Baby's Breath

**Chapter 18**

So Kris lived like that too, Baekhyun thought, Kris had to deal with people judging him for the way he looked, just like Chanyeol for his mental state. In a way, he was surprised Kris still attended school despite the way people misjudged him. Here, Kris was this great officer who was respected by others; in school, he was just some lame, wannabe hot-shot who tried too hard to woo people who were "out of his league." 

"Plus, I didn't want all the attention if I were to be stationed somewhere close to Hye-Seong. Keep this a secret?" Kris grinned as they drove up to the police station.

Baekhyun nodded. He would take that secret to his grave.

Once the interrogation was over, Kris personally drove them back home in the patrol car, right up to their doorstep. He felt that the three had gotten close in the span of two hours. Kris's jokes weren't half-bad and he was a nice person underneath his intimidating visage. In fact, Baekhyun wondered if anyone could possibly be nicer. On their way back inside, Chanyeol mentioned something about having read a fable before, about a wolf in disguise as a lamb. Chanyeol pointed out that Kris was the opposite: a lamb in disguise as a wolf.

That night, it rained hard. It poured so hard that the roof shook over their heads, and it was so cold that Baekhyun had to keep a heat disc in his bedroom to compensate for the warmth that seeped out of the walls. He finally called his mother close to midnight and told her to stay overnight at a friend's house, because the weather was getting so bad that he was worried for her safe return.

His mother had left a pamphlet on his desk. Across the cover it read 'Seoul Psychiatric Institution' in delicate letters, while the pages showed highly unrealistic pictures of the establishment. There was a brief summary on the inside page with snapshots of happy patients posing with fake smiles. He flipped through the pages one by one, trying to find an inkling of reassurement in the sugarcoated lies that the pamphlet offered, even if none of them appealed to him. The only thing Baekhyun actually found satisfactory about the "institution" was the rose garden. Chanyeol liked gardens, so he had been hoping, if worse came to worst, Chanyeol would find a place that could fill the empty void for him.

Maybe these smiling employees knew answers Baekhyun didn't.

When someone knocked at his door, Baekhyun quickly slipped the pamphlet under his pillow and waited for Chanyeol to come in. 

"Baekhyun, it's... it's raining so hard, can I sleep... with you?" Chanyeol asked cautiously, dragging along a blanket with him.

Usually, Baekhyun said no. If he had been any more selfish, he would have declined, then told Chanyeol to leave him alone. Then, he would toss and turn in bed because he'd hear Chanyeol sniveling and crying in the room next to him, but never have the heart to take back his words. He'd express his guilt with anger, slamming his fist on the thin wall and yell at Chanyeol to shut up so he could go back to sleep.

This time, he pulled back his covers a little and pat the spot next to him after scooting aside. Chanyeol slipped in next to him, and they shared one pillow together, both facing the ceiling dotted with tacky plastic stars.

The thunder rumbled outside, then roared with a deafening crash. A blinding flash of ice-blue light flooded into their room, then faded away like magic. Chanyeol whimpered softly.

"You're not scared of a little lightning, are you?" Baekhyun teased, turning his head a bit to see Chanyeol's pupils darting this way and that as the thunder crashed again, this time louder than the last. The rain poured so violently that Baekhyun actually thought it could break through the roof.