FRINGE

The Dawn

After the episode didn't recur Baekhyun was finally convinced the love of his life was alright.

His concerts kept piling at an accentuated rate and these days he barely came home.

He had been on the phone with Chaneyol for about fifteen minutes on a Tuesday night while in a hotel at the Phillipines. The city lights sparkled against the dark horizon. Baekhyun yawned, his eyes were closing. Chaneyol seemed to be willing to talk a little more but he was so exhausted that all he could hear was jibber jabber and broken sentences.He'd call him back first thing in the morning. Tonight he'd just sleep. His makeup was still unwashed and Baekhyun couldn't feel his legs. Trudging to the bathroom, he scrubbed them off somehow, returning to doze off in the sofa itself and skipping dinner altogether.

Chaneyol slept beside his phone, staring at the dark screen and longing Baekhyun's touch. The pain. It was rising again. His body tensed. He sat up quick clutching his chest as the familiar fire flared up and his eyes went sightless for a brief moment again, as if afflicted by some white blindness.

When the pain had subsided he fell back into bed, disgusted. What the hell ? Why was there no certifiable medical diagnosis for this? His fingers fell on the bedside lamp and he played with the switch, absentmindedly , flicking it off and on when his eyes fell on the open shoe cabinet with those small red shoes exposed. Chaneyol turned off the lamp, trying to sleep when his phone rang.

" Hello is this Park Chaneyol?"

" Yes..."

" Oh hello Sir this is Baekhyun's manager. He won't be able to make it home tomorrow...the concert got postponed due to unforseen circumstances."

" Where is Baek? How come he's not telling me so himself?"

" Oh I am sorry Sir, Mr. Byun is currently occupied."

Chaneyol hung up, a little miffed. Occupied? Baek said he wanted to sleep. And the concert was delayed anyway, they could have talked a little longer...He took up the book by his bed, deciding to read till he drifted off to sleep. Maybe he'd go shopping the next day, enjoy a little ' me time' after work. He put on his reading glasses, and picked up where he had left off. The lamp remained on, unknown to him , by the time he had nodded off to sleep with his glasses askew on his handsome face.

When the gloom descended, it swallowed up Chaneyol , chipping off pieces of his soul and leaving the insides of his heart a little more black everytime, like the soot stained sides of a burnt out oil lamp. Chaneyol missed Baekhyun. He missed his continual presence, his prancing about in the house, his lingering smell. But the presence kept diminishing as did the phone calls. He knew how illogical it was to get mad when he saw Baek perform with Junmyeon, but somehow logic had taken a backseat for a while now, letting unbridled anger have its way. Chaneyol sat on lonely nights, spoon in mouth, heating the leftover lasagna from last night and feeling like an empty tin can, hollowed from the inside.Loneliness. Despair. His despair  was like the unhatched butterfly rotting in vile cocoons, it's noxious fumes swelling like the mozarella on his lasagna, pregnant with trapped heat, forcefully injuncted, like a demon spawn in a belly ,during the dizzy swirl within the micro oven's cavern.

Baekhyun had initially tried to dismiss it as nothing, but slowly but surely , the changes that were creeping inside Chaneyol were impossible to disregard. The man was receeding back to his former self. That was the problem with Chaneyol. If something bothered him, he stayed quiet. His eyes followed Baekhyun eerily, as he walked about the house, devoid of the animation that was their prime characteristic. When they made love these days, Chaneyol looked like he had escaped elsewhere and was just going through the motions because he was somehow chained to his marrital obligations.He left for work, wearing un ironed shirts even if Baek kept a fresh pair washed and ironed for him. Baekhyun didn't know what to do. The man was spiralling out of control, like a kite with its string severed from the flyer; recoiling into the abysmal depths of himself.He tried everything, romantic dates, roses, gifts...NOTHING. It was like beating deadwood to make a fire rise.The most worrying fact was his heartaches and momentary blindness had begun again...twice sometimes thrice on some days..yet his medical reports , the exhaustive body scans declared him as perfectly healthy. Noticeably Chaneyol's discomfort and illness was triggered off frequently when Junmyeon arrived or when Baekhyun had to leave. On multiple occasions, Beakhyun had cancelled programmes just to rush Chaneyol to the hospital. Everytime it was the same result. The trip would be a waste of time and Chaneyol would be advised to arrange a consult with the psychiatry department instead, just in case. He couldn't afford to turn down concerts for at this rate the organisers would suffer insurmountable losses. He regretted asking Chaneyol if he sometimes faked his attacks because he missed Baek. Boy did that turn out to be a humongous mistake. Chaneyol had looked at him,betrayal across his face. Baekhyun flinched, cowering under the weight of his husband's simmering anger. What could he do? How could he treat an ailment if it wasn't an ailment at all ? Nowadays Chaneyol refused his checkups as well and stared at the tall lamp he had bought, claiming it flickered too often and without reason. On multiple occasions he had even claimed that he had thrown away the hideous red shoes Baek owned, only to find them back in the cabinet the next day. What was wrong with his husband? Baekhyun for the life of him couldn't figure it out.