Unsight; (3/4); for muluhan
“Not much,” Baekhyun replies, as he reaches over and sucks a few sips before Jongin even has the chance to blink. All he feels is the prickle of the vapours. It won’t be exactly pleasurable to retch this. “My blood vessels will dilate, and I’ll look like the protagonist of a horror movie.” He bends a bit out of the shade, under the beams of moonlight. Jongin cranes his head forward, scanning Baekhyun with a mild squint. The alcohol has just started to take effect. He can feel his skin stretching over the push of the veins surrounding his eyes, where it is thinnest. It should make for a horrific image.
But Jongin just keeps looking at him interest, and with a stark lucidity. The space between them is suddenly shortened, Jongin making tiny hops onward, and dizziness starts invading Baekhyun, toppling his senses.
“Watched any?” Jongin finally asks. Baekhyun is yet again abused, this time by the spice of his drunken mouth.
“No. Nothing scares me anymore.” He never noticed this really- that now he has nothing to fear, but then his thoughts stray, go to a place with more of that loneliness than the ones Sehun has awake nightmares about and he ponders changing his answer. Lying to Jongin was never part of his intentions.
“Oh,” Jongin says then, his mouth rounding around the short sound. “That’s…sad. Kinda.”
“It doesn’t bring me any grief. Sometimes, I just wish it took a while longer for me to turn into stone.”
Jongin replies with a nod, his head heavy, and he reaches for the bottle. It could be thirst, could something to occupy his hands with, or, if Baekhyun dares assume, a nervous fiddling, as if he’s altered by Baekhyun’s presence as well. This too may pass for longful conjecture.
Baekhyun’s strays off Jongin’s fiddling with the flowers, looking up through the opening of the border. The stars are still there, still twinkling.
“Boo,” he hears, Jongin in his face, hands clawed on either side of a contorted expression.
Baekhyun’s dead heart seems to have broken off its withered stem and dropped and crashed between his ribs as he jumps in place, until all is left is a visceral puddle at the base of his soul.
Crinkles bring him back- Jongin’s laughter, dulcet and nasal, his teeth exposed and his cheeks dimpled severely and again, so beautiful that Baekhyun can’t even be bothered to regain his bearings.
“I scared you,” Jongin says into the chimes, bruised by mirth. Baekhyun spots the slim dash of warmth that coats the tight dents of his face. It is nowhere near as keen as he’d seen him give Taeyeon. His eyes don’t bunch up to the degree they did for her.
He’s not yet there, not yet deserving. Baekhyun will earn himself some of that warmth.
“You did,” Baekhyun says after he restores function to his innards. He is a bit flustered.
Jongin is proud of himself. His hands scoot further through the grass, in search for more tiny flowers.
“How old are you?” Baekhyun inquires then. Jongin seems to be in the state to not avoid confessing a few details. But then again, Baekhyun’s ability to judge is stale.
“Eighteen,” he says. That was a long pause. Pink smears on his palm. “I transformed late.”
Eighteen is indeed very late. Fifteen is ideal. Not being in his other shape whilst his human form developed could be problematic.
Baekhyun discards courtesy and meddles. “How was your first time?”
His eyes dim, as if he’s gone to a faraway place. When he returns, a grimace grooves his mouth. “I was on my way home, alone. I hid in an alley.” He says it clinically, like he thinks about it often. “It hurt. I was scared.” The remands of that fear are still discernable.
“For how long have you been lying?” Baekhyun presses, encouraged by the openness Jongin is showing him.
“Five.”
He’s twenty three then. He has never seen leprosy, never seen a session of bloodletting, never had to study under the fickly light of a gas lamp.
Baekhyun looks at 23 year old skin and eyes and sees so much light that it could never ever dim.
“Taeyeon must be so trusting,” Baekhyun muses. Fooling her is quite hard even while Baekhyun can read her mind. Jongin might be different with her.
“She really likes you,” Jongin just says with intent.
Baekhyun looks at his fingers, stained a pastel green, and then at this eyes, sporting a softness. “You like her?”
Jongin’s head retracts in the shadow, a twitch there, and Baekhyun is too hopeful to have imagined the beginning of a negation in the motion.
“No.” Silence. Jongin is so buzzed.
At last, Baekhyun is freed from the shallow tug of their animal instinct and fell into a natural, sensible thing in between. He isn’t enslaved to want anymore.
Possibly, it is something tame, faulty compared to what a mortal feels, given their dependency on devotion. But after so much nothingness, dreary paralysis, it is Jongin who makes him think no more about the bliss of being ripped to shreds and set afire.
Jongin leans to take the opened bottle standing next to Baekhyun’s thigh. His face is close anew, too close, pure warmth this time, and Baekhyun wants to reach pet the luscious hair. He looks at the cut he’d lathered venom over, and it is fresh, the red barely wilted. It would need a small move to part open all over again.
He swallows three sips; keeping near, leaning, choking Baekhyun, and he is a bit pink, skittish even. It is coquetry- a tipsy Jongin displaying signs of attraction to him. Even though he is so young and charming and could find someone of his own kin, he is here with Baekhyun, smiling under the midnight.
Baekhyun hopes his motive, his flirting passes to Jongin, despite the fact that his body gives little to no reaction, for he lacks the necessary bodily functions. He hopes that Jongin still sees.
Another sip. The bottle is empty. “It’s not…” he trails off, his gaze is sober on Baekhyun. It pierces. “You don’t look bad.” His hand lifts a bit, approaching Baekhyun’s face. At the last moment, before it touches, rebounds and gestures to Jongin’s cheeks instead.
Their distension waned, but the veins bulging on Baekhyun’s face never felt thicker. The blue of them deepens.
He stares a bit more, swaying, and he loses his balance at some point, nearly crashing into Baekhyun. Baekhyun is strangled then, a full-blown cough jolting up his throat.
“Do I pain you that much…” Baekhyun is heaving. “I’m hungry. I’m super hungry,” Jongin mumbles, erasing the twinge crooking his previous words.
He lifts, stumbling, and all over his clothes, dry vegetation clings. An ant is walking the slope of his shoulders.
A wall of coldness takes Jongin’s place.
“It really doesn’t look bad.” With one last look over his shoulder, a lazy smile over bitten lips, he turns and walks away.
On Baekhyun’s knee rests the string of braided flowers. He takes it home with him.
Sehun is standing in the middle of the living room, playing with air and a paper plane. It flies in a circle above his palm. It’s an exercise for control.
His nostrils fare as Baekhyun approaches, questioning. The trajectory of the plane falters.
“I made another friend,” Baekhyun explains. He is smiling, content. He still has a while to go before he forgets Jongin.
“Of the wrong species.”
“Again,” Baekhyun says with pathos.
“You’re becoming a social whore.”
“It is so becoming on me, isn’t it.” Baekhyun’s fingers poke between Sehun’s ribs and wiggle, and it tickles enough for him to lose control of the plane and smack him right in the face.
“Oh look, your face just got flatter.” Baekhyun trots upstairs, laughing.
For the first time, the lattice looks daunting. Her dream has already started; he could watch it from a few kilometres away.
Baekhyun clenches his jaw and climbs anyway.
He isn’t here in order to extract info about Jongin anymore. Maybe all along she wasn’t a façade, a ragged stand in. She is a friend, as close, dangerously so, as he could ever be to a human.
It brings the same calm, the same amusement to see what her mind is concocting. She can never recall them.
He catches glimpses of her desiring him, short, and lacking substance. Too often, he is integrated in the scenarios. He is always a good guy, a gentle guy, and Baekhyun is glad that her subconscious never met the monster governing him. There is carefulness in the way he is handled behind her eyelids- from the bit of infatuation, and the selfishness that comes along.
It is fun, still, and Baekhyun keeps sitting on the edge of the window, eyes smiling and face buried in his shirt where Jongin is lingering stronger than in his memories.
Kyungsoo is in his room, a blood bag in his mouth as he is bent over a book. It is one of Baekhyun’s favourites. It has his notes all over it, so much that the faded script underneath is nearly illegible. It is about war, the olden methods of it, swords and stakes and inoculated patriotism.
“You’re early this time. Was it boring?” Kyungsoo asks, pronunciation in his usual skewness. He takes the bag away, and his lips are a shock of crimson in the middle of his pallor.
“It never is.” Baekhyun’s shirt isn’t stuck on the gash anymore. It finally comes out clean. He hooks it on a protruding book from the shelf.
“But you won’t be going back.” It is a statement, and he sees the glint of a sip of blood welling behind his teeth, soaking into his tongue. He isn’t wrong. Baekhyun doesn’t want to go back.
His finger taps on the paragraph, and there is happening a pep talk to starved troops, Sun Tzu being heavily quoted. Then Kyungsoo closes the book, and regards Baekhyun.
“It won’t be like this anymore,” he begins. Baekhyun completely shuts out his thoughts, and focuses solely on what his voice offers. “They have nuclear weapons now. If they discover us, they’ll be afraid, and gone are the days when they were helpless. We shouldn’t corner them. With their artillery, we’ll all be gone in the blink of an eye if they want us to be.”
He talks to Baekhyun in a teaching tone, as if Baekhyun is three and about to chew on lead. But then there is the soupcon of warning, of insistence, orderly, that Baekhyun will keep to himself from now on.
He closes the book, laying it on the bed. He gets up, then moves to where Baekhyun’s shirt is, picking from the breast pocket of it the little flower ring Jongin left for him a few days ago. “Better stick to the enemy, who doesn’t fear us, than the ones who fear.”
Baekhyun drifts into the pit of the library. He finds the hand bound tomes, stitches unravelling, their leather covers softened to a mush. They’re handwritten, letters small and close together. It could pass for print due to the precision of vampire coordination.
He reads about werewolves, starting with one of the first records of them, in a language he has a vague recollection of Xiumin talking sometimes. There is a bit of a bias- their breed glorified whilst the wolves are underestimated, derided.
The shortfall of impartiality relents throughout the newer volumes, changing into exact descriptions.
The gore of a first transformation, a body cracking and reshape into another, the anguish, much alike to vampire revival. Mating, the plain procedure that simmers in their blood since the day they were born, without them having any say in it. The bite mark- wolf with wolf so they perpetuate lineages as strong as possible. The stiffness of the ranking, the power of an alpha, the conduct of a beta. No one is left behind. The elemental hatred they have for vampires, amplified by ethical reasons beyond their crude instincts.
Baekhyun is about to turn the page when he deviates. He queries if he could ever sink his teeth into Jongin’s shoulder, and leave there a promise of love, rather than stealing his life supply. Then if Jongin could do the same, if he could penetrate Baekhyun’s skin, could want him enough to gift him a bite. Find another method to mark him- burn him, drill into him, and make him his own.
It is the last week of high school.
As a greeting, he finds Kyungsoo sucking face with Xiumin. They’re not even quiet, fervent in their search to grasp. From outside, Kyungsoo presses Xiumin to a beam of the wall, but misses, pushes too hard, so they break the window and fall through. Without a hitch, they keep making out through the shreds. The glint of glass is lovely in the rising sun as it spreads to the feet of the piano.
Baekhyun saw this brewing. It will do Xiumin good-he’s always been too proper, and seemed uncomfortable with his own demeanour. And Kyungsoo would like to disrobe of his nomad robe and try stability for once.
Baekhyun smiles, slightly sad, because he sees the intention they have of leaving, breaking hand in hand into the wide world. But not for long, fifty years, travel a little, unite again.
“You better fix that,” Baekhyun tells them, stepping on sparkles.
He anticipates having an audience now.
Baekhyun is playing a violin like he would a guitar, as it rests on his thigh and he is bowing over it. This time, he has no song, no tune, merely controlling the pick of his nail over the cords. His voice tries to follow along some portions, to tinkle like a bell beside the lacy vibration of the notes.
He slips and glances out, catching a set of luminescent eyes. Jongin is perched on a tall stone, a tiny sway to his shoulders.
It takes too many tries for Baekhyun to get singing again, for the smile on his face refuses to fade.
On the desk lays his graduation diploma. Another one. On top of it is a notice for revoking his driver’s licence.
“I crossed on red,” Baekhyun responds.
Suho has just bought one of these swinging chairs, and the motion is unnerving when he engages in it. It picks up to an irregular tempo. “Your grades dropped too.”
“Lamentable.”
“You used to be such a good boy. What happened to you?” His eyes are closed.
“According to Sehun, I’m being a filthy whore these days. And you’re a failure of a parent.”
One of his eyes cracks open. “Sehun said that?” A nod. “Then I really am a failure of a parent.”
“Lamentable.”
Suho pelts him with half a glare.
“Kyungsoo told me about nuclear weapons,” Baekhyun promptly begins.
“It is all truth,” Suho says simply. The rocking slows a notch. The possibility doesn’t frighten him, nothing like the soul-crushing dread he faces every day at the hospital in terminal patients. For them, it is about time to die all the time.
His only concern is Sehun. He will miss Sehun. How beautiful Sehun is when he is happy, when he is proud of himself. Just Sehun.
And Baekhyun can’t wait to be consumed by the same kind of attachment, now that it almost in his grasp. He can’t wait for Jongin to be his, to be maddened by him all day every day.
“It would be sad if our kin ended via bombardment,” Baekhyun speaks.
Suho imagines it- fireworks descending upon empty souls, pretty fire climbing up his skin.
“We won’t,” Suho responds, and he says it with such conviction, expression set, the echo of it rattling between his ears. It is so easy to believe him, to believe a man who has nothing but love.
After he washes up, Baekhyun drips physiological serum into his eyes to clean the build-up of pigment from his contact lenses. He’s on his back, looking at the minimalistic chandelier dangling from the ceiling as salty trails run down the sides of his face. The glow of it is meek, pleasant, unnecessary.
Even as his throat squeezes, scraped, he doesn’t move. Jongin’s heat radiates, blocking the waves of coldness coming from the open doors of Baekhyun’s room. His scent is clean, cleaner than usual. It isn’t subdued by heavy humidity, and Baekhyun suddenly remembers that summer has begun a few fortnights ago.
He is half-naked this time, and Baekhyun sees all the marks on him, the healthy colouring of his skin ridged with coral. The bruises have faded.
His gait is shy, hesitant, and Baekhyun feels so too, as much as he feels at peace. This is how infatuation should feel.
“I’m better at this than you,” says Baekhyun, and he realizes that he’ll never get used to gagging on Jongin’s perfume.
He shuffles in place to take his shoes off, then bare feet sink into the fluff of the white rug. “I’ll practice,” Jongin says.
Baekhyun reaches into the tiny box next to him and tops another two plastic vials of saline solution. The murk is not all gone, and Baekhyun has to see Jongin in all his glory.
“Please,” Baekhyun says, fresh rivulets on his face. He doesn’t say anything else, merely observing Jongin stepping into his room. There are many telling things strewn around, how Baekhyun goes about with his endless life, what entertains it.
“So I’ll probably end up doing all of this too, in this upcoming eternity of mine,” Jongin says, fingers over books and old albums and stacks of scientific records that litter the shelves. It is not messy, Baekhyun simply doesn’t bother with organisation- it is boring, a blight.
Baekhyun keeps quiet, the arch of his grin ridiculous as he catches it mirroring in the glaze of a vase. With his sleeve, he wipes at his face and the hem comes out stained with black. Vaguely, he registers Sehun’s thrashing in Suho’s arms, wondering what is up with the stink, the noises.
“I’ve got a guest,” Baekhyun murmurs, just about when Sehun reaches for Suho’s cologne, intending to soak a few tissues with it and stuff them up his nose, then march up to see what the fuss is about. Jongin’s gaze snaps on him, and Baekhyun just changes the slope of his smile and hopes that satisfies for an answer.
Baekhyun wants to ask too, why, how come Jongin is here. But he doesn’t. Jongin would probably not have a reason anyway, something that would make more sense than just complying to the push of his body.
He turns back to the shelves and finds a disk, the only one without a cover. He puts the needle on, a kind jazz laden with saxophone. Soon he is undulation along. At first, it is stuttered, unsure, a dance that doesn’t know what to convey.
Baekhyun stares again at the gush on his neck. Its colour is pallid now. He’s finally fighting off the sear of the venom.
His heart rate grows, his arms don definitude. He appears to lose himself into the motion. He is so damn beautiful like this, muscles working to conduct him. Grace, aiming to seduce almost, slow along the movement of his hips. And maybe werewolves have this factor too, their constitution striving to attract vampires, the same way vampires were built to attract their prey.
Baekhyun wishes so bad to see what kind of worlds roam his mind.
He stops only when the song does. He lets he disk play, only lowering the volume until it nearly disappears.
Jongin faces him then, handling the graduation cap Baekhyun has just worn today. He nears, and Baekhyun stiffens. But Jongin is careful, as if approaching a wounded animal, and he slowly sets the cap over Baekhyun’s head. His hair is not completely dry, and the water permeates into the cheap silk, darkening its edges.
“You’re quite cute, if I look closely,” are the first words he says with a nod as he scrutinizes Baekhyun. He seems to be in awe with his own observation. Cute is a word meant to describe the living.
“If you don’t look closely?" The tops of his cheeks tense, as if ablaze.
Jongin takes the books off the little recliner in the opposite corner of the room, and hoists his feet on the tower of renaissance literature. He squints through the distance put between them. “Still cute.”
“What else am I?”
“Cute is all you are,” Jongin says, his look hell-bent . Baekhyun feels barren.
“Beside cute,” he takes a deep breath and burns, “I’m also scared of you,” Baekhyun says. A banality. This trepidation is the thrill of his life- how Jongin could terminate him if he so pleased, how Baekhyun could lose himself and suck him dry. “You’re so strong. I can’t fathom how you took down Kyungsoo. He’s a hunk of a man compared to me.”
Then Jongin leans forward a bit, head between his shoulders, and there is something about the glow of the lamp in this room, the posture, that gives Baekhyun utmost trust in Jongin, as blind as he is. “Don’t fear me,” he says soft and prudent, and it is so weird that all he has is the inflection of these words.
“You’re the perfect opponent for me, since my talent is utterly useless on you.” He lays himself out to Jongin. “It would be so easy. Don’t you wish to kill me?”
Something tautens on his visage, a yank to his features that discloses dolour. Suddenly, Baekhyun is the small one, young and stupid under his scrutiny.
“Not even a little?” Baekhyun presses. Better have Jongin deem him a fool than keep being shaken by uncertainty.
“Don’t you,” Jongin starts, and his jaw rolls, but he speaks anyway. “Don’t you dream of me?” Worry there, in the shivering of his pupils, the pressure of the air shaping the words. Then resolution. “Because I dream of you.”
Baekhyun swiftly ravels, tucking his chin into his chest, swallowing, smiling. His hands come together to fiddle with one another. Jongin just gifted him a confession.
“Do you,” and Baekhyun stutters too, finally, finally lost himself and it is amazing. “Do you sleep a lot?”
There is only the distinctive squelch of a lip being chewed between teeth, and the dampened crack of a stretching neck. Jongin is curling into himself too, fighting to keep his grin from opening. His heart is thumping a nice rhythm, a lull that makes Baekhyun believe in happiness. They’re both avoiding eye contact, each to their own, and it is bizarre to shy away like this, overthrown by something that is meant to happen and gave them no chance to adjust to.
“I dream of devouring you,” Baekhyun says, still into his chest. He picks at the stained hem. Jongin’s softened too, playing with the book tower.
“Me too.”
I too dream of you devouring me, Baekhyun hears and it’s so silly that he can do nothing but double over chuckling until he falls off the couch, uncontrollable peals ringing from within him.
“That was cheesy as fuck.” Sehun barges in right after Jongin’s left. The last song of the album started. “I wanted to throw up. I still want to throw up.”
Baekhyun looks at him blankly, as he seems to not be able to take down the corners of his mouth no matter how hard he tries.
Sehun glares at his dazed expression. His arms flail over his head. “It smells like shit here. Now Imma go eat grass so I can throw up.”
He struts out a few steps, still determined. Then he steps back. “He’s right though. You super cute.”
Baekhyun tumbles on his side, not even giggling anymore, but bubbling there on the floor.
At last, the window is repaired, even though the glass is not really the same thickness as the other panes.
He talks to Suho about this increasingly frequent visitor, the rambles skittering in his mouth. Suho is pacific, silent throughout the monologue. His age shows. There is not a single thing that he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t approve of. He’s experienced a lot beyond Sehun, who is a case of serendipity.
“This is not how we should be approaching our singers,” he says finally.
“Sehun is often glad that you chose to fuck instead of eat him.”
A flash of sadness, amorphous. The rain visible from outside waves unnaturally for a few counts. “I just couldn’t slaughter him. Nor could I keep away.”
“Now it’s just a sweet compromise.” It offers comfort.
“I’ll talk to Chanyeol. Let our boys be.”
“I’m not your boy,” Baekhyun amends blandly.
Suho grins, not believing him for a second.
Baekhyun goes hunting, out of hunger, or to quench his restlessness, perhaps to go away from all the remarks everyone in the house can’t seem to stop throwing at him.
Jongin is four legged as he prowls around into the umbra. He is moving fast, faster, and Baekhyun attempts so too. It is painless.
They somehow convene into a chase with no finish line. Baekhyun can catch onto trees, whereas Jongin’s size makes it harder to navigate through narrow spaces. Baekhyun feels so bright, so alive. He is fully healed and entirely too bold.
Beside the lake, he catches an olden fox, its brows whitened. He uses some of the fresh water to wash his mouth.
He raises and walks back towards the forest line. Jongin is stepping halfway over it.
This time, Baekhyun chances a touch, fingers in the fur, right between the ears. It is indeed velvety, dense, a pretty shine next to the sparkle of Baekhyun’s skin.
“You’re burning,” he says. “More so than usual.” The stands of his fur carry sunrays.
The wolf slides away from Baekhyun’s touch, and in a moment he is back in human form. The last of his bruises have faded too. He’s naked, dirty, pulse jumpy. His hair is fluffy, the heavy glint of it frizzy by the ends. For an eternity, he will look like this. He will be the paragon of allurement.
And Baekhyun’s.
Jongin runs right into the water, one brief look stolen from Baekhyun as he settles, submerged up to his neck. Little waves glide by his chin, up to his cheeks, cadences. Baekhyun can only see a bit below his ribs before the slush of the water obstructs the view.
Baekhyun takes his shoes off, and folds up his pants. His feet dip into the water. He feels as if he is on the cusp of the canyon again.
“You’re breathing,” Jongin comments after long while. The angle of the cast shadows have changes by at least twenty degrees.
Baekhyun hasn’t even noticed. But he knows why. I can’t get enough of you. “I am,” he voices. “Maybe you’ll make me laugh. I need to have with what.”
He wonders if he smells like anything to Jongin.
“I’m not funny,” Jongin says, and he turns a bit, looking up at Baekhyun.
“You don’t need to be.” Baekhyun says. And this is his confession, implying that his mere presence is enough to bring him a happiness so strong that it can only climax in laughter.
Conflict passes on Jongin’s face. Then it becomes clear, stark, that he is touched, he likes what he is hearing.
He surges forward until his hand is on Baekhyun’s thigh, soaking onto the bunched fabric. Baekhyun bursts into chuckles from the sheer feeling of it, a blaze felt though ice, a fitful frenzy in his chest. He is smiling, impossibly wide. It all shows in Jongin’s seething eyes. For once, he sees himself as beautiful, worthy of devotion.
Jongin must be seeing him so too, because in another blink, he is taking down Baekhyun, sticks him to the shore, and he is puffing staccato, delicious breaths over Baekhyun’s cleaved lips.
Their noses touch. Baekhyun stops smiling, instead laying limply, infatuated, complete with care and hunger. It is Jongin who cedes, pressing right up on Baekhyun’s mouth. It is nothing but a slotting, a single motion accompanied by tension and the heat of his mouth. He is surprised at the softness, the warmth, and mostly, the fact that it is Jongin. The contact breaks off, a soundless rapture. But Jongin keeps just breathing there in short gasps. It is different from having summer air. Entirely different. Summer air never instilled him into dazedness like Jongin does.
Baekhyun reaches out, makes to lay a hand on Jongin’s side, to bring him back in.
Yet Jongin is already gone, golden into the meadow, as he gallops into the forest.
Baekhyun is left looking at the sky as it clears, light clouds sweeping away.
“What a tease,” he says, to no one, feet still kicking in the water like a smitten kid.
“I think you’re so dead that you’re putrefying,” Sehun says, crude as always. He stops tapping away at the game on his phone. “Because otherwise, why do you keep getting stinkier and stinkier?”
Baekhyun closes in on him, bending over his shoulder to see the cacophony of colours as a boy jumps from one train line to another. Baekhyun stays there, choking Sehun with the stink until his character suddenly dies. “Oh, you only have two hundred million,” Baekhyun says, reading the score. He’s been playing this round for over eight hours.
Sehun is fuming and contemplating how to kill him.
“You don’t want to touch me,” he tsks. “The stink will be all over you.”
“Has he bitten you? Are you transforming into a fucking mutt?” Sehun screeches after his ascending back.
Baekhyun halts. It does kind of feel as though he has imprinted on Jongin too. This is a new kind of fixation, an anomaly in his construct.
“Nah,” he says.
In the end, it is still Jongin who comes back, climbs into his room and discreetly settles behind Baekhyun.
The rag in Baekhyun’s hand goes over the panes of the furniture slower. Spring cleaning, a season too late.
Jongin lounges on the Barcelona couch, head held by his bent arm, his extremities spilling over. He is fully clothed, a shirt too tight, too childish, and it stretches taut around the bulging of his shoulders.
His attention is strict on Baekhyun, and he is pinned under it when he happens to catch it. Absently, he carries on organizing the shelves, the pile of trash growing in the middle. He’s reaching for a stack of rosin envelopes when he looks again, and he finds Jongin as if he is drunk, gone, a sharp tint to his eyes. Not once does his focus veer.
The foremost ingot of rosin shatters under the stress of Baekhyun’s fingers. Jongin doesn’t even blink.
Baekhyun throws himself at him, right into his lap. First, he cherishes their enclosure, the pliancy of Jongin. He is still taller than Baekhyun, looking down at him, boundless, even whilst he is perched on his thighs. They twitch under him, muscles swollen and tapered slimly by the ends. Much more pleasant than Baekhyun’s uniform, purely solid physique.
Jongin eyes fall closed, overwrought, his lashes sprinkling over his cheeks. Thence he jolts, knees coming in, taking Baekhyun along into him. His wanton expression beclouds, deluges.
Their lips crash, none too gently, as liquid pleasure pours down Baekhyun’s throat, raw smog from Jongin’s mouth into his. The slide is careful, diminutive, but deep, athirst. It is not about technique, there is no way being with Jongin could ever be bad, but he senses hesitance underlying in the minimal rigidity of Jongin’s body. It could be that this is the first time Jongin is engaging with someone else like this- perhaps he is unsure of himself.
Baekhyun’s hand climbs up his back, over his nape, as tangles gently in his hair. It’s terribly similar to how his fur feels.
He parts from him. Neither of them is breathing. Jongin’s heart beats slow but hard, insistent knocks as if it wants out. He seems calm, blissful. His eyes are still closed; lips plumper already from Baekhyun’s mild suction. Baekhyun likes them so much that he fears he will bruise them blue if he had his way with them.
The fingers Baekhyun has in his hair twist, just a bit, just to make Jongin look at him. “I still can’t remember you properly,” he says, and it winnows over Jongin’s face, chilly. Jongin shivers. “This much your mind denies me.” His eyelashes are longer at the corners. They flutter. “It’s torturous.”
Jongin’s thighs are now limp under him, his back too. His hands aren’t anywhere on Baekhyun, dead by his sides. “Kiss it better?” Baekhyun pleads softly.
At the first jerk of Baekhyun pulling away, Jongin complies, gathering Baekhyun into his chest, lips over his, filling, wetting, demanding at Baekhyun’s cold, parted ones. He is eager, delving to satisfy, and it works because Baekhyun is pretty sure he’s levitating. It escalades from there into a sinuous rut, the imminent grinding that came with their keenness and Baekhyun hasn’t felt so hot, so sensitive in so long, not like he is with Jongin’s calloused hands roaming all over him and lastly residing on his lower back, cupping the entirety of it. He could compare this with hunting, senseless and hunger driven. But this is just him and Jongin, just thrill and anticipation and no means to ever find satiation.
They’re suddenly free falling, the crinkles of breaking glass running in the background. They’ve broken through when Jongin changed their positions and he did something lovely with his tongue. Baekhyun has the time to rotate them in the air so he lands first, Jongin on top of him so he has fewer chances of cutting himself.
They still don’t stop, Jongin’s hands Baekhyun’s hair too. It is thicker, blacker, and he can tug as much as he wants and it still will not tear. Baekhyun has the incentive to drag them away from the shards, bit by bit. “Please don’t bleed on me,” whispers as he retracts his mouth and goes for Jongin’s neck, his delirious pulse spread through the thin veins all over the surface, and deeper, under the push of his swollen muscles. Baekhyun wants to push that thrum to the max.
The angle opens, and through his own smouldering inebriation, it takes a while to comprehend that Jongin is offering himself, barring silky skin for his teeth. Jongin liked the venom, the rush of it through his system, charring with satisfaction. Baekhyun’s mouth opens and licks over the juncture, followed by the gentle, unmeaning graze of his teeth. Jongin shakes, violently, and he is hard, pressing up against Baekhyun’s inguen.
But Baekhyun doesn’t do more. A weak blemish colours the spot.
“Fuck,” Jongin says, breaking away. That word was a moan too, gruff and airy and superb like all the others.
Baekhyun licks over his lips. They’re drenched, Jongin’s saliva welled in the cracks. ”Fuck,” Baekhyun says too, because it is fitting, and Jongin looks at him, the glaze of his eyes wiped away as he stares. Then he bursts into a grin of complete happiness.
“You better repair that,” Kyungsoo shouts from the roof, and Baekhyun laughs. Jongin buries himself in Baekhyun’s shoulder, hips swerving away from contact.
Three days later, he finds a Sehun holding menacingly a few pieces of pottery. He’s furious, but more so, sad.
“I haven’t even caught a tiger yet,” Sehun complains. One item in his hand shakes, threatens to drop to its demise. Xiumin stops rummaging through his cabinet to glace at Sehun, patient, and retrieves the item with caution.
“There’s Baek for that,” Xiumin says, a quarter of a look thrown to Baekhyun behind. There is no one better at hunting that Xiumin. Baekhyun doesn’t even come in third place in this chart.
“I spared a few for you to practice on,” Baekhyun assures.
Sehun’s sorrow doesn’t dim the slightest. Gusts of wind knock down a few of the trinkets sitting on top of the cabinet as he storms out.
Baekhyun straightens them; helps Xiumin put them in boxes. They’re both understanding of what Sehun must be going through, having only lived for a few years, and having none of the resistance that comes with being a centenarian. To him, this is one more person leaving him behind.
Baekhyun is surprised at himself for coming back, somewhat beholden. He needn’t be here either- sometimes he still hears her, when he is willing to listen.
He stands frozen, like he did the first time, leaning on the wall in the dark. He sees the numerous open letters on a table. She’s been accepted to a few universities.
Her room is pretty much the same, the only thing different being that the smell of Jongin is fainter, nearly gone, compared with the taste he’s had of him. Unconsciously, his fingers move to his lips, patting a few times there.
She wakes from a dream, a typical fall, and he senses it beforehand. He doesn’t flee, instead he jumps out and latches under the sill. Once she is conscious, he raps his knuckles on the frame, peeking his head over. He’s done all these things before.
She blinks in disbelief a few times at him, considering that perhaps she is hallucinating, but she’s okay with that anyway.
Her hair is still not dry all the way, and it is flattened on a side.
“I’m sorry for that time,” Baekhyun begins, and he climbs just a bit higher, for his upper body to be visible.
“It patched up stronger,” Taeyeon says, tugging the light duvet a bit to the side. There is no bruise on her hip anymore.
Baekhyun picks gladness that she gets to see him. For the last time.
“Going anywhere?” Baekhyun’s chin points toward the few bags hilled near the door. They’re unzipped, but full.
“A bit of travelling.” Her head falls on her outstretched arm. “Should I send you any postcards?” She asks, and maybe she asks for a farewell, or for something to signal the end of them. A disabled fanfare.
“No.” Baekhyun says. After a few seconds she smiles, slow and sweet, and after a few more she is back asleep.
She doesn’t dream of either of them now, instead she dreams of sunny places, of her mom, of a summer of lazing around, then a new life on a campus brimming with lost younglings.
It was a short friendship, but not less qualitative.
Before daybreak, Baekhyun passes the border and arrives at Jongin’s house. He is welcomed by a weirdly vigilant Chanyeol given the hour.
He doesn’t have to say anything- it is quite obvious what he’s here for. He gestures for Yixing, who complies in an instant and goes inside. There is a bite on Yixing’s neck, so fresh that it is still oozing. The blood utterly repulses Baekhyun, just like it should.
Chanyeol doesn’t ignore him, nor is he acting condescending. He is apprising Baekhyun, head to toe, his posture, the ironed folds of his attire, the waves of his hair. This is the man his precious Jongin has chosen. It is not his place to be happy or unhappy about it, but in the end, all he wishes for is that Jongin is content.
“You are a great leader, Chanyeol,” he states. A gallant thing to say.
Chanyeol jerks, taken aback, before he remembers of Baekhyun’s gift. Jongin talks a lot about it, it appears, yet he deemed that Baekhyun wouldn’t be listening in on him.
“Sometimes, I can’t really help it,” he says it in an apologetic tone. “But alas, there is no one else who can judge you better than I can. And I think you are a great leader.”
He had doubts, a few regrets concerning some decisions, a number of weaknesses he would like to get over. Baekhyun’s pledge becalmed all of that.
Chanyeol has no chance to reply as a sleepy, pyjama-clad Jongin is stumbling by the door. Everything about him is sluggish, except for the eagerness of tying his shoes on.
“You have some goodbyes to offer,” Baekhyun says, and Jongin walks slowly towards him with puffy eyes and even puffier lips. As he passes Chanyeol, his head drops into an almost imperceptible bow.
A few of the other wolves are hoarding by the entrance, peering with narrowed eyes at them. And Baekhyun suddenly yearns for their approval, their acceptance, so he tenderly proffers his hand to Jongin, palm up.
There are two steps left until Jongin makes it to him, and from this distance, this far, he is already dashing forward in order to interlock their fingers, not a drop of hesitance. Without pausing, he goes directly into Baekhyun’s embrace, his free arm thrown over Baekhyun’s shoulders. He’s all dwarfed. “Hold me,” Jongin whines thickly.
Baekhyun bites his lip to suppress the smile threatening to rip his face in half. His fang just about pierces it.
Whispers are travelling from the house. The entire pack is befuddled by the existence of this bond, just like they are, but that doesn’t make it any less right. Their scepticism is understandable.
Out of fatherly unease, Chanyeol wants to separate them, wants to hold on Jongin under his wing just a little longer. But it is him who knows better than anyone the pull of an imprint, how Jongin’s wellbeing depends on Baekhyun’s company. He relaxes, his lips dropping into something close to a simper.
“Taeyeon is leaving in an hour,” Baekhyun clarifies into Jongin’s chest. Jongin’s grip tightens. He’s too drowsy to do more.
Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t cry.”
Jongin whines again, aiming him a babyish glower. Yixing’s cheek dimples with a silent chuckle. A pouty Jongin endears him greatly.
Like this, he staggers until he collapses in the passenger seat of Baekhyun’s car, already curling for a nap.
Baekhyun lets himself smile, full, and there are a few minds that think he’s beautiful.
Baekhyun waits further down the road from her house while Jongin is inside.
Taeyeon scolds him for not meeting more often, mommies him about his studies, his food, and she will miss him too, same as she will miss Baekhyun.
She will come back next summer, aware that there won’t be a Baekhyun to return to. He will be going to hospitals across the country to get better, he lied.
But Jongin, she’s sure she’ll find. He is supposed to stay, finish high school. So at least she clings to him, promises to call often and send pictures and cat videos.
“Stop growing now. You’re keeping me shadow, and it is cold enough as it is,” Taeyeon says, patting him on the head. Jongin grew up handsome.
Then she’s climbing into her truck and speeding away.
Jongin knocks on Baekhyun’s window.
Baekhyun is momentarily stricken with Jongin’s prettiness. The brink of his jaw is basked in a harsh shadow, but his cheeks are full and bright under the street lamp. The sadness lining his features doesn’t diminish his beauty.
As soon as Baekhyun is out of the car, he is being tugged into the woods, and Jongin is already disrobing, throwing each item over Baekhyun’s head. Baekhyun simply inhales and inhales. “Take care of them,” he hears. A crunch, then a wet snout is pushing at his shoulder.
Baekhyun takes the clothes to the car whilst Jongin waits for him. When he is back, he finds Jongin in a stance that speaks of danger. He is intimidating with his front legs raised on a boulder, his hind legs tense, ready to spring. From his ribcage, the rattle of a continuous, mild growl is audible, similar to the purr of a cat, but nowhere near as calming. He’s definitely crafted to bring the death of the soulless.
Baekhyun massages his ears. “You didn’t cry,” he says, “good boy.”
Jongin licks his face.
“How dignified,” he complains, making no move to wipe the stickiness. Jongin does it once more, on the other side, before he kneels in front of Baekhyun and stares. His growl heightens and thins, morphing into a whine. Baekhyun only gets it when Jongin nudges into him and lowers completely to the ground.
“I’m sorry I’m an old man and subtleties don’t work on me,” Baekhyun says as he mounts on Jongin’s back. It’s comfortable- plush softness overtop all the strength he is packing.
Jongin starts with a slow meander, perhaps to get Baekhyun used to the rocking. It is nice, too much so, and he trails his hands up and down Jongin’s nape. “I like this,” he says, bending to whisper into his twitchy ears. The fluff glides by his lips. He worries that the change in his centre of gravity put strain on the wrong part of Jongin’s spine, and he straightens. He makes a point to keep as still as possible anyway. “I really like it.”
Jongin emits a tiny bark as he speeds up into a sprint, the forest scarce enough to permit them to pass. Witnessing Jongin in his element, from such closeness is gratifying. Jongin is letting him experience his other facet, his other form, just when Baekhyun thought he couldn’t adore Jongin more.
They come to a halt in a meadow, only when Jongin is wholly whelmed by exhaustion. He kneels to let Baekhyun down, and again, he feels cold without Jongin. He watches him pace around until his panting subsides, snout closing.
Transformed, his hair is sticking to his temples from sweat, a heated radiance to his cheeks. He collapses right there on the grass. His heart beats twenty two times before he looks up at Baekhyun standing above him.
“You’re blinding me,” he squints, and in another instant, he’s grabbing Baekhyun wrist and yanking him down, out of the sun. Jongin is the little spoon.
It is still early morning, moist with dew. The last time Baekhyun’s mind felt so quiet was when he was human, and could hear no thoughts. Cuddling with Jongin could never feel as picayune as his previous life did.
“I’ll miss her,” Jongin says.
Baekhyun thought he was asleep. He turns around, and Baekhyun begins closing his coat to keep in the chill of his body from transferring to Jongin. Jongin stops him, taking his hands away and getting his arms around Baekhyun’s middle until they’re pressed flush against each other. He nestles into Baekhyun’s neck, twining their thighs.
“Me too,” Baekhyun hums, moulding a kiss to Jongin’s forehead. Jongin drifts off, and for the first time, he is glad he doesn’t have a beating heart, for he is sure the thunder of it wouldn’t have let Jongin sleep.
The next day, Xiumin and Kyungsoo are gone. Their adieus are bid through letters. A sentence from Xiumin, a sentence from Kyungsoo, both handwritten by Xiumin, both in Latin.
Sehun doesn’t understand them, but he rivets, clutches at the pieces of paper. His lip trembles. He would like to cry, to break down a little. His tears would be just purified venom.
A decade into his infinitude, Baekhyun’s brother passed away. The funeral was one fitting for his servant status-poor and dismal. Baekhyun was one of the three attendees.
Afterwards, he retired back in the high mountains and took in the scenery- the merry roll of clouds and the fresh waves of the wind. It all kept going on like nothing happened.
He realized then that he is just the same; a permanent fixture to be washed over, and he too is to go on like nothing happened.
Since, ha had not felt the urge to dwell in the occurring absences. That will perishes when there’s too much time for it.
It’s the middle of summer, full bloom and mosquitoes.
Jongin is tan, tanner, a bit burnt over the bridge of his nose and the tops of his shoulders.
Baekhyun watches him climbing a cherry tree and hooking pairs of cherries on his ears by the stems. He tried putting them in the pockets of his pants and they only ended up squished.
His mouth is red all over and there is a dooming to Baekhyun’s gaze as he notices the staining.
As he approaches, there is a stutter to his strides. Then a saddened downturn to his mouth. “My eyes don’t hurt when I look at you.”
It’s midday, he is wonted to be aglow. “Am I not lit up enough for you now?” Baekhyun questions.
He hasn’t really felt hunger in a while, beside the never-leaving one he has for Jongin. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t noted the scanty erosion of his figure. His irises are nearly as black as Jongin’s.
Jongin sighs, giving him an upset look, then he is gone, and Baekhyun is left with a lapful of cherries. He is back soon, cradling a writhing bundle of black feathers.
“Is this good enough?” Jongin asks, presenting the offering.
The crow he has is a decently fat one, knocked out. Jongin probably sent a blow to its head.
His expression is earnest, slightly pouty and so hopeful. Baekhyun laughs, giddy.
“Never tasted one, truthfully,” he says, taking it. His teeth sink just a little. If he went deeper, he would’ve decapitated it. It is bitter and surprisingly thick. But it has a few of the nutrients he needs. “Exotic,” he concludes, grimacing.
Jongin bursts into laughter at his face. “Let’s get you something better,” he says.
Baekhyun catches a deer. It is ill, the taste affected by the inflammation going through its body. It would’ve been dead in two days.
He is done much faster than he expected, taken by thirst as soon as he took the first sip.
Jongin is following him from afar. He is beckoned over, and Jongin’s lips are on his immediately. They break down a tree as they make out.
“Now you taste of cherries,” Jongin says, turning them so he looms over Baekhyun. “I really like cherries,” then he takes back all he’s given.
Sehun barges through the door, holding up Jongin’s wrist. He shakes it. “Why does he keep sneaking around?” Sehun roars angrily, scowling at Jongin.
His irascibility is higher now that they have a decline in family members. Baekhyun will still shred him if he mistreats that wrist one more time.
“Sehun.” Suho appears in the living room. His tone reeks of admonition. There are a few select circumstances it ever takes that note.
Sehun swiftly cowers. Jongin breaks free and carefully approaches Suho. “We need a few of your services?” he says, peering pleadingly.
“What is the matter?”
“Jongdae just had his first transformation and he caused some damage,” his face twists. “At least four are heavily injured.” The panic finally shows through. Jongin is trembling.
Baekhyun is already crowding the medical first-aid backpacks that are in Suho’s office. “Babe,” he shows in the living room too, shoulder to shoulder with Suho. “Off we go.”
They find Jongdae held in a makeshift cage, two wolves chaperoning him. He is curled into a ball in a corner.
“He’s in shock,” Baekhyun confirms to Suho’s distressed appraisal. His mind is an anarchy topped with self-loathing. The amount of pain he’s going through is outstanding.
“Someone either get in there with him or let him out,” Suho orders. “Before he ends up a traumatized mess.”
“Comply with whatever he says,” Chanyeol voices over the whole crowd. Some of them won’t cooperate, Baekhyun gauges, but nothing that could lead to a physical dispute. The whole house is in a frenzy.
So far, they had not time to exchange greetings. Suho grins at Chanyeol, polite. “It is necessary that you have utmost trust in me right now,” he begins.
Just then, a sharp wail is heard, and Suho doesn’t have to say it before Baekhyun is taking out bottles of aesthetic. Ten times the usual dose. The wailing rises in volume. Baekhyun nearly feels the anguish himself.
“I do,” Chanyeol says. His eyes narrow. He too feels the pain. “It’s better that one of us approaches him. We don’t know how he will react.”
“I’ll do it,” Jongin insists, taking a few of the bottles from Baekhyun. He has too much pity, too much determination for Baekhyun to start fretting over the fact that it will be his Jongin getting in there with an unstable and stupidly powerful wolf.
Baekhyun hands him a bunch of syringes. “Do you know how to play with these?”
“Yeah, I’ve done it before.” He runs towards the cage.
“Why did I have to fall for the brave one,” Baekhyun groans. Jongdae is already trying to kill Jongin, even if he doesn’t consent to his own body seeking to do so. He manages to restrain him, and hold until he gets the first shot in. Then another, and another. Jongdae softens, barely fighting against Jongin now.
“Better?” Suho asks.
Jongin hugs Jongdae from behind, keeping him there. His arms are tensed around Jongdae’s trembling frame. He hears him mumbling soothing nothings into his ear. “He will burn through that aesthetic in less than an hour.”
“Good. We’ve got others to attend.”
The injuries they’re sporting are severe. None of them are mildly scathed- they either involved or they didn’t. Baekhyun has to snap in a few dislodges bones and suture ruptured organs. Two of them refuse painkillers, and even refuse to scream. They keep it all bottled; a vampire must never see them at their weakest.
“There is no way I’d ever assume this doesn’t hurt” Baekhyun murmurs, running a threaded needle through the cut in the abdomen of the young woman. “Cry at least,” he offers. He blows over the closed wound, hoping that he’s been as gentle as possible.
Suho is patching up Yixing, whose femur must be fractured again since it healed at the wrong angle, along with splintered fragments.
“Please don’t reject this,” Baekhyun pleads, filling a syringe. “If I feel another outburst of agony I’ll be getting out of here with brain damage.”
Yixing is amused, choking out a titter. He twists his arm, exposing the inside of his elbow to Baekhyun. “Thank you.”
Then Suho breaks him.
“I’m only really here cause’ there’s this little vampo, y’know, the tiny black haired one, yeah. Well, that bitch called my daddy babe and I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Ever. Like how dare he? Right? He mine. You don’t babe my stuff. It’s my stuff and only I can babe it. Right?”
“Right,” Jongdae says, slack but very convinced.
“I have babe rights.”
“Right.”
Sehun is squatting in front of the cage, pinching his nose. His voice is all mangled from it, but at least it blocks some of the stink. Jongdae’s fuzzy and Sehun’s ranting is cheering him a bit.
“You were supposed to be waiting in the car,” Suho comments. “Hello, Jongdae,” he kneels on one knee next to Sehun.
Sehun points. “This is the babe.”
“Hello babe,” Jongdae smiles, sluggish and warm. Half of what he perceives is hallucinations.
Sehun’s face falls.
Baekhyun squats too. He regards Jongdae softly. “Hello, Jongdae. I’m so glad that you didn’t widow me.”
“Hello, bitch,” Jongdae is still smiling. His mouth is kittenish, an adorable curve to it.
Jongin starts laughing like a mad man.
Jongdae is given a shot of a sedative, then put to bed.
Baekhyun can finally walk into Jongin’s arms, clutching. “So quiet. So quiet,” he moans.
Jongin chuckles. “I thought you hated it.”
“No. It’s great. Can’t get enough of the peace you bring me.” He snuggles there, as the noise in his head finally dwindles. Then he whiffs something. “He hurt you bad?” The gash is on his hip somewhere, he approximates. All healed.
“Just a scratch,” Jongin assures. “Does it…uhm,” he searches his eyes.
“Tempt me? Yes. But then you always do, so there’s no difference.”
“Are you coming or not?” Sehun barges impatiently from inside the car. “I can’t stand this stench anymore.”
Baekhyun pulls away with reluctance, entering through the back door.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be around. You’ll get used to it, vampo,” Jongin promises Sehun.
Baekhyun dresses up, pinning a flower to his blazer, tousling his hair. It all screams elegance until the mess of eyeliner blurring his waterlines.
He has a date with Jongin tonight, like the humans do.
Jongin is wearing some fancier garments as well, a collared shirt, red and slender, and solid coloured jeans with a delicate shimmer. A tinted gloss is coating his lips, smelling frailly of vanilla. He is tall and dashing and seductive and cute all at the same time that Baekhyun is already saying, “We don’t need this date, I’m already all fallen for you,” before they’re even breaching personal space.
Jongin grins- the glaze- and shakes his head. “So am I, but we’re still going.” He presents his arm, finely angled at the elbow. “This is for you to take.”
“Only this?” Baekhyun pouts.
Jongin just drags him away.
Baekhyun tries imagining how it is to be finite, to have everything counted, to be only as alive as his fragility allows. This train of thought has been breaking off at the same point for over a hundred years- epilogues only happen to the ones who have nothing worth remembering.
this story is continued
part iv