Chapter 4 (1/1)

--CHAPTER 4Today was one of the days where Baekhyun was free of classes—one of the days he liked the most. Once he was awake and dressed, Baekhyun made sure that he would take his place under the large tree behind the science building where he would then sit for hours and read.Luckily for Baekhyun, the weather on this day was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was high in the sky with slight puffy white clouds spread here and there along the blueness of the sky. The temperature was neither too warm nor too cold and every so often a breeze would blow by and tickle Baekhyun on the cheeks. Oh, how Baekhyun grew to cherish these times alone where he didn’t have to try and fit in with society while managing not having a voice to speak his opinions and allowing himself to simply be.Baekhyun read his novel—one which tied characters with magical powers into a society that was far from magical—and once in a while he would glance up as he heard students walking by in the distance. They were speaking loudly with their friends and lovers, and Baekhyun’s brown eyes watched with a sort of longing that even he wasn’t quite aware that he had. He would then tilt his head downward once more and continue perusing his book.“I don’t know if it’s us who are wrong or the rest of the world, but whatever it is—it makes me quite uncertain.”That was the line Baekhyun was reading as he suddenly felt a vast gust of wind whip by and he saw a flash in the foreground lying before him like nothing he had ever seen. It looked like the space itself had just torn open, but when this occurred, Baekhyun had to close his eyes because the brightness of the action was so severe that it might have injured his eyes if he remained staring at it.“Oh, jesus!” Baekhyun heard a very deep voice suddenly burst out like when it first spoke it struggled to make airwaves, but once the voice finished, it was fully in the same space as Baekhyun was. Then there was a crashing sound, or maybe the sound of something being closed very harshly and then everything was still once more.What in the world, Baekhyun thought to himself, and gently he lifted his eyelids open. His eyelashes fluttered over his eyeballs for a split second and his pupils rose so that they could look in front of him. There Baekhyun saw someone on all fours—pushing themself upward from the grass and spitting out lightly from the dirt they must have swallowed from whatever they did…“Wow… That was a lot more rough than I remembered it to be…” the person kneeling before Baekhyun mumbled to himself—yes, Baekhyun could officially establish since the voice was so deep—and then he sat up on his knees. He looked wide eyed at Baekhyun and for a moment he appeared to be extremely lost, but then his expression fell into something of satisfaction and a large grin painted on his lips.Baekhyun’s head tilted. For some reason this male before him was so familiar. The way his hair was so messy atop his head… how his shirt loosely fit over his torso… and how he appeared to be very… carefree. With his right index finger, Baekhyun pointed over to the male and made a perplexed expression. It was his way of asking who he was without signing.The young man blinked multiple times while glancing at Baekhyun’s pointing finger and he then said, “I knew I went to the right place.”“Who are you?” was what Baekhyun was trying to ask as he put both his hands upward while facing the palms up and shrugging his shoulders. Then he figured he might as well try sign language and signed his question anyway while biting his lips and continuing to look at the person before him in an unaware way.“You don’t remember me?” the man sighed and dropped his head. “But I remember you, Baek,” he said in a low tone.Just then, Baekhyun knew exactly who he was speaking (in a matter of perspective) with. He recalled it now—when he was nine years old he had met a mysterious child who came from literally nowhere and made it so he could talk. This kid… now he was an adult too, as Baekhyun could see, and immediately Baekhyun told himself in his mind, “Chanyeol.”Chanyeol—as now Baekhyun could recognize and Chanyeol could see that Baekhyun recognized the fact—nodded while he saw Baekhyun’s expression of realization. “You remember my name, right?” Chanyeol wistfully asked.Baekhyun nodded fervently.“You do?”Baekhyun nodded once more, but this time with his balled fists held up close to his chest.“Then say my name,” Chanyeol winked in an oddly appealing way and tilted his head back while observantly looking at Baekhyun.Not this again… Despite being able to speak before when he first knew Chanyeol, Baekhyun was nearly certain that he wouldn’t be able to do it again.It had been so many years since he had spoken anyway. Baekhyun surely knew that he couldn’t recognize his own voice by now.Chanyeol sighed when he saw Baekhyun’s uncertain expression. “Do you really need help again?”Baekhyun nodded. He wasn’t particularly sure of what he was nodding to.Just then, Chanyeol rocked forward on his knees and leaned closely to Baekhyun, causing Baekhyun to shudder out of being startled. Then Chanyeol placed his hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder and Baekhyun watched while Chanyeol’s eyes closed in a look of concentration. After some moments of sitting silently, Chanyeol pressed his fingers onto Baekhyun’s shoulder and breathed heavily. “Nope,” he said, “that’s not going to work.” Chanyeol then moved closer to Baekhyun and put both his arms around Baekhyun’s neck and rested his chin on the top of Baekhyun’s head.Baekhyun widened his eyes at the close proximity of the other man. He was stunned by this sudden action since he had never had anyone come that close to him before—unless it was his parents hugging him or something, of course. Baekhyun’s lips pressed tightly together and he began to shrink under Chanyeol’s frame—his shoulders rising and his head lowering. His eyes darted back and forth and his cheeks were beginning to flush into a pink.“Oh, I think…” Chanyeol mumbled under his breath as his hands raised and he placed them against the back of Baekhyun’s head and pulled them closer to his chest. “I think this should do it,” he said with his eyes still closed. Then, very quickly, Chanyeol pressed Baekhyun’s head harshly and held it in a tight grip in his fingers and when he pulled Baekhyun’s forehead directly against his chest, from below himself Chanyeol heard a little, “Ow!” He then swiftly let go of Baekhyun and fell back so he could look at the other.“What was…?” Baekhyun began to grumble as his hand went to the back of his head to rub it and then he gasped—eyes widening and looking forward at Chanyeol. “My voice…” he heard himself say, and it was his voice that he heard, but now it wasn’t the voice of a nine year old boy but rather the voice of a twenty-one year old man.“I kneeeew that would do it,” Chanyeol smiled proudly and flashed his teeth in a wide grin. He rubbed his hands together and laughed in an arrogant way, but not offensively arrogant, just appropriately arrogant for his good deed well done.Baekhyun rubbed his eyes—they stung from staring at Chanyeol so long without blinking. “I can… talk again,” he said this with an air that sounded like a child discovering the most amazing thing in the world for the first time. The last time he audibly spoke was when he was a child, after all.“Duh,” Chanyeol lifted his left brow. “Gosh, why did you doubt yourself again?”“I don’t know…”“Hm,” Chanyeol hummed as he blinked twice. “Oh yeah!” He leaned forward. “So what’s my name?”Baekhyun looked directly into Chanyeol’s eyes and said, “Chanyeol.”“YOU DO REMEMBER ME!” Chanyeol yelled with glee and he lifted his hands into the air and tossed his head back. “That’s so great!” He nodded to himself and suddenly, out of nowhere, his eyes fell into a look of thought. “That’s very good…”“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun softly said, making the other tilt his head upward to look at him. “Where’d you go for twelve years?” His head fell to the side and his little pink lips puffed to form an inquisitive expression.Chanyeol blinked. He moved his lips to the side and his eyes fell downward. “I don’t know,” he finally sighed and then rubbed his nose with his fingers. His legs crisscrossed on the ground and his hands fell into his lap while he looked upward at the tree overhanging above them.“Ok…” Baekhyun softly peeped. He didn’t know if that was a literal answer or if Chanyeol was hiding something, but he supposed he wouldn’t ask further because he felt that there was something more pressing he should ask—something he maybe should have asked twelve years ago. “Why is it that I can only talk while you’re around, Chanyeol?” he asked with a serious look.“That’s because…” as Chanyeol began to speak, his eyes wandered all around as if he was a child searching for the answer, and of course he was searching, but the way he did it was unfitting for his presumed age. “Well,” his eyes finally landed on Baekhyun, “I don’t really know that one either.”Baekhyun exhaled, nodded gently, and looked to the side. “Is there much you know?” he asked sarcastically, startling Chanyeol slightly.“Hey…” Chanyeol peered at Baekhyun looking a bit hurt. His head lowered so his chin pressed against the top of his chest, ruffling his loose shirt. “I haven’t seen you in so long and once I do, this is how you treat me?” He breathed out quite audibly, intentionally making it sound like his feelings had been scathed.As Chanyeol appeared to be wallowing, Baekhyun looked with his brown eyes at the sight. Once he finally had his voice once more, was he really going to use it to be rude and insulting? He figured not, so quickly, Baekhyun leaned forward and said, “Sorry.” Immediately, Chanyeol appeared to be completely normal as if no one had jabbed at him or his intentions, and his smiling face shot upward to look at Baekhyun, causing the latter to stumble backward a little at the sudden action.“I do know why I came to see you all those years ago, though!” Chanyeol burst out.“Why’s that?” Baekhyun asked quite innocently. He was now ready to get some answers from this strange guy.Chanyeol scooted forward on his bottom and with the palms of his hands, he made a small movement that Baekhyun watched carefully, and soon Chanyeol’s hands landed on Baekhyun’s chest. “Because I knew you were special, Baek.” He held his hands on Baekhyun’s chest and his wide eyes stared directly into Baekhyun’s eyes, causing Baekhyun to feel slightly uneasy.Baekhyun looked away. “Is that… so?” he asked hesitantly.“Yes,” Chanyeol replied and the way he said it had some sense of pride to it.As the sun was beginning to lower in the sky—indicating that Baekhyun had surely been sitting outside and reading for a long time—and when Baekhyun heard the laughter of students and other college attendees in the distance, he fell from his reveries he was casted into while Chanyeol’s hands touched his heart, and he quickly said, “That’s nice and all.” He wrapped his fingers around Chanyeol’s wrists and gently pulled his hands away. “But if you decided to leave, why are you back again?”Chanyeol chuckled and kept is hands in Baekhyun’s grasp. “You’re so full of questions, Baek.”“But why?” Baekhyun inquired, ignoring Chanyeol’s light teasing.“I have an answer for this one too, so don’t worry.” Chanyeol then removed his hands from the confines of Baekhyun’s fingers and lifted them enthusiastically. “Do you remember the beast?” he asked fervently—eyes widening as he said the word “beast”—and his hands made small movements as he spoke.The beast? Baekhyun wasn’t sure what he meant. He felt like he should have remembered everything that they did together for the brief time they knew each other when they were just nine year old boys, but Baekhyun was afraid to admit that he forgot much. He felt like it’d be an injustice to the peppy Chanyeol who seemed to remember everything. “I don’t…” he slowly said, but didn’t finish as he saw Chanyeol’s expression soften a little.Quickly, in an attempt to get Baekhyun to remember, Chanyeol stated, “It was so loud, remember?” He then put his hands to his cheeks and puffed his lips and then with narrowed eyes, he stated, “It was like this.” Then he made a loud noise at the back of his throat that caused Baekhyun to cringe. The sound was like a gargling and a whining at the same time and Baekhyun hoped to god that no one around heard it. Then Chanyeol subsided with the noise making and lowered his head to look back at Baekhyun. “It was unlike anything you could have ever heard!” His hands went out to emphasize his speech. “It didn’t even sound like that!”Then why’d you have to make that awful sound, Baekhyun wondered and his eyes rolled ever-so slightly. “I don’t remember it…” he then said in finality.Sadly, Chanyeol lowered his eyes. “Really?”As Baekhyun watched the pieces of Chanyeol’s heart slowly crumble in his disappointment, he began to hear a ringing within his ears. It was strong and it was different from anything else he’d heard—even if his sense of hearing was heightened to an extent due to his muteness.  While Chanyeol moved back and forth and shrank within himself, Baekhyun continued to hear the incessant shroud of sound at the back of his head. It wasn’t a clear sound, but it was distinctly there and it wouldn’t cease.  His hands rose to cup his ears as the sound grew and suddenly—like a large object breaking through a brick wall—the sound materialized and immediately Baekhyun heard a roar that sounded like it came from the pit of a creature with only the highest intent to kill. It was dangerous sounding, yet it sounded like something Baekhyun couldn’t quite place and it frightened him. “Ah!” Baekhyun gasped as he pressed the palms of his hands to his ears and clenched his eyes shut.“Baek?” Chanyeol looked up at the male in front of him.Baekhyun’s hands were still pressed to his ears and his small shoulders were raised and his head lowered. “What was that?” he asked.Chanyeol’s head tilted.“What was what?”“Uh…” Baekhyun’s hands slowly fell from his ears and he peered warily at Chanyeol—his brown eyes showing some concern and his eyebrows arched. “You didn’t hear anything?”Chanyeol shook his head.“It was loud,” Baekhyun said softly.“Ah,” Chanyeol nodded. “Like nothing you’ve ever heard?”Baekhyun hesitated and then nodded, humming, “Mm-hm.”Chanyeol closed his eyes and for once, his face looked completely stern. “Then it knows…”“What does? What knows?”Chanyeol opened his eyes. He looked directly at Baekhyun. “The beast,” he said.A/N: I'll try to update often. How do you like it?