Put the Storm to Sleep (4/4) [for anita_dee]
"I don’t ever want to go somewhere where you are not. Without you, I have nothing more to want, will you stay with me?"
A breath in the silence of the falling night, then Baekhyun whispers, voice full of tears,
"I don’t even want to imagine a world without you."
-
At midnight, when Baekhyun's light begins to dim down, Sehun starts to lose color.
It begins at the edges of his body, his outlines blurring and his pale skin becoming translucent in front of their eyes.
The first tears that slide down Baekhyun's face are kissed away, but soon Sehun's body is nothing but a soft breath of air, insubstantial and fleeting like a dream.
His life passes through Baekhyun's.
"Baek," Sehun cries and tears fall down his cheeks, too, as he grits his teeth, "You're my guiding light, my everything that is left."
Baekhyun chokes on a sob when translucent hands reach out to touch his tear stained face. Sehun leans in, barely visible, but the soft light from Baekhyun's skin illuminates him for another moment as he pressed cold lips against Baekhyun's numb ones to whisper, to plead, 'Find me, Baek. Please find me.'
Then he is gone, and all that's left is a fleeting memory, the cooling touch of his lips against Baekhyun's own, fingertips brushing over his skin, insubstantial and vague, as if covered by the veil between sleep and wake.
Baekhyun sits silent in the empty darkness of the dance room.
His pale and trembling arms wrap around his naked body as soundless sobs wreck his violently shuddering form. He feels icy cold now, but there is no wind no sound no nothing -and everything around him is oddly pulsing and deforming as reality tips out of balance.
The sky melts and falls in thick, oozy and black stings to the ground while the campus outside of the window bursts into million shreds of glass.
When Baekhyun screams, ear-splitting and shattering, nothing but agony rips through his small body, and he curls away from it, away from everything and the truth he doesn't want to see as his heart breaks and his body wrecks with grief. He can't breathe- he can't breathe, he can't- can't breathe-
He chokes and falls back on the ground where he and Sehun lied just heartbeats ago and through the endless tears falling from his eyes and rolling down his face and into his gasping mouth, Baekhyun rolls his eyes up to look at the melting sky, oddly detached when he sees it shuddering with impulses, before it shatters with the force of an atomic explosion.
❋
"So what's it you've fallen for?" Chanyeol laughs and Baekhyun feels a strange sense of déjà-vu as he watches his friend scribbling magic with a pink glitter gel pen on his crinkled music sheets.
He shudders when from the open windows a cold gush of wind rushes through the room and startles the notes on his desk. Frowning, Baekhyun reaches for them to keep them safe, wondering why it is always so cold nowadays. Baekhyun hates how sensitive he is, how the cold seems to affect him so much when almost everyone else hardly even notices.
"His pretty eyes? Dark hair? Tan skin?" Chanyeol asks and he laughs, his loud voice snapping Baekhyun out of his annoyed musings. Chanyeol's words, though, twist up his embarrassed face into confusion as soon as they register.
"Dark hair? But-" Baekhyun falters, uncertain eyes shifting in confusion, "But his hair is really light and... he's also really pale."
Chanyeol's loud laughter at this has Baekhyun looking up to see newfound respect in the genius' eyes.
"Pale skin, light hair, eh? I guess I was wrong about Jongin then." He snickers and one of his hands reaches out to pinch Baekhyun's pale cheeks. Baekhyun is too stunned to react fast enough to dodge and when he lifts his hand to snap back, Chanyeol leaned out of reach already.
"How the hell did you manage to meet Luhan?"
Baekhyun blushes deeply at the mention of the name and his hands suddenly fumble nervously with his own music sheets.
"Uhmn-" He mumbles, and feels the blush spreading to his ears when Chanyeol laughs even harder.
"I just like to watch him dance," Baekhyun weakly mutters and pretends not to hear Chanyeol coo at him. He's screwed. He has no idea how Chanyeol came to know about Luhan and him (but he kind of has a hunch, Jongin, he thinks with a scowl), and inwardly he groans at the thought of how his tall friend will react as soon as he realizes who exactly will pick Baekhyun up from class as soon as the lecture ends.
Baekhyun blushes at his own thoughts, nervously chewing on his bottom lip as he tries to calm his erratically beating heart.
He blinks and the lecture is over.
Startled out of his thoughts in confusion, Baekhyun grabs his notes and books on autopilot as he listens to the busy hum of his classmates packing up.
Huh, he thinks as he puts everything in his backpack. Time sure went by in a flash. Next to him he can see Chanyeol waiting up for him so they can walk together to the cafeteria for lunch. It's only when he hears a soft voice calling out his name that Baekhyun remembers with his cheeks flushing bright pink that Chanyeol still doesn't know that he's getting picked up today.
"Is that... Luhan?" Chanyeol deadpans and Baekhyun squeezes his eyes shut in embarrassment when he gurgles a reply. He uses Chanyeol's moment of astonishment to run to the door as quickly as possible, his hands reaching out to link arms with Luhan who throws him a bemused look but obliges good-naturedly when Baekhyun starts dragging him out.
They quickly leave the tall genius behind and Baekhyun pretends not to hear the loud whooping sounds following him out and into the hallway. His face is burning hot and shining bright pink when he drags Luhan out of the main building and onto the back lawn.
Luhan is laughing at him, beautiful and fair like the spring light in the sky. He is in a good mood and smiling down at Baekhyun when he leans down to quickly peck the small singer's unhappily pouting lips.
"I guess you didn't tell Chanyeol yet?" He asks, but there is no blame in his voice, only amusement. Baekhyun frowns, but can't find it in him to snap at his beautiful... his beautiful...
Baekhyun blinks, and then stares at Luhan long enough for the dancer to tilt his head in question.
"Baek?"
Baekhyun frowns, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion as his gaze slides from Luhan's confused face to the trees lining the campus grounds. They are in full bloom, pink and yellow and white with flowers, the air heavy and sweet with the scent of countless petals floating in the air.
The wind is gentle, caressing Baekhyun's skin almost lovingly and it has Baekhyun crouching over in sudden pain, eyes widening in confusion.
"Baek!" Luhan cries in concern, but when his hands reach out to touch, Baekhyun flinches back violently out of reflex. It doesn't make any sense, only that somehow he feels like it does.
Luhan stares at him open mouthed and with clear hurt in his wide and beautiful eyes, but Baekhyun can't feel any remorse at what he did.
This is wrong.
The wind picks up, and the petals in the air twist and turn violently, before they drop to the ground like dead weight. Baekhyun stares. Then the clear clouds above them break with a sudden and loud crack of thunder and Baekhyun watches Luhan wincing when he gets drenched immediately by the heavy rain. It falls backwards.
"Baek!" Luhan cries, hands reaching out to tug on him, but Baekhyun dodges easily enough.
The rain is wrong, Baekhyun thinks, everything is wrong.
Everything is wrong, everything is wrong, everything is wr-
Luhan's hands wrap around his wrists and tug and Baekhyun gasps when he startles and turns to stare into the dancer's face. His mouth falls wide open at what he sees.
Where just seconds ago Luhan's beautiful face looked at him with concern written all over it, there now is a twisted and distorted mass of flesh that opens a gaping void where maybe a mouth would be, to speak with a voice too deep and roaring to be human.
"Come with me-"
The flesh of the bizarre face melts like wax and peels and drips down a deformed skull and where Luhan stood a mere second before, Jongdae's bottomless black eyes stare straight from the inside of the exposed skull and into Baekhyun's soul.
"Baekhyun," Jongdae's voice cuts through the heavy roar of the rain that falls from the ground to the sky. "Come with me, Baekhyun! Wake up!"
This time the sky falls apart with such a loud shatter that Baekhyun feels it ringing in his ears until the sharp and ringing sound pierces his brain.
It leaves him shuddering through an intense wave of icy cold and prickling needles, but then his body heats up and expands, and as he takes a last shuddering breath, he bursts into blinding light and knows no more.
The first thing he sees is Sehun.
When Baekhyun met him for the first time, Sehun was dancing the rites of the Light and that was how Baekhyun realized that he was one of theirs.
It's the same now. Sehun is dancing the rites of the Sun and when Baekhyun smiles at him, the dancer smiles back, catching Baekhyun at little bit by surprise with the warmth and familiarity he feels warming him from the inside.
Baekhyun's been waiting for the summer light for so long that now that it is blossoming in front of his eyes, in his aching heart, he feels at a loss of how to react.
"Sehun-" He whispers and his hands reach out for his dancer who smiles and watches him with gentle eyes. "Sehun, I'm-"
Baekhyun shudders in sudden pain, his stomach cramping up violently enough to have him dry retching and crying out in agony.
Hands settle on top of his shoulders and the touch makes Baekhyun jump in surprise, because it feels so real, because it makes him realize that -oh! His eyes are closed and his body impossibly cold.
"Baekhyun," Jongdae's voice calls, and somehow it feels like Baekhyun never heard it this clear. "Open your eyes, Light, my brother-"
Baekhyun shudders, but the love and worry and patience in Jongdae's voice have him trying to obey, his heavy eyelids fluttering at the effort to blink open.
"Yes," Jongdae's voice praises him, and his hands brush strands of long hair out of Baekhyun's tear damp face. They are warm against the frozen state of his skin. "Yes, just like that, Baekhyunnie-"
When Baekhyun blinks his eyes open, it's as if he's using them for the first in a long long time. Jongdae helps him to sit up and as he does, it feels like a dreamy veil peels from his skin and detaches.
"Careful, little brother," Jongdae murmurs when Baekhyun sways lightheadedly, his body numb and cold and unresponsive to the signals and impulses his sluggish brain is sending it. "You slept for a long time, Light."
Arms wrap around him, warm and safe and familiar, and Baekhyun blinks his new feeling eyes open to rest his gaze upon Jongdae's quiet face.
The other boy's eyes are far darker and filled with a much more intense and deep loneliness than Baekhyun remembers, but it's the same Jongdae that guided him through the semester and who introduced him to his friends. The same Jongdae that went missing when he found Sehun. Thoughts run wild and jumbled through his unhelpfully slow brain, but he connects the face to his distant memories.
"M- ment- mentor-" He stammers with a slack mouth and a tired tongue and then he watches Jongdae's lonely face lighting up beautifully with sudden happiness.
"Yes, that's me, Baek." Jongdae smiles and the familiar way his lips curl has Baekhyun relaxing a little, even though nothing makes any sense.
He shudders in Jongdae's arms, freezing and disorientated and finally allows his eyes to roam around.
The first thing he notices is that he is half lying, half sitting in a tank. The water that fills it is freezing cold and ice crystals swim on the surface, dissolving slowly in front of his eyes.
A memory of him climbing into the tank clicks into place, but Baekhyun shudders away from the icy cold that is attached to it and instead lifts his eyes to gaze around.
Next to him, to his left are five tanks neatly lined up, identical to the one he sits in. A hologram screen is hovering and blinking above every tank, recording ever changing graphs as numbers run along and collect data. When Baekhyun turns his head to his right he sees another five tanks just as neatly lined up.
A single tank is placed horizontally at the front and exact middle of the eleven tanks that are lined up facing it, and as Baekhyun follows the pattern with his eyes he realizes that every tank is connected to the one in the middle- but not to the ones lined up next in the row.
And then suddenly, it hits him and with a gasp and a pained cry, Baekhyun violently flinches and collapses into his mentor's arms as he remembers.
He is in a spaceship.
One of their newest and fastest, run entirely by their powers and the machines that guide them through the vastness of the universe, across eternity until they reach earth. They are supposed to sleep through their long long journey, dreaming peacefully and preparing themselves for their time on earth when they'll have to blend in and mask their origin, but keep it alive and cherish it as part of their souls.
He jerks in his tank at the realization, his legs splashing water around as he shudders in Jongdae's arms.
His mentor is oddly quiet as if giving him a moment to orientate and collect himself, and Baekhyun is thankful for it, shuddering and gasping as memories flash in front of his eyes.
He remembers Sehun, "You're Light, right? I'm Wind, Sehun," He was smiling, his eyes were so kind. "...I'll watch over you, if you want, to catch you again when you stumble and fall-"
He remembers the guards pulling them apart and guiding them to their tanks, the last two of the twelve to get ready to sleep, Sehun the youngest and actual last, and Baekhyun who runs late because he couldn't part from his mother.
He remembers climbing into the water, his eyes wide and afraid, and catching Sehun's gaze across the room, who smiled at him as if to give him strength.
He remembers the tank closing and then filling as he drifted off to sleep.
He remembers watching with dazed eyes as the ship took off from under their planet's surface, and entered the waiting arms of the universe as it soundlessly left their planet's stratosphere-
"Your reality was hardest to shape," Jongdae's quiet voice pulls him from his memories. "I thought you were defect. I checked double and thrice, but you were perfectly fine, sleeping and connected to us, but still...broken. It took me a long time to connect you to our world. You were the last to wake up, in the middle of the semester."
Baekhyun shudders in his mentor's arms and finds that he has enough control over his body to pull his legs up against his chest. Jongdae tilts his head in confusion and looks at him, but Baekhyun knows that he understands as soon as he sees the tears in his eyes.
"Sehun?" Jongdae asks softly and Baekhyun sobs soundlessly as he nods.
Jongdae looks at him with pitying eyes for a moment, before his arms wrap around him, one under the bend of his knees, the other under his armpits to heave him out of the tank and carry him down the line to the last tank to their right.
Twelve pillars flash in Baekhyun's mind, but he shakes his head and beds it on top of Jongdae's shoulder as his mentor carries him as if he weighs nothing to what he knows to be Sehun's tank.
The first tears fall down and onto Sehun's peaceful face when Jongdae carefully lowers him to sit on top of the dancer's tank.
The hologram above Sehun's tank is the only one in the round of the control center that is blank. The screen is dark and no graphs nor any data is running on it. It's dead.
Baekhyun feels his heart aching as he understands.
"Sehun," He whispers, one of his hands letting go of where they are wrapped around Jongdae's neck to press his palm against the icy surface of the tank behind which Sehun's face lies peacefully resting. "Sehun, I found you."
Baekhyun cries, tears and pain and heartbreak suffocating him until he breaks down into muffled sobs. Jongdae guides him through his pain, keeping him together with his arms around his shuddering form as his soft voice murmurs comfort and love into his ear.
It takes forever and then some for Baekhyun to stop crying and it's only because Jongdae pulls him into his arms and beds his head against his chest where Baekhyun can hear his heart beating steadily against the cage of his ribs.
"Sehun died shortly after we entered interstellar space," Jongdae quietly tells him when the sobs wrecking his small body ebb down enough for him to notice something else besides the misery and pain clouding all his senses.
"I don't know what happened- maybe a malfunction of his tank or maybe something else entirely, but his brain activity stopped and I had to reboot the dream."
Jongdae's fingers stroke through the soft hair on Baekhyun's nape and Baekhyun shudders at the pleasant feelings rushing up and down his spine as he cries soundlessly in his mentor's arms.
"It was the first dream, all twelve of us were connected, the dancers, the singers, the composers, the painters, the taletellers, but when Sehun died I had to write the dream anew."
Baekhyun sobs at that and his finger's clutch onto Jongdae's skin as he realizes that his mentor is the god of their world, the one connecting them all and administrating the dream. Baekhyun wonders why he feels so surprised- Jongdae's way of knowing everything and everyone had been a telltale indicator.
"Lightning," He mutters against the soothing smooth of Jongdae's skin and even though his eyes are closed he hears his mentor's smile in the way Jongdae's voice sounds lighter when he chuckles.
Lightning, the one connecting them all, the sky and the earth, the one traveling between elements and spiritual powers.
"You were a singer in the first dream, Baekhyunnie- You have a beautiful voice," Jongdae falters and Baekhyun knows it's because of how he didn't stay a singer long enough to remember it. Baekhyun has no memory of the first dream.
"But that was the problem," Jongdae continues, "As Light you saw through the lies of the dream and it shattered, again and again as soon as you started singing, so I had to cut you out and remodel your assignment." He pauses and Baekhyun shifts in his arms to turn his face enough to be able to look down at Sehun's peaceful one.
For a small moment, Baekhyun feels all the pain and hurt and misery returning when he remembers the hopelessness and the dwindling will to live when his voice had been taken from him.
"For the second dream I isolated the part of Sehun that was transferred into our shared reality before his death, but you wouldn't wake up as long as he wasn't part of it, as if you were connected..." Jongdae chuckles, but it sounds sad, guilty. "So i allowed Sehun back into the dance room that should have been empty for everyone but him and me, and to my biggest surprise you woke up as soon as he started dancing." Jongdae quiets down and when Baekhyun lifts his eyes to meet his mentor's he sees silent wonder there.
"I should have known then that you two were actually connected...but how was I supposed to- As Light your dancer is Darkness, but you never clicked even when I tried to balance you with him, your opposite together with your complementary power."
Chanyeol, Baekhyun thinks and his heart yearns for his tall and gentle friend with his too loud laughter and his larger than life personality. Chanyeol, the Sun, the Phoenix, he realizes.
"You saw Sehun when everyone else didn't. You saw him dancing the rites, you could even touch him-" Jongdae's voice becomes doubting, his eyes haunted by uncertainty when he locks his gaze with Baekhyun's wide and sad eyes.
How, is the unspoken question and Baekhyun lets his gaze drop back to Sehun before he answers with tender affection in his unused voice,
"It's because I knew. From before." He coughs, his voice already stained, but this is important, so he furrows his brows and concentrates. "Before falling asleep. Before dreaming." He reaches for Sehun with his hands again, a shivering fingertip running messily along the outlines of the dancer's sleeping face.
"I walked into him. I knew the touch of his skin." Baekhyun falters, his voice breaking and he clears his throat to add: "His voice- His name- I knew, everything." He coughs out loud then, his raspy throat clogging up from overuse and he bends over as he chokes, tears running down his cheeks as his body heaves with every lurch.
"I tried to recreate your reality after he vanished, you know?" Jongdae quietly tells him as he pats his back and rocks him in his arms. Baekhyun is shuddering with the effort to force oxygen into his lungs, but he listens, eager to understand why he had to go through so much pain.
"I wanted you happy, little brother- I warned you, I tried to keep you away, but you wouldn't listen... Sehun's time within the dream was always limited. He was just an echo of a dead person, a certain percentage of brain activity clinging to the dream, ghost data that was slowly dissolving- But it found you and your light and was able to hang on, because you loved him-" Jongdae falters, then tightens his hands on Baekhyun's body, before he corrects: "Because you love him."
"Why Luhan? Wh- Why the last- last dream. With Luhan." Baekhyun rasps, and when he stares at his mentor he sees Jongdae ashamed and so so pained for the first time.
"I tried to keep you safe and dreaming, Baek. So you wouldn't wake up." He is too quiet when he says this and Baekhyun unbends from where he is crouched over Sehun's lifeless tank to look his mentor in the eyes.
Jongdae's face is a mask of misery and anguish, and for the first time since he woke up, Baekhyun feels fear clutching at his insides.
"We're almost there," Jongdae whispers and his hand directs Baekhyun's tired eyes to look through the curved front wall of the control center. The whole wall is made out of something that looks like glass, but is something Baekhyun knows to be of liquid substance, translucent, but impermeable, like molten and then frozen air, hardened with light and kept unmoving by wind, stainless by time. A blend of powers, kept coalesced like atoms by sheer ...energy. In its purest form.
Luhan
Outside the barrier, Baekhyun sees the universe in all its endless beauty. He realizes what Jongdae wants him to see as soon as his eyes find a constellation he was made to learn by heart.
In his songs and in his dances he described the nine planets with words and endless gestures so many times before, but nothing prepares him for the perfect balance of their wake, the harmonic blend of their colors, the breathtaking symmetry as they revolve around the center of their lives, the sun.
Chanyeol's smiling face flashes in front of Baekhyun's eyes again and somewhere at the back of his conscious he hears his mother whispering to him: "Baekhyun, everything wakes with the sun... But Baekkie-" Her voice shakes and Baekhyun realizes that he's locked away the memories of her words until this very moment when they whisper to him, gently, silently, "-everything also ends with it."
Their course is off, their ship flying directly into the far away sun which he sees grand and majestic behind the faint shimmer of a long awaited, impossibly small jewel of blue.
"Sehun-" Baekhyun whispers, as he understands that without Wind, they veered off course.
The tears that slide down his cheeks and fall onto the surface of Sehun's tank are soundless. Jongdae wordlessly pulls him back against his chest and beds his head on top of Baekhyun's as they watch their ship floating through space at their powers' speed.
They are fast, it will be over soon, but there is enough time to say a few more words of importance.
"I wanted to spare you from this," Jongdae says and his voice breaks as he starts crying.
Baekhyun wonders for how long his mentor, his friend, had been alone, forced awake to watch over them, connected but never as peaceful and clueless as them, facing death all by himself surrounded by peaceful ignorance.
The loneliness in Jongdae's eyes hurts so much that Baekhyun feels thankful for the twist in his own story that made him break through reality just in time to find Sehun and stand alongside with Jongdae, who suffered an eternity without anyone to hold him close.
No one should die alone, Baekhyun thinks and he tightens one of his hands around Jongdae's neck as he curls up in his friend's arms and watches the sun growing closer. His other hand presses against the surface of Sehun's tank, as close to his beloved as he can.
Baekhyun wishes he could sing with a clear voice when he starts to hum the rites of the Sun. It takes only a small moment, before Jongdae laughs while crying, his voice joining in, soft and strong and surprisingly beautiful, and Baekhyun feels the wind caressing his face and dancing around his body as the sun grows into a blindingly bright light, unbearable close.
The second before they end, Baekhyun realizes that he isn't cold anymore.
"You have a beautiful voice," Someone says, and Baekhyun flinches so hard that the hand holding his pencil jerks on his music score and messes up the neat handwriting with an ugly scratch.
It's open singing practice in common room three, but at two in the morning, Baekhyun doesn't expect anyone else besides himself to be still in the trainee rooms.
The next tune of the song he practices gets stuck in his throat and so he is left staring at the intruder, open-mouthed, but voiceless.
"I like your voice. Baekhyunsshi. You're one of the considered singers?"
Stunned, Baekhyun nods, slightly uncomfortable. It's an open secret that he's considered to join the upcoming new project M1, but as a trainee who's been under SME for less than a year he's learned to be cautious to accept praise and congratulations from his fellow trainees.
The intruder watches him with impervious eyes, but smiles, his lips curling upwards.
He looks like a cat, Baekhyun thinks, but something about the stranger's face feels so familiar and makes him relax.
"I'm Kim Jongdae," The stranger introduces himself, and Baekhyun feels his cheeks heating up as he realizes that he's talking to the singing prodigy that's been listed as an option just alongside of him. He jumps to his feet to grab the hand that's offered to him and Kim Jongdae chuckles when he stutters out his own name.
"Actually," Jongdae hesitates before he smiles again and tilts his head. "I wanted to ask if you want to meet some of the others."
Baekhyun swallows, nervous anticipation squeezing his insides. But oh, yes, he would love to meet the others. He nods, not trusting his voice, and Jongdae's smile widens so much that his cheekbones press his eyes into happy crescents.
"Alright, follow me-" He says with a happy laugh and Baekhyun feels his own heart seizing in unexplainable joy. It doesn't make much sense, but he blames it on the long awaited opportunity to meet some of the older trainees, those that stay in exclusive circles and don't talk much with bland newbies such as Baekhyun.
Jongdae takes him by the hand and guides him through the hallways and the feeling is so nice that Baekhyun feels the loneliness of the last months yield to give way to something warmer, better.
He feels his heart flutter when Jongdae stops in front of a dance practice room and flashes him another smile before he reaches for the handle.
"The others will be so happy to meet you," He says, his eyes shining with content as he presses down the handle. "We are twelve now, I think it's a good number, eh?"
Baekhyun doesn't answer, but smiles nervously, his heart beating loudly in his chest when he sees the others lounging in the room. Some are sitting together by the couch and on the floor in front of it, a smaller group sits along the mirrored wall, drinking water and chatting and one- oh.
One is dancing in the bright neon light, eyes closed, wind in his hair, his feet bare and his hands outstretched towards the wide open windows at the opposite end of the mirrored wall.
No sound, no melody is guiding the boy's dream-like movements and for a moment Baekhyun stands still as the center of the universe shifts and gravity loses its hold on him.
"Baekhyunsshi? Baekhyunsshi-" Kim Jongdae calls him out of his trance, but his voice is gentle as are his knowing eyes as they watch Baekhyun losing himself to the light dancer's movements.
From somewhere, a soft chime sounds, but the sound is lost among the busy chatter and the happy shouts when Jongdae drags Baekhyun closer to the others. They welcome him with open eyes. It's warm.
A few hours later, when it's close to sunrise, Baekhyun finds himself face to face with the dancer.
"I'm Sehun," He smiles, dark eyes dishearteningly charming and Baekhyun knows he is lost. "You watched me dance."
Baekhyun feels his cheeks heating up at this, but he doesn't deny it, instead he nods, eyes widening when the dancer throws back his head and laughs.
"Did you like it?" he asks and Baekhyun sees the smug eagerness to be praised and the subtle arrogance of knowing that he's worth it. But... There is a small lisp to his words and it tips the balance of his divinely even and harmonious face into something softer, until Baekhyun's first impression of hard lines, straight nose and linear eyebrows is subdued and changes into something warmer and... lovable.
"It was-" Baekhyun starts, but when he looks into the dancer's bright eyes and feels his blush spreading to his ears he quickly turns away and hastily shouts as he points at the rising sun. "Oh! Look!" He gasps, and his eyes that follow the slow change of colors in the sky miss the dancer's dark gaze softening with something akin to love.
What Baekhyun misses, some of the others don't, and Sehun hears discrete and muffled laughter when he realizes that the other trainees can see the faint blush spreading on his pale cheeks.
It has the young dancer embarrassed enough to quickly turn his back to the rest of the room as well, leaning close against the new singer, their shoulders brushing as they stand together in the golden rays of the awakening sun.
After a small moment, the other ten fall silent and watch the sun as well -all but one.
Jongdae stands at the far back, leaning against the mirror, a smile curling his lips as his dark eyes rest on the singer and the dancer leaning against each other as they watch the morning wake. A soft chime rings.
Everything good starts with the sun, Baekhyun thinks, happy. Outside, spring awakens and the light rises up into the higher spheres as the wind carries it along the lands.
❁ ✿ ❋
End Notes:
The change of flower symbols throughout the story mark the stages of dreams.
Whenever the symbol changes it's the end of the former- and the beginning of the next dream.
After the short dream in which Luhan actually replaces Sehun and Baekhyun wakes up "for real" in the space ship there are no more flower symbols, since between his death on the ship and his reincarnation as Exo's Byun Baekhyun there is no more dream-reality ...or is there? cc: