truth's fatal kiss.
Pairing: baekyeol
Genre: romance/angst
Rating: PG-13
Length: ficlet; 1,848 words
Summary: And Baekyhun can’t help but wonder how much of their relationship was a delusion and how much of it was just another figment of his distorted reality.
Warning: So it's like two in the morning and I'm sleep deprived and not exactly sure what I'm doing anymore, so prepare yourself for an unedited mess. OTL.
Blood trickles out of the gaping wound and Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol with this expression of pain – not from the fatal hurt inflicted upon him, but by the emotions that are running frantic in his fading heartbeat.
His mind is spinning with fragments of thoughts and conclusions that may or may not be right, but he finds that in that moment, as his life continues to slip out of his fingertips at an alarming rate, none of that really matters. All that really means anything is this abstract sensation in his chest that he knows isn’t actually there, but just feels so real that it might as well be.
In all honesty, Byun Baekhyun isn’t even sure how to separate the truth from a lie anymore.
He hesitantly raises his gaze to meet the one of the man hovering over him. And even though Baekhyun’s always been an incredibly articulate sort of fellow, he finds that the only word he can manage is a strangled, “Why?”
The taller man blinks at the innocence of the question, before tilting his head in mild thought. “Well, I didn’t mean to be so messy: that’s for sure. This’ll be a lot of work to clean up, but it wouldn’t have been this bad if you hadn’t squirmed around so much.”
Baekhyun isn’t sure if he wants to laugh at the misconception of his single question or if he wants to cry.
“No,” he croaks, “Not that.” He knows what he has to say – how he has to explain his true curiosity – but he finds that doing so would take more emotional strength than what he currently has. “I mean –“
And suddenly, his murderer’s expression brightens with a seemingly random burst of joy as he claps his hands together. “Oh! You actually thought that I loved you!” He says the words like an elementary school child correcting himself after responding to his teacher with the wrong answer, and the purity of the reaction only twists Baekhyun’s heart more. Chanyeol is still looking at him with this childlike stare, as though waiting for a response of some sort from the older man.
Despite the recent betrayal, Baekhyun finds that he can’t refuse the younger man of his silent request and manages a small whimper of affirmation.
Chanyeol’s face seems to light up even more and he allows himself to hum a silent syllable of praise.
“I told you from the beginning that I never loved you. When I first met you, I told you that you had caught my eye, but when we started spending more and more time together, I told you that I wasn’t capable of love. I told you that; you just never believed me.”
Baekhyun wants to believe that there’s some distortion of the truth taking place in Chanyeol’s words, but there’s something inside of him insisting that this is the first piece of reality he’s registered in a long time, so he has no choice but to accept it.
It doesn’t stop the painful clenching of his heart or the stinging tears running down his cheeks though.
Despite the reaction that he’s received, Chanyeol continues on with his explanation nonchalantly. “I’m not exactly sure what it was that you did to get on Wufan’s bad side, but the guy took me in when no one else would, so I suppose that that’s where my loyalties lie. I was asked to target you, to get all the information that I needed from you, and then dispose of you before you would realize what I was up to.” He pauses to pull out his phone in order to frown at the screen. “A few days late, actually, but I suppose that it doesn’t really matter since I got the job done.”
Baekhyun finds himself too weak to do anything but continue staring at the assassin before him in pure despair. When Chanyeol had first approached him all those months ago, he was attracted to the optimism in his step and the glitter in his smile and what seemed to be the undying devotion that the taller man had towards him. Every day, he had woken up to a husky voice lightly breathing into the shell of his ear and the warm, protective embrace of the man lying beside him. Every day, he would wait for approximately two minutes after his shift, before the familiar black sports car would pull up to the building and the younger man would insist on treating him to some coffee before taking him for a stroll around the park. Every day, Baekhyun would think about the days before he met Chanyeol: back when he was painfully confused about anything and everything and could only view the world as dull, while only viewing himself as an unimportant liability to all those whom he was concerned with. But when Chanyeol stumbled into his life , he had begun to believe that there was something vibrant and worthwhile in every little thing and that maybe, maybe he served some purpose in life.
But now that the truth has been exposed, Baekhyun is sure that everything that he had started to think was true was nothing more than a lie spoken through the lips of the Devil himself.
Except Chanyeol can’t be the Devil, because Chanyeol is everything and anything that Baekhyun isn’t: he’s the light of the stars and the tide of the sea and the breeze that ruffles his hair on a sunny day.
Chanyeol isn’t evil. Chanyeol is too good to be evil. This is all a mistake; some cruel nightmare inflicted upon him for drinking too much coffee again. In a few minutes, he’s going to wake up to a whispered promise of eternity and familiar arms around his waist. In a few minutes, the empty feeling in his chest will disappear to be replaced with a sensation of pleasant floating.
In a few minutes, everything will be okay again.
“Stop staring at me like that,” he grimaces, shifting his gaze to stare at the graffitied wall of the alley. “You’re starting to make me feel uncomfortable, Baekhyunnie. And that’s no fun.”
No fun. Right, Baekhyun never really is any fun. Chanyeol has told him that before.
“If it makes you feel better, you weren’t all that bad, you know? I really liked the feeling of you underneath me. You have a serious talent with those fingers of yours. It’s a shame that I had to kill you, really.”
The words do nothing but make the tears dart faster down Baekhyun’s cheeks and when he tries to choke back a sob, all that comes up is a glob of blood that only adds to the stains on his formerly white shirt. He feels that he should at least try to make an attempt at something intelligible – something meaningful that Chanyeol might be able to remember him by – but the only thing that he can manage is a horribly clichéd, “I-I loved you. No, I love you.”
However, the words succeed in catching Chanyeol offguard, and his eyes quickly flash back to meet the fading gaze of the older man. “What? You’re not thinking straight. I just stabbed you, and in a matter of minutes, I would’ve killed you.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Baekhyun mutters. And he takes a dry swallow as his vision begins to become spotted. White fills every dimension of his sight and suddenly, the pain in his torso has begun to fade. This realization makes it clear to him that his time is almost running out, and that scares him, because he’s never said anything like this to anyone before and he only has a few seconds to think of a way to do it properly.
But Baekhyun has never been a quick thinker, so the words that slip through his lips are rushed and genuine – words that come from the very depths of his fading heart.
“Love isn’t something that’s meant to be logical. It’s something that stems from something that no one can ever control because emotions are something that no one can control. Love is when you want to spend every waking moment of your life with someone because they mean something to you; because they’ve made a significant difference in your life and you can only hope that you’ve done the same thing for them. When you love someone, you want to shield them from all the cruel aspects of the world because you know that someone as perfect as them doesn’t deserve all of that pain and suffering.” He pauses for a moment to stagger for air, only succeeding in accentuating the stinging of his lungs. When he begins again, his voice is quieter – nonexistent, almost – and Chanyeol finds himself leaning forward in order to hear every last piece of it. “Love is forgiveness; no matter how great and detrimental the sin.”
Silence echoes throughout the alleyway as the younger man tries to process the words, before he whispers, “I’m sorry. I don’t deserve your love.”
Baekhyun allows a hoarse chuckle to reverberate throughout their empty space. “That’s okay. Because the more you insist that you’re not worthy of it, the more the feeling grows.”
Keeping his eyes open has become a burden now, so Baekhyun tentatively allows his eyes to shut. He supposes that he’s said all that he needs to say, and perhaps dying young is better than dying old in the long run.
The last thing he registers is someone pulling his corpse of a body to their chest in a tight embrace as they press their lips to his forehead in a long, meaningful kiss.
“Thank you.”
---
Target #56312, Byun Baekhyun: eliminated.
---
“Wufan, he told me that he loved me.”
The older man blinks at the sudden comment, before warily turning his attention towards his subordinate, “So?”
“He told me that he loved me, and no one’s ever told me that before.”
For a moment, Wufan debates on how he should respond to this innocent confession. However, he figures that it would be best to make sure that his most trusted assassin remains tied to the world of harsh reality. “Does it really matter now? He’s dead, and there’s no coming back.”
“Wufan, do you love me?”
“No,” he responds instantly, “People like us – we’re not capable of love. It’s such a useless, tiresome emotion, Chanyeol. Don’t concern yourself with it.”
Chanyeol stops to think about the passion in Baekhyun’s dying voice and the feeling of his body moving in synchronization with his and the electricity that passed between their lips and the pure honesty in his final words.
“I suppose that you’re right.”
It’s the first time that Chanyeol has ever lied to his senior.