Jongdae only sniggered some more in response. He eyed the surroundings as if looking for something, and Sehun’s pulse stuttered a bit when his gaze landed on the door leading down to his basement.

“What do you want,” Sehun asked snappishly, hoping his nerves weren’t coming through in his voice. In his head he hoped against hope that what he said next was the real reason why Jongdae was here, and not that other thing. “Was it not enough money? Did the payment not go through? It should have, it’s gone from my account that’s for sure-”

“Oh,” Jongdae cut in. “The money was good, alright. But,” he drawled, “there could be a lot more of it.”

Sehun blinked. “What are you trying to say?”

“You know,” Jongdae said. “We have these scanner things at the crematorium.”

“So?”

“They let us see what’s inside the... more dubious-looking things we get up there.”

“And?” Sehun didn’t like where this was going.

“Well, I screened yours. And oh dear me, what should I find in there but a black credit card? It was mangled as shit. But once I fished it out of... out of there,” Jongdae shuddered, “it was still whole enough for me to read that it was for a Mr. Kim Minseok.”

Sehun gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his long neck.

“I thought, ‘now where the hell have I heard that name before?’ Then it hit me. It’s from that big ass case about that rich-ass guy. The one who disappeared. Joonmyeon was so stressed about the police hounding the funeral home for a while, he wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“Joonmyeon? What does that- Why does he-” It hit Sehun as clear as day then, the reason why the man had been upstate so much over the past year. “You... are with Joonmyeon.”

Jongdae snorted. “I would say we more than are with each other. A bit of a pillow talker, he is.” He grabbed a banana off the counter, peeling the skin off before taking a chunk off. “Wanna guess the things he told me?”

Sehun shook his head. “No,” he managed, timid and fidgeting in his spot now.

“Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway.” Jongdae talked through the piece of banana thrashing around his mouth. Sehun felt more of his supper making its way back up. “Did you know that Joonmyeon thought you killed Kim Minseok?”

“Wh-What?” Sehun vaguely recalled how comforting his boss had been as he was going through the cycle of interrogations and scrutiny when he was named a prime suspect then; always giving him a pat on the back, or an encouraging word here and there. “I don’t believe you.”

“Oh, he did. Was just too nice to say anything to anyone. Not that he had any proof. But,” Jongdae said as he took another bite, “I remembered him saying that you were quite the... special case. So I did a little bit more digging that weekend after you came by. Asked him things about you. Was a little hesitant at first. But you wouldn’t believe the things a man would do for this.” He made an obscene show of shoving the banana as far down his throat as he could.

Sehun could definitely taste bile on his tongue now.

“Anyway,” the caretaker plowed on with a smile, “you’re stereotypically it. I don’t know how the cops didn’t get to pin you down for it, man. You have everything to be, like, a bonafide serial killer. The brains. The face to lure people in. The charm- even if Joonmyeon did say you take a bit of getting used to. Bet there’s some sort of underground lair where you keep the tools for the dirty job behind that door, too.” Jongdae was so smug as he spoke. It reminded Sehun of Chanyeol somewhat, and it made the foul things - no matter how half-true - coming out of his mouth that much worse.

“But I’m not one!” so Sehun exploded, crimson anger dredged across his face. “I’m not a serial killer! It was just the one person, it was just Mins-”

“Ahah!” Mushy yellow pieces of banana flew out of Jongdae’s mouth to splatter across Sehun’s white kitchen floor as he jumped off his perch in glee. “You just.... oh my god... you really did... do you know... how much money could I squeeze out of you, you think? A hundred grand? Maybe more, oh god, you stupid, wonderful man!”

It was odd, that as Sehun stood there, watching Jongdae’s mouth moving a mile a minute spewing god knows what completely dumbfounded, all he could hear was that voice in his head imploring the guy to stop dirtying the tiling!

And it was odder that the thing that really set Sehun off - what made him tackle the smaller man down and started bashing his head against the cold floor - was Jongdae discarding the banana peel onto it. As easy as he pleased.

It’s already dirty anyway, the voice said, as calmly as it may, over sounds of drawn out, anguished cries for help, blending with the sickening crunch of breaking skull. Might as well.

Through all that white noise Sehun failed to register another voice in the mix.

He failed to hear Baekhyun’s terrified screaming, telling Sehun to stop.



Of course he had thought about how it would happen: his imminent fall from grace, and how he would get caught. Sehun wasn’t completely guileless, if only of worry for his own neck.

He imagined Chanyeol figuring out and managing to come up with concrete proof that he had been seeing (or more appropriately, fucking) Minseok the months before he disappeared. Could have seen the bruises on his stomach from Minseok’s fist, could have used that as a basis for motive.

Or maybe Joonmyeon, with all his brains, would have figured out that formalin had been disappearing from their storage room at an unnatural pace. Then the syringes and lye followed suit. Given how expensive those supplies were, and the fact that only he and Sehun had access keys to them, it shouldn’t have been difficult to pin him down as the culprit and report him to Chanyeol; god knows where it’d go from there. But nothing. Zitao must be worse at bookkeeping than Sehun thought.

Sometimes, because these more logical possibilities had yet to come true, Sehun would find himself thinking of more ridiculous ones. Like the ground finally giving way underneath the centuries’ old foundations of his brownstone, leaving a hole directly above where he had kept Minseok, the body out for everyone who cared to look over the edge to see.

But he hadn’t, even in the more inane scenarios played through his head, had thought that he would be caught red-handed by someone he cared about in the act of killing another person because he neglected to lock the fucking front door. He certainly hadn’t vouched for it to be Baekhyun either.

Those few seconds of complete silence between them - Sehun with trembling hands full of blood, Baekhyun with a palm over his mouth to stifle his screams and eyelined eyes wet with tears - were the longest few seconds of Sehun’s life.

The cloud nine under his feet couldn’t have dissolved faster.

Oh gods, Sehun panicked, as the gravity of the situation hit him hard. This was where Baekhyun would leave him.

“Baek... Baekhyun,” he stuttered, rising slowly onto his feet. “I can explain.”

It was such a stupid thing to say, given what was transpiring, and clearly Baekhyun thought so too if the way he’d begun to back away from an advancing Sehun was any clue. There was no way anyone could explain their sorry ass out of this one.

Baekhyun shook his head in disbelief that this was happening. He looked terrified beyond belief, no no no no no whispered under his breath like a mantra as he shut his eyes as if it could wake him up from this horrible dream.

Sehun couldn’t imagine how much of a monster he must look like to Baekhyun now, all bloodied and disheveled, his broad shoulders only hiding half of Jongdae’s open skull behind him.

“I only did it because I had to,” Sehun muttered. “Jongdae knew too much.”

He could see that none of this made sense to the younger. “D-Don’t,” Baekhyun whimpered as he took a step back for every step Sehun made towards him. “Don’t come any closer.”

“But please just-” Sehun inched closer. “Please don’t leave me.”

“Hyung, I-I can’t stay,” Baekhyun said, voice plagued with tremors. “I won’t,” he asserted with more defiance. “So please just let me go.”

Sehun stopped dead in his tracks. He remained there, standing at opposite ends of the cramped space from Baekhyun, and he could see the million different emotions flashing across Baekhyun’s wide-opened eyes.

Sehun had seen them all directed to him before. Regret. Apprehension. Disappointment. Disgust. Repulsion.

But the worst was when he caught that twinkle there that said I think I might be in love with you dimming as it was masked over by utmost fear.

This wasn’t his sweet pretty Baekhyun anymore.

This was a Baekhyun who was plotting his escape.

Sehun could tell. Baekhyun’s eyes were darting to the closed front door every other second, and he was starting to break into cold sweat.

No, Sehun decided as Baekhyun’s back collided with the door to the basement. No no nononono. His leaving was not an option.

“But baby,” so Sehun said quietly, clutching at the hem of Baekhyun’s performing night shirt. “Don’t you understand? I can’t let you go.” He would leave a bloody handprint on the wall as he brought an arm around to cage Baekhyun in, but he didn’t care. “Not now. Maybe even not ever.” He’d deal with the mess later, since he’d have to deal with Jongdae too. “I won’t.”

In the split second that followed, Sehun had a hand over Baekhyun’s mouth and was hauling him down, down, down.

The door slammed shut behind them.



“Anyway, that’s the gist of it,” Sehun surmises with a sigh, keeping a hold on my hand even as he slumps against the worn leather of the back of the armchair. “Today.. I think. I let things slip. A-And.. Oh gods, Baek... Chanyeol- I think he’s caught on.”

I could feel my heart speeding up in my chest, but I couldn’t be sure if it’s because of the way Sehun ruffles his hair up to get it to fall into that unkempt state I always thought makes him ridiculously attractive, or if it’s because of the implications behind what he’s said.

Am I finally getting out of here? Do I get to go back to see my parents and friends, and Chanyeol?

Do I get to move again? Do I get to be free, to speak, to sing again?

Most importantly, shouldn’t I feel more ecstatic about it?

It’s been too long, since I walked in to see the mess in Sehun’s kitchen. I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared before in my life before that night. Not just because of all the blood, and the... bits and pieces everywhere. But it was that look on his face as he was bashing the poor person’s head in. He’d looked so... blank. Worked with such a manner as if what he was doing came... automatically? Like he was doing the dishes with the music on, and he was busier humming along to the song than he was at concentrating on the washing. It’s... difficult for me to describe exactly.

Although nothing could ever surpass the fear I felt when I woke up in this... this place immobile from the strains strapped around my body, and saw Sehun loitering about in the same way around me. I saw him picking up a syringe and mixing things I didn’t know in the corner. I tried to scream out for help only to realize there was duct tape over my mouth.

Sehun leaned over me then and... he was there, and yet he wasn’t. His pupils were so blown they were black. He was muttering to himself, but it was as if he was talking to somebody else. No, I am not going to kill him. He’s not Minseok, he said, eyes glazed over. I’m still going to keep him, he would bark into the empty room. But I’m going to keep him alive. .

I was torn between relief and worry upon hearing that, but I quickly learnt that I shouldn’t entertain such comforting thoughts at all.

That was when the first needle went in.

After that I couldn’t so much as breathe, much less think. All I could focus on was how much the liquid chemical burned through my skin, as if acid was snaking through my veins.

I must have thrashed around a great deal from how overbearing it was, because the next thing I remember was Sehun snapping out of that... state of mind he was in, and holding me down gently with his entire upper body, hands on either side of my jaw, his lips brushing sorrys across my cheek.

And it’s just. It’s stupid. Maybe Chanyeol was right. But I couldn’t bring myself to hate him in that moment, even as I felt the chemical settling in and paralyzing absolutely everything.

I love him. I love him, I love him, I love him. Since the day I spilt hot chocolate over him, perhaps even before.

Of course, at first I fought the want to just let him do as he pleased with me. See, Sehun liked me pretty. Beautiful and happy, he mumbled on my lips one night as he eased more of the... chemicals, something called formalin, into my system. It keeps dead people... beautiful, Sehun said, but in someone like me, still alive, with blood still running, it keeps me still and glowing, he remarked one night in his awe. All the same, once it has taken effect there was nothing I could do at will. Sehun could touch me, mould me into... this doll, almost, bearing whatever shape and expression he so deigned me to have, whatever it was he wanted to see on my face and body.

Those were the days when I’d been brave enough to be petulant. To frown at him once the formalin wore off, or set my features so straight he could feel how much (I hoped) I hated him.

But every single time I did, Sehun regressed back into that unfeeling shell of his, and a little more of the monster inside him would come bursting out. He’d press two, three, four doses of formalin in, and all I’d want was to die.

And every single time, he would become more wonderful to me afterwards and I... I decided to stop fighting.

It’s not just that Sehun’s stopped feeling like he’d needed formalin to... have control over me anymore. There really is no need.

I don’t know when it started, but I don’t have to pretend to smile when he walks through that door anymore, don’t have to fake the way I look at him like I’m in love. It comes easy, because it is the truth.

He needs it from me, especially lately.

How long have I been here, anyway? It must have been quite a while; and Sehun knows he wasn’t in the clear. About me, and about that man he says was named Jongdae. I mean, I did tell Chanyeol about Sehun. Though he’s the only who knows... it’s Chanyeol. I know how he works. He is brutal. Seems to have some sort of personal vendetta against Sehun too. Sehun’s said that Joonmyeon’s been... abetting the cops with their case too, and Zitao’s stopped talking to him. Judging by the way things went today, it wouldn’t be much time before... everything crashes and burns.

“I have it with me, you know,” Sehun broke the silence, rummaging around in the briefcase with his free hand, coming out with a small bottle of something. “Today is... the day, I think.”

Sehun has been talking a lot about ending on his own terms. He’s said something about getting something called strychnine and taking it himself when the time comes. He said he’d let me live but.

I don’t think I can. I know I’m dying regardless, could feel life slipping away from me with every dose of formalin I get. There’s no way I’d bounce back from it.

So what the heck.

With what little mobility I’ve managed to regain, I squeeze his hand with as much strength as I can, hoping he’ll get the message.

Sehun’s eyes brightened once he does, his own hand trembling as he squeezes back. “It’s enough for two. Will you... leave with me?”

I squeeze his hand again. Yes, is what it is meant to convey. Of course.

He sends me another watery smile, then gets to work preparing those syringes for us.

Once it is done, he crawls into the bed with me, and I think.. of my parents. I haven’t... seen them in a while before all this happened. I think about how Chanyeol and myself haven’t left off on the right foot. I think about my life and the things in between, and I think about how I never got to say goodbye.

But I’ve made my choice, and Sehun is here to kiss me as we go.

And honestly, I’d rather have him with me like this, then not have him at all.



#1 i have so many excuses let me list them down
#2 wokay first off over the new year my hard disk sort of died. and i am a very silly girl, with a very silly dislike for usb drives, so. yes.
#3 wrote with your pink prompt the first time around, but couldn't possibly attempt to rewrite it without having a nervous breakdown, so went with this instead. though when i mapped all your prompts out in the early days this one was supposed to be much much longer. but i can't possibly in a couple of weeks unless i had a death wish.
#4 tl;dr i am very sorry