Chapter 8 (1/1)

--CHAPTER 8As they walked through the cavern, Jongdae would talk here and there about these different foods that he had recently tasted and every once in a while, Chanyeol would hum either positively or grunt negatively based on whether he agreed or not on whether the foods Jongdae were mentioning were any good. Baekhyun’s eyes continued to wander and explore the look of the surroundings within the cavern. No matter how much he would see the blue glow of the crystals, he would still be mesmerized by their uniqueness and beauty. He would partially listen to the other two talking, but the majority of his attention was focused on everything that was new. It was like he was exploring through one of the worlds in the fantasy books he would read and Baekhyun couldn’t help but think that it was the greatest thing he had ever experienced.“And last time I ate that kind of food, I had some pretty bad indigestion and I had to--…” Jongdae’s words were cut off when the trio heard a rumble at a far end of the cavern. They all stopped in their tracks at the sudden motion that followed the rumble which flowed under their feet and up through their toes and into their hearts.“What… What was that?” Chanyeol asked while looking around.“Like I should know…” Jongdae mumbled and lifted his upper lip. “Please don’t blame that one on me too.”Baekhyun continued to look around the cavern, though now his gaze was filled with more concern than curiosity. There was another rumble that paraded through the cavern though this time it was closer, causing them to hold their breaths.It happened again, though now it continued to happen in more succession and progression as it went on and finally the sound transformed from a rumble to a complete roar—a roar they all knew very well.“The beast! Let’s go!” Chanyeol yelled and began running forward through another tunnel.“Isn’t that the way the sound came from, though?!” Jongdae yipped and he watched as Chanyeol continued to run and Baekhyun soon followed. Baekhyun briefly turned around and looked at Jongdae with beckoning eyes and after only a small moment of hesitation, Jongdae began to run to follow the other two in tow.They ran in a fast but persevering pace as the cavern floors and walls began to shake, causing pebbles and other loose rocks to fall toward them and jump around their feet about the ground. While they ran, Jongdae continued to mutter between breaths, “We’re going to die, we’re going to die, we’re going to die,” and Chanyeol continued to keep a pace that showed he was ready to go. Ready to go and do what? Baekhyun was uncertain.“We’ll be okay,” Baekhyun was able to manage a reassuring word to Jongdae who caught up with him and now ran by Baekhyun’s side. He tried to reassure the worrying male, but all that happened was a loud yelp from Jongdae and a look in his eye that could have implied he was on the verge of tears. Even if Jongdae was scared, Baekhyun decided he wouldn’t be because he believed that Chanyeol wouldn’t let anything happen to them. Nothing bad he at least hoped.More roars echoed through the rock walls of the caverns and they continued to create the assaulting vibrations that launched rocks at the boys, and more came down that could have injured them or possibly caused some sort of lethal affliction, but now it looked more hopeful than bleak since a light began to bounce into their eyes.Just ahead of them was a light that was not just a blue glow created from some sort of crystal lying in the depths of a cave, but a natural light that came from only one source—the outside world.“Almost there,” Baekhyun could hear Chanyeol breathe out through his teeth and just then Baekhyun knew for sure there was a reason why he trusted Chanyeol.Then as they could see things other than calcite and rock—things like grass and sky—there was a boom that caused Baekhyun to stop in his tracks it shook him so violently. “Chanyeol!” he cried out and he thought he saw a glimpse of something that looked beautiful and inviting—like an angel that was reserved only for him though he had no real words to explain how it looked in his eyes, but as he viewed this strange phenomenon, boulders began to fall from the ceiling of the cave and fell just in front of Baekhyun, separating him from Jongdae and Chanyeol. As this happened, he went to yell for them, but he suddenly felt an impact against the top of his head that was painful for only a split second, but then knocked him unconscious, causing him to black out and fall completely out of reality.*~*~*~*“Look at him sleeping. Isn’t he just so precious?”That was Baekhyun’s mother’s voice cooing at him. It was like he was only a toddler once more, having his young parents admiring his chubby, baby face as he napped. He then heard his father’s voice—low and soft—agreeing with his mother.They continued to say kind words over their son’s sleeping body and soon Baekhyun came to grow tired of their complimenting. Generally, Baekhyun would enjoy the attention and praise from his caring parents, but right now he was fed up with it. Maybe it was because he was actually a grown man and not just a baby, but he knew it was all too annoying to sit through for much longer.Quickly, Baekhyun raised his head from his slumber and where he was wasn’t where he expected to be. When his brown eyes opened wide and departed from a sleepy state, he saw that he was not in his bedroom with his parents like he expected to be, but rather in his college psychology classroom sitting next to his friend Minseok. Everyone was staring at him which made him grow uncomfortable in his own skin.“You really should pay attention,” Minseok said and then made a light “tsk, tsk” sound with a click of his tongue. There was a wave of laughter and chuckles that flooded through the classroom and Baekhyun heard one laugh that he knew as one that belonged to only one person. Baekhyun ignored the taunting giggling that came from the girls that sat behind him and he careened his head to look past Minseok and saw that Jongdae had been sitting there next to him. Of course that sort of laugh had come from him…“Jongdae, what are you doing here?” Baekhyun asked the not amused looking male. Apparently he had his voice in class today.“That’s not important,” Professor Leeteuk sharply said and Baekhyun turned his head to look toward his teacher who had been pointing at him with his pointer he used to direct information toward the students’ eyes. “What’s important right now is that you sleep, Baekhyun,” he continued. Leeteuk waved his pointer stick up and down just barely so there was only a slightly noticeable motion and he said in a soft, gentle tone, “Go ahead and go to sleep.”That was an odd statement… Since when was it ever the teacher’s preference for Baekhyun to sleep during class? But since Professor Leeteuk continued to stare at Baekhyun in an oddly pleading way, Baekhyun complied with his advisories. Slowly, Baekhyun folded his arms over his desk and lowered his head so that his forehead was resting against where his two forearms crossed. He closed his eyes and began to fall asleep, just like his teacher had asked for.*~*~*~*When Baekhyun opened his eyes from his sleep, he was immediately met with a pair of two wide, spacey looking eyes. These eyes were wide, but they were definitely not Chanyeol’s. “Ah!” Baekhyun yipped at the sudden sight and when he did so, the eyes backed away and Baekhyun was able to see the person attached to them. He was… a bit lost looking as he looked back at Baekhyun and his out-there eyes stared at Baekhyun with a detectable interest.Baekhyun sat up from lying on his back. He briefly looked around and noticed that he was no longer in a cavern, but rather in somewhere that looked like ruins of what might have been a beautiful building with amazing architecture. Baekhyun could tell this due to that fact that the fallen pillars were carved with intricate designs that included swirls that would curve around faces making different expressions that were carved within the plaster and pavement.  The faces were a bit alarming to look at since the expressions they made weren’t particularly happy looking, but more frightful and terrifying. Instead of lingering his gaze on such things much longer, Baekhyun quickly looked over to the body that was sitting across from him—the one that possessed the eyes that met him when he awoke. “Who are you?” Baekhyun asked the other, causing his expression to perk up with an eyebrow lift and a slight lip fall.“I’m not scary, you know,” the man had said and he continued to stare at Baekhyun with the same intrigued expression as he spoke. His curiosity seemed to be unwavering.Baekhyun lifted a brow. “No… No, you’re not,” he mumbled. He then titled his head. “What’s your name, though?” Baekhyun asked trying not to sound too pushy or confusing for the other person. He pressed the tips of his fingers of his left hand against his chest and introduced himself, saying, “I’m Baekhyun.”“Oh!” the one sitting across from Baekhyun gasped and raised his shoulders. Apparently he had remembered something. “My name! That’s what you mean.” He made the same motion as Baekhyun and put his own fingers against his own chest. “I’m Yixing.”Yixing… That was a nice name. “Hello, Yixing,” Baekhyun said gently.Yixing smiled, revealing a dimple on his right cheek. “Hello.” He continued to eye Baekhyun for some more time with wide eyes. His head tilted here and there and it was as though he was trying his best to get every angle of Baekhyun as he possibly could. Then, rapidly and without warning, he got onto his hands and knees and scooted in front of Baekhyun so that he was sitting just in front of him. “Baekhyun,” he said in a proximity of only inches between him and Baekhyun and Baekhyun could feel Yixing’s breath on his nose as the man spoke. “You’re quite curious looking, Baekhyun.”Baekhyun knotted his brows in confusion for just a second. “How so?” he asked.Yixing moved his head back and forth to gain a better look at Baekhyun and Baekhyun stumbled backward a bit at the strange movement. “You just…” Yixing blinked and then narrowed his eyes. His lips puffed out and with his left hand, he scratched the side of his head. “Baekhyun’s different.”“Is it because I can’t talk?” Baekhyun asked in a sort of annoyance that had finality to it.The spacey-eyed male pressed his lips together and after a long exhale, said, “Yes.”Baekhyun closed his eyes. “Of course it is,” he mumbled. He might have been able to talk in this world, but when it came to his own reality, he still didn’t have a voice. He supposed somehow Yixing knew that.Yixing watched as he saw that Baekhyun’s face began to express some upset, and he widened his eyes while furrowing his brows. Fervently, Yixing stood upward onto his two feet and looked down at Baekhyun who had still been sitting on the ground amongst grass and rubble. “Come with me, Baekhyun. I have something to ask you.”As Baekhyun looked upward to Yixing while he spoke, he noticed the strange look in Yixing’s eye and couldn’t help but feel that it compelled him to follow the man’s wishes. So Baekhyun stood up as well and followed Yixing as he had begun to walk away from where they were. Baekhyun was led to a place past a large pavement wall that was cracked down the side so they were able to walk past it. Beyond the wall was something that looked like an archway that had a hanging awning descending off it and underneath that archway was a brick well protruding from the ground. Yixing and Baekhyun walked directly up to the well and when Baekhyun looked down into it, he saw that there was shimmering, turquoise liquid filling it and in each angle of the light Baekhyun would see prisms of color within the water like pinks, yellows, and blues cascading through its ripples. It was so lovely looking and his brown eyes widened greatly as he looked down to it—the liquid casting a reflection upon his irises.“Here it is,” Yixing softly said as his eyes began to wistfully stare down into the well. “This is my mirror, Baekhyun.”Baekhyun glanced over to Yixing. “Mirror?”“Yes,” Yixing said quite firmly as he placed his hands on the rim of the wall and rested the weight of his body against them. “I don’t have any other way to see myself, so this is my mirror.”“Ah,” Baekhyun gently nodded and looked back down into the liquid. He decided to look down into it and search for his own reflection just like how he suspected Yixing would. But when he looked, all he saw was a picture playing before his eyes—a picture that was totally unfamiliar to him. The image was like a painting of Baekhyun, but maybe in the future. He saw himself running, but not running as though he was running from something but rather toward something. When his legs caught up with that something, the image showed that Baekhyun was smiling. He smiled vibrantly and genuinely and then he reached his hands forward and there in his hands were someone else’s hands. Then his lips moved and he said “I love you” and when he said it, the other person moved forward and pressed their lips against his and they kissed. Kissing? Baekhyun had never done that before. “Uhm… Yixing,” Baekhyun mumbled softly while turning his head toward the other.“Yes?” Yixing asked while still fixated on the liquid in the well.Baekhyun gulped gently and asked, “Am I supposed to be able to see myself in this thing?”Yixing nodded. “Of course. It is your reflection, after all?” He moved his eyes to look at Baekhyun and soon the rest of his head followed so that he was facing the other. He saw that Baekhyun had looked somewhat confused. “What is it, Baekhyun? Do you not like how you look in your reflection?”“It’s not that…” Baekhyun breathed out and lifted a brow. “It’s just that it’s not what I expected.”“Mmmmhhmmmmm…” Yixing hummed long and softly. “That’s what I wanted to ask you about, actually.” He looked down into the turquoise before him once more. His brows furrowed gently and his upper lip puffed out so that it fell over his lower lip and then he puffed a short breath through his nostrils. “Whenever I look into my mirror to see my reflection, I usually don’t like what I see… Why’s that?”Baekhyun glanced over toward the reflection and saw that it was a perfect image replica of Yixing playing on the slightly rippled liquid. “It looks like you to me, Yixing.”Yixing nodded. “Maybe it is, but it looks… scary.” He sighed. That must have been what he meant when he had told Baekhyun that he wasn’t scary.“How? I thought I told you that you’re not scary,” Baekhyun reached his hand over and placed it onto Yixing’s shoulder, causing him to jolt a little. “You look good, I think.”“Really?” Yixing’s eyes widened as they met Baekhyun’s.Baekhyun nodded.Yixing dropped his head. “Well,” he sighed, “I remember that what they told me I was wasn’t what I was. I couldn’t see myself differently…”Baekhyun knotted his brows in confusion. “Who’s ‘they’?”“They…” Yixing looked to the right and cocked his lips to the side. “They are who made me what I am.”As Yixing continued to space out—looking to the side and not particularly at anything in general—Baekhyun turned his head so he could continue to look at the reflections casted into the liquid. This time when he looked at his own reflection, he saw a sad boy. The boy was quiet and he had a look on his face that looked like he had been influenced by everyone’s opinions. He had something to say, but since no one wanted to hear it, he decided not to get anyone’s attention and instead he sat still and kept it all inside. The boy was Baekhyun. Baekhyun thought about it for some moments, and just because he was mute didn’t mean he had to let those around him dictate whether he was an opinionated or voiced person. It was all up to him. He then looked over at Yixing’s reflection seeing that it was still Yixing’s face and how it still looked fine to him, but he supposed the other man had been dissatisfied with it anyway. Baekhyun reached his left hand over and placed it in the liquid—shaking it back and forth a few times and distorting the images that were played within. This caught Yixing’s attention and he quickly looked down at what Baekhyun had been doing.“Does it matter what they see, Yixing?” Baekhyun asked. “Isn’t it about the way we see ourselves?”Yixing curiously tilted his head and as his brown eyes looked to Baekhyun’s smirking face, he hummed, “Mhm,” and let his lower lip drop.“You’re really great, Yixing,” Baekhyun then said in a fast manner that was unexpected. He put his hand which he had previously had in the turquoise onto Yixing’s shoulder, but the wetness that was left on his skin making contact to Yixing’s clothes did not seem to faze Yixing.“Thank you,” Yixing replied just as fast as Baekhyun had said his compliment. He glanced at the hand on his shoulder, swallowed, and looked back to Baekhyun. “So, what exactly was it that you saw in your reflection, Baekhyun?” he asked.Baekhyun thought about it and how he should possibly have worded what he had seen, and then with a small smile on the corners of his lips, he blinked and said, “I saw something beautiful.”Yixing smiled. “That’s what I thought,” he said in a pleasant and airy tone.After they both smiled to each other, the two men decided that their time together was very nice. Yixing had said that Baekhyun should have been around more often, but Baekhyun said (in all honesty) that he didn’t know if that was possible.“You have to go now, though?” Yixing asked looking disappointed.“I do,” Baekhyun nodded. He knew he had to go, he just didn’t really know where or how… He just knew he had to find some way back to Chanyeol and Jongdae—wherever that was. “I have to go, but I don’t really know which way to go, actually…” He rubbed the back of his head with his fingers of his left hand.Yixing looked around as though he was looking for a way in which Baekhyun could depart. “You could…” his voice trailed off as he looked around and then his eyes fell upon the turquoise liquid once more. “This.” He pointed toward the liquid with his hand held close to his chest.Baekhyun looked down. It was a well… He really didn’t trust that it would take him anywhere. The thing was, though, that this world had been filled with unexpected and strange occurrences that he never would have expected to happen in his life, so maybe the well would have been his proper mode of departure. “The well, you say?”Yixing nodded.“All right…” Baekhyun let out a large breath of air as he looked at the well haphazardly. He inhaled greatly—opening his mouth wide and then closing it with a puff in his cheeks. He prepared for a long swim, at least, that’s what he was expecting. Quickly, Baekhyun leaned forward—holding his palms on the edge of the well and then pushing his body into the liquid in the well. His head fell in first and then the rest of his body soon followed. As he left, he thought he heard Yixing say, “So that’s why there’s a beast,” but he wasn’t entirely certain if Yixing had actually said anything at all.He fell into the liquid and soon his surroundings were changing once more.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A/N: I love Yixing so much and of course I had to make him into an ideally adorable character (my ideal adorable type, that is).Okay, so it has been a while since i have a updated and there are reasons regarding the fan base as to why. As you may already know, the Sewol ferry accident happened recently and its traumatic dertiments are still affecting the nation of South Korea. During the prime of the accident, I was feeling immense heart ache and sorrow for the victims and families affected by this tragedy. Yes, I already have the vast majority of this story typed out and all I have to do is copy and paste to make an update, and yes the accident did not affect me personally, so you may be asking why I delayed to update through this time. Well, let me put it straight. The EXO fan base was being completely terrible and ignorant toward the accident. Some of you may have already heard the defacing comments some EXO "fans" made regarding the accident since the comeback had been delayed due to it. I would rather not repeat such harsh words, but rather refer to them in a third person. What these comments made me feel wasa great anger inside and all i could think about was how selfish and crude some EXO fans can be. Granted not all EXO fans are so insensitive (trust me I know; some of my readers are the kindest epople I know) but I feel that since this was an EXO fic, anything related to EXO would not have been appropriate for activity during that time. As the comments were going, I made sure not to update this and take my time to mourn and feel sorrow for any victims or family members and I took the time to mourn in place of those who had decided to be inconsiderate and far from human. So now that the accident turmoil has settled down for the most part (though there still isn't complete closure and I still mourn over that fact) i decided I could update because yes, my readers are kind EXO fans. But i felt I should let you know how I felt about the situation and how I feel as a whole, EXO fans really do need a reform.