how the west ward was won
Jan. 23rd, 2015 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exolliarmus►recipient: cupofteas
►title: how the west ward was won
►pairing: baekhyun/kyungsoo hinted!minseok/luhan
rating: pg-13
►word count: 11.8k
►warnings: copious amounts of dumbness and cameos from other groups, brief mention of high school frottage, Dark Curses
►summary: Baekhyun finds many creative ways to end up on a hospital bed in the West Ward of St. Mungo’s Hospital, where Mediwizard Do Kyungsoo is always extremely pleased to see him and more than willing to treat all his wounds.
►author's notes: writing fluffy BaekSoo was a dire challenge for me and I wish I had more time to develop this beautiful prompt better. Thanks to my beta reader and all the beautiful girls who held my hand through this adventure!
“Ok, listen, I have this plan.”
“Don’t wanna hear it.”
“But you didn’t even let me start…”
“I don’t care Lu Han. I’ve known you for more than ten years, you suck at plans. I don’t want to take part in whatever mess you’re going to create…”
“Look, do you remember Baekhyun? My Seeker? He kinda has a crush on-”
“Lalalalalalalalalala, I can’t hear you.”
“-in the hospital. Are you listening to me?”
“I don’t care about it, Lu- Wait. Did you say hospital? No. No, I forbid you. You’re not bringing your shenanigans to my workplace. That’s final.”
“But…”
“NO.”
“I can be very… persuasive when I want, and you know it.”
“Please, no.”
~
It begins with screaming, a lot of unnecessary, high pitched screaming, and confusion, and Healer Kim Minseok, Kyungsoo’s direct superior, gesturing for him to come over because a famous Quidditch player fell off his broom during the first game of the league and they’re bringing him to the West Ward, and maybe a thousand of crazy fangirls are hogging the reception hoping to catch a glimpse of their star and the Welcome Witch is going crazy.
Kyungsoo is tired, cranky and in need of a good dose of caffeine. He’s helping the other healers with the oncoming dragon pox epidemic, when Minseok, his supervisor, calls him, fidgeting a little. That’s suspicious because Minseok never fidgets.
“Kyungsoo, listen, we have an injured Quidditch player down in the ER, can you please take care of him?”
Kyungsoo doesn’t really like Quidditch players. In his mind, they’re all a bunch of fools who like to risk their lives chasing flying balls on a broom. Dumb. Also, it doesn’t help that his former boyfriend was a Quidditch player who dumped him because he wanted to go professional and he needed to leave for Japan for a few years and couldn’t stand the pressure of long distance commitments.
It’s not common knowledge but Minseok knows it, Kyungsoo confessed it during the party that welcomed him in Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, but fortunately Minseok was the only one sober enough to remember it. He knows it and he’s still interrupting Kyungsoo’s duties to send him downstairs. Kyungsoo scrunches his nose.
“I know you would prefer to stay here and help with the dragon pox, and I really need all the help I can get here, but you should at least visit him. I can’t do it and all the other healers are busy.”
Kyungsoo is the youngest Mediwizard in the whole hospital, and one of the most talented, at least according to his diploma, but he’s still the rookie and he can’t ignore Minseok’s orders. “Can’t he wait? The ward is packed with kids that need to be visited.”
Minseok sighs. “It’s probably not even that urgent, but do you hear this commotion?” He refers to the screaming downstairs. “Looks like his whole fanclub decided to camp in the West Ward. They’re disturbing the nurses and the other patients and we can’t make them go away because we’re too busy here. I’m not asking you to give him a complete checkup, just- What now?”
He turns towards Nurse Liu, who’s bringing with her a little girl with blonde pigtails and a greenish face who’s starting to turn emerald.
“Healer Kim, this one is going through the Third Phase of the infection.”
“Bring her inside, I’ll see her immediately,” orders Minseok. “Listen, Healer Do, Quidditch players are drama queens and it’s probably only a scratch, so if you think that there’s nothing to worry about you can simply ask Sehun to babysit him. Now go and come back as soon as possible, we need you here.”
He simply nods and hurries towards the Ground Floor.
The situation he founds there is unbelievable. The main hall is crowded with people dressed in the colors of the Ballycastle Bats, one of the most popular teams of the season. Kyungsoo has to fight his way through hysteric girls in need of a Calming Potion and even more hysteric nurses. Nurse Jung Soojung looks ready to Stupefy all their unexpected guests. Kyungsoo wouldn’t move a finger to stop her.
Finally, he sets foot inside the emergency room. When he sees the patient, his heart misses a beat.
Kyungsoo’s brain takes a moment to catch up and connect the dots. Ballycastle Bats, famous player, fanclub. Oh, no. What a doomed, awful coincidence to have his ex-boyfriend from Hogwarts, the same person who dumped him for a regular spot in the Toyohashi Tengu here on St. Mungo’s West Ward, splattered on the hospital bed. Looks like five years weren’t enough to prepare him for this moment.
Baekhyun, Byun Baekhyun. I’m not ready.
Then the Quidditch player turns towards the door and his eyes get caught in Kyungsoo’s figure, standing uncertainly at the door, agape, a little breathless, wrapped up in his green lime healer vest.
~
Baekhyun hasn’t changed that much. The curve of his jaw, the messy fringe getting into his eyes, the elegant hands are the same as five years before, when Kyungsoo saw him for the last time.
He looks too small for all the crowd outside the door and yet too big and bright for the white, aseptic room.
Kyungsoo knows he’s the ace of his team, the young celebrity Seeker who brought the Ballycastle Bats to victory in the previous season, and probably also the Seeker of the national team for next year’s world cup, if he keeps showing such astonishing performances. And no, Kyungsoo didn’t stalk him the last five years, he just happens to be a very acculturated person who reads the Daily Prophet every morning and Baekhyun happens to appear on the first page quite often.
The Mediwizard’s mouth is dry. It’s really Baekhyun, and his jersey is open on his collarbones, and he’s pale and disheveled and Kyungsoo’s heart stutters and protests because it’s too sudden. He was supposed to get in and do his job just fine, an easy morning shift, but, and Kyungsoo knows it better than anyone else, nothing is ever easy when Baekhyun is involved.
Baekhyun is not alone. His coach, Lu Han, is with him, and Kyungsoo focuses on him, hoping to escape the inquiry in Baekhyun’s hazy eyes. He remembers Lu Han, he was a few year older than Kyungsoo in Hogwarts and quite popular. They never talked, being in different Houses and different years, but Kyungsoo faintly recalls him leading the Gryffindor team during his seventh year and raising the Quidditch cup on a cloudy day of summer after an overwhelming victory in the last game against Ravenclaw.
Maybe he should tell Jongin to give a call to Healer Kim. Weren’t they on the same year, back then at Hogwarts? Then he remembers that Minseok had been the captain of the same Ravenclaw team that Lu Han had crushed to win the cup of his last year, and wisely decides not to bother the other healer. Besides, they’re in the middle of an epidemic of dragon pox since last week and every experienced Mediwizard is crowding the Second Floor’s ward. Kim Minseok has his hands full of green babies and anxious moms, he surely doesn’t have time to spare for his old field rival.
“Please take care of our Baekhyunnie,” says Lu Han with a slight bow. There’s a hint of mockery in his voice, like he’s questioning Kyungsoo’s ability to do his job due to his young age. A lot of people tend to do it, and Kyungsoo finds it quite annoying.
He licks his lips, forcing himself to look professional. It’s difficult, when he doesn’t know where to start. His eyes grace the sharp angle of Baekhyun’s collarbones. He has to undress him, before he can visit him. Duh, awkward.
It’s not that he doesn’t trust himself, to be honest the level of Kyungsoo’s self-esteem is just fine, maybe even a little bit higher than it should be, but no amount of skills and personal talent can prepare him to stick his hands inside Baekhyun’s shirt. What he needs is courage and a bit of spine, but right now Kyungsoo feels like every bone in his body has mollified, leaving him a nervous mess.
“Can you please tell me the details of the accident?” he asks, politely, circling around Baekhyun like a hunting hawk.
He hears, more than seeing, Lu Han’s low chuckle at his uncertainty and it’s what ultimately pushes him to move. He gently helps Baekhyun to remove the training uniform, eyes trailing to bruised skin uncovered by the sliding of the fabric.
“It was a bad fall,” updates him Lu Han. "The referee managed to slow him down with a spell, but he was almost on the ground already and the landing was… quite painful I think.”
“Lu Han is exaggerating, as usual.”
Kyungsoo’s hands slip on Baekhyun’s chest when he hears his voice. It’s a little hoarse, a little rough, unpolished. So unmistakably Baekhyun.
“Are you hurting somewhere, Mr. Byun?”
Baekhyun seems to fall apart a little under his stare. A shadow of disappointment surfaces on his eyes, takes a gulp of air and immediately disappears, leaving the dark pupils calm and unreadable again. He shakes his head, bites his lips. Maybe pouts a little, but by the time he does that, Kyungsoo is already looking at his medical record.
“No.”
He’s lying. The Mediwizard presses on his sternum, feeling a morbid sense of payback when his patient chokes on his breath.
“Please tell me the truth from now on, Mr. Byun. Your career could be compromised if you lie about your condition to the Mediwizard who’s visiting you.” While he talks, Kyungsoo steals a sideways glance at Lu Han, who’s rumored to have left the field because of a neglected muscle tear.
“You cracked a rib and sprained your ankle, but that’s all. Nothing that a cup of Skele-Gro can’t solve,” he says, gesturing to Nurse Choi to bring a bottle of the healing potion.
Baekhyun grimaces, not particularly thrilled at the idea of Skele-Gro. Being an athlete there’s no way this is the first time he tastes it. Even Lu Han laughs at his player’s dejected face, and Kyungsoo almost slips a smile in the middle.
Jinri comes back with the potion just as Lu Han excuses himself. “I have to send an owl to the rest of the team, to tell them you’re alright,” he says. He leaves the room with a luminous smile.
Baekhyun scrunches his nose and moans in disgust, looking at his smoking cup of potion. The last time Kyungsoo saw him making that face was five years ago. Their last day in Hogwarts, during their graduation party, when Jongdae tried to turn Baekhyun’s Butterbeer in Firewhisky. Kyungsoo had laughed and teased Baekhyun together with Chanyeol, while Baekhyun chased Jongdae around the table for revenge.
Sometimes, Kyungsoo misses Chanyeol and Jongdae. They were good friends, back then, but they were more Baekhyun’s friends than Kyungsoo’s, and the Mediwizard didn’t keep in touch with them after the fight.
Kyungsoo checks if the cup is really empty like it should be, and in the meanwhile he wonders if Baekhyun still talks to them, here and then. If their friendship was strong enough to survive the distance, a whole continent between their best friend and them for two years. He also wonders if his and Baekhyun’s relationship would’ve survived, if only they hadn’t decided to end things before Baekhyun left for Japan.
With Lu Han gone, they fall into an uncomfortable silence, only broken by the loud chatter of Baekhyun’s excited fans that are camping out in the entrance hall.
Kyungsoo is almost tempted to ask Baekhyun something, like if he sometimes misses Hogwarts, what are his friends from Hogwarts doing or whether he’s really going to play for the national team. It’s not like he cares about the national Quidditch team, but the silence makes him nervous. He isn’t used to it. Baekhyun was never quiet, back then.
However, Baekhyun doesn’t look like he wants to talk, maybe he’s still too busy trying to deal with the uneasiness of the last drops of Skele-Gro on his tongue, or maybe he’s just browsing through the countless memories in his mind, far away fragments of a time when there was an us between him and Kyungsoo.
They wait, drowning in their own thoughts, at least until Lu Han comes back and drags Baekhyun away, after a flourished bow and a dashing, handsome smile.
“Well, it wasn’t so bad,” it’s what Kyungsoo tries to tell himself as the two figures disappear behind the door, followed by his last recommendations, rest, drink a lot of water, stop falling from brooms please, the last one thought, but never said.
“Are they gone?” asks Minseok a few minutes later, as he hurries towards the storage rooms to take other Sleeping Potion.
“Yes, it was nothing serious, just like you said, easy and fast. No need for hospitalization.” Minseok nods quietly with a knowing air. “Ah, and Lu Han sends his regards and hopes that the next time you’ll be free enough to come and say at least hi to him,” Kyungsoo dutifully recites, just like Lu Han has asked him to. “Is everything all right, Healer Kim?” he asks then, seeing Minseok’s face reach a lively shade of purple.
“No, don’t worry… Just wondering how much can a person’s obnoxiousness increase… because I swear, his keeps getting worse.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t really understand, but maybe that old dislike from boarding school hasn’t faded out yet and Minseok has unresolved business with Lu Han. It would be difficult to tell, since Healer Kim is very secretive about his private life and Kyungsoo respects his wish for privacy.
Not my business, he thinks, as he goes back to bully the new trainee healers, Kim and Oh, folding away his feelings for Baekhyun and putting them to sleep exactly where they belong: in the chest of Hogwarts memories and silly regrets, things that should’ve been long forgotten but that sometimes come back to haunt him in the form of his former boyfriend suddenly appearing at his workplace and tearing apart Kyungsoo’s peaceful life.
“Was that Byun Baekhyun? I mean, the real deal? Byun Baekhyun? Seeker of the Ballycastle Bats? And Lu Han, THE Lu Han was there too???”
Kyungsoo scoffs and chooses to ignore Jongin’s high pitched voice and the little stars crowding in awe and slight pain at the thought of his two celebrity crushes being there right when he was taking care of a girl who poisoned herself with a beauty potion gone crazy. Ignoring Sehun is a bit more difficult.
“And you let him go like that? Where is his sign? Do you know its value on the black market?”
Shaking down the pathetic whines of his two trainees, Kyungsoo gestures to a young boy with a purple nose to come in for the preparatory visit. His pretty face is starting to turn teal. Dragon pox. Another one. He sighs.
"Close the door please..."
"Jimin. Park Jimin."
"Close the door, Park Jimin."
The door falls shut on the loud cacophony of screams that only a fleet of adoring groupies finally leaving the hospital and furious nurses forced to clean up the mess can make.
~
The second time Minseok sends him down in the West Ward, Kyungsoo thinks it’s a fluke. It must be a fluke, right? Either that, or Baekhyun is quite clumsy to actually be a Quidditch star player.
The diagnosis is a swollen black eye and two missing teeth, whose lack gives Baekhyun an irreparable childish air that makes even the reception nurse, stern, young Jung Soojung who has a knack for terrorizing the rest of the hospital staff, swoon.
“A Bludther,” it’s Baekhyun’s muffled answer to Kyungsoo’s silent question. “Rigth in my fathe.”
“That I can see. Look at me, please.” It sounded more intimate that he would’ve liked, but he bites his lips and continues to inspect Baekhyun’s face. It’s easy to hide behind the mask of a healer and his lime green face mask, avoiding Baekhyun’s eyes. There are too many things Kyungsoo wishes to hide inside his heart again, but Baekhyun’s presence unsettles him, turns his secrets upside down until they’re fluttering in his eyes, in Baekhyun’s plain sight.
The emergency room echoes with the whispers of the other patients waiting to be treated, but there are no screaming teenagers this time.
“It didn’t happen during a game, did it?”
Baekhyun shakes his head, squinting in pain. “I wath thraining.”
That explains why people don’t know about Baekhyun’s visit to the hospital. Kyungsoo must be quick, before the news spreads like wildfire.
“Ah, I see,” he says, in the most conversational tone he can muster, “can you turn? Just a little?”
He graces Baekhyun’s chin with his fingers, a feather-like touch to angle his head upwards, exposed to Kyungsoo’s stare. He pretends he doesn’t see the way Baekhyun turns a little pink under his scrutiny. Baekhyun pretends not to notice the slight waver of Kyungsoo’s touch.
“It looks worse than it is,” he announces finally. “The teeth will grow back with the right potion. As for the swelling…” he murmurs just a few words, a simple healing charm, and the black bruise around Baekhyun’s eye disappears.
Baekhyun nods in gratefulness, not trusting his mouth with actual words until his teeth are all back.
“Try not to come here again for a long while, Mr. Byun, I get it that your job is dangerous, but you should be more careful from now on.”
Baekhyun’s eyes are sharp and quick. He really doesn’t like to be called by his last name, apparently, but Kyungsoo won’t risk calling him by his first. He hasn’t actually said Baekhyun’s name in years. Only in his head, he dares to taste those two syllables, over and over again. They echo in his brain, now and then, but lately, since Baekhyun showed up totally unexpected and bruised on the hospital’s doorstep, it seems like his name is a spirit let loose in Kyungsoo’s thoughts, a constant presence in his subconscious. It’s unsettling, how little does it take to destroy a few years of self-restraint.
“Well, I should go. Sehun will bring a potion for you. You have to take and wait until your teeth grow back.”
“Waith-”
He leaves the room in a hurry, leaving Baekhyun behind.
~
The third time is a bad fever that leaves Baekhyun red-faced and breathless on the tiny hospital bed, smiling in the burn of delirium. Kyungsoo stays by his side all night, holding his hands and listening to him talk about nothing and everything. Baekhyun blabbers about Hogwarts and the fear of not turning in his Potions homework in time, and Kyungsoo’s smile, and how much he hates the Batter of the Appleby Arrows who always tries to strike him harder than he should just because Baekhyun dumped him after their third date. He mixes up the present and the past, swears at his brother who’s going to marry next month and asked him to be best man and smiles at Kyungsoo with lucid eyes.
Kyungsoo silently slips out of the room when Baekhyun’s fever breaks, around three am. He leaves everything to Jongin and jumps inside the Floo network, collapsing in his bed at home. Baekhyun is alone when he wakes up the following morning.
After the fever, Baekhyun comes back with an indigestion, a missing toe that takes three days to regrow much to Kyungsoo’s annoyance, a sprained ankle and a rash on his neck that spreads into his chest and then towards his hips in less than six minutes. It makes Kyungsoo really skittish because he has to open Baekhyun’s jersey all the way down to his hips and take down his underwear to see where the redness ends. Baekhyun smiles shyly but somehow smugly through it all.
What angers Kyungsoo the most it that, one way or another, it’s always him who has to rush downwards and into the ER to assist Baekhyun.
“It’s because he always asks for you,” explains Soojung during their coffee break, after Sehun pours down all his frustration at her. “when they take him in. Apparently, he doesn’t trust anyone else.”
“Maybe he has a crush for our Kyungsoo,” squeals Jinri.
Kyungsoo chokes. Sehun chooses that moment to flop down on one of the couches of the tearoom, where the youngest healers and nurses usually spend their break since they don’t have an office of their own.
“Maybe, but Kyungsoo never talks to him.”
“It’s Healer Do for you, brat,” protests Sehun.
“Not during the break, Soo,” laughs Soojung, reaching up to pat Sehun’s head and ruffle his hair. The boy bows down graciously to let her do it. It’s a bit unfair, how they all spoil Sehun. Kid has all the nurses wrapped around his pinky finger with a smile and a set of puppy eyes. Same can be said about his partner-in-crime Kim Jongin. They’re the bane of Kyungsoo’s existence.
“Well, I guess it’s difficult to make conversation with someone who’s half dead all the time,” comments Soojung.
“Maybe our Healer Do is just shy,” says Jinri. “But I would’ve never pegged you for someone who got nervous in front of famous people, Kyungsoo. Didn’t you put one of Celestina’s Warbeck Banshees in a neck lock just a few weeks ago, because she didn’t want to take her anti-rabies shot?”
“She deserved it!” protests Kyungsoo vehemently. “I don’t care if she’s a singer or the next Minister of Magic Transports, since she was stupid enough to raise a Lethifold as a pet and get bitten by it, it was my moral duty to inoculate her the damn Potion.”
“Yes, through a wrestling move. Maybe he was too shy to ask her to stay still during the shot,” snickers Sehun.
“Mediwizard in training Oh, since you’re so lively today, you wouldn’t mind giving our patients Cursed by the Permanent Full-Body Bind a sponge bath, right? For the rest of the week. Nurse Park was complaining that it’s so difficult to do it alone.”
Sehun’s mouth falls. “But- But I....”
“Better go quickly, Sehun, before I decide to assign you to Jongin’s patient.”
Sehun scampers away as quickly as he can. Jongin’s assigned patient, the former Minister of Magic, is a nightmare for trainees and interns. His already awful personality got even worse after the bite of a Dugbog, which is also the reason why he’s hospitalized. His hobby is throwing his slippers at the poor trainee assigned to him. This week is Jongin, and the old wizard is doing his best to make the poor lad’s life miserable.
“So cruel, Do Kyungsoo. You don’t have an ounce of shyness in your body,” laughs Soojung, before she comes back to her duties at the reception desk.
Kyungsoo snorts in the most non-committal way he can manage and goes back to his espresso, hot and black, no sugar in it.
~
Hyunsik has been Kyungsoo’s best friend for more than ten years now. It was a strange bond the one that brought them together, forged between the light scratching of quilts on parchment and the savage shouts of Kyungsoo’s queen as she destroyed one of Hyunsik’s innocent pawns.
Now that they’re not in Hogwarts anymore, the soundtrack of their small chats has turned into the cracking of flames in the fireplace and the sound of Hyunsik’s castle as it crushes Kyungsoo’s bishop.
“I hate you,” mutters the Mediwizard, watching sadly as his poor red bishop is taken hostage on Hyunsik’s side of the chessboard, “when did you became this good at chess?”
Hyunsik laughs and pours them another glass of elf-made wine. “So, you were telling me about Baekhyun?”
Kyungsoo nods and stares at the board, trying to assemble his thoughts. It’s not often that he and Hyunsik can find the time to meet for a friendly rematch at Wizard Chess, between his shift at St. Mungo’s and Hyunsik’s work at the Daily Prophet’s.
Hyunsik was the only one between Kyungsoo’s friends who knew about him and Baekhyun. He was also the one who had to collect the pieces when Baekhyun took the Portkey for Tokyo two weeks after graduation and Kyungsoo was left alone and furious.
“There’s not really much to say. He’s always at the hospital, for one reason or another. Bishop in C6.”
“And you haven’t spoken to him? Knight in C6.”
“I haven’t… tried. I wouldn’t know what to say. I can’t just go to him and treat him like a friend all of a sudden. He avoided me until now, after all. If he wanted us to be friends, he could’ve done something before. Queen in C6.”
“Well, it’s not like you made yourself available. You put fire spells around your house to keep owls away. Castle in C8.”
“He didn’t write, I’m sure of it.” He ignores Hyunsik’s exasperated roll of eyes. “Besides, who says he wants to talk with me now? Maybe he just wants to be treated like a normal patient. He hasn’t tried to talk to me either. Pawn in H6.”
“Yes, he did. You just ran away, don’t try to deny it. Bishop in E3.”
“Who the hell told you that? No, wait, don’t say it. It was Jaehwan, right?”
If it’s true, Jaehwan is a dead healer. Dead. Just like Hyunsik’s King when Kyungsoo is done with him. His best friend hides a chuckle and Kyungsoo curses softly.
“I have my secret sources, obviously.”
It is difficult to resist Hyunsik’s smile and the healer finds himself smiling back. Hyunsik had a theory, back in Hogwarts. He was convinced that Kyungsoo purposefully chose to befriend smiley people because he himself was a grumpy bear. Baekhyun had laughed so much the first time he heard him talking about it.
Now, after almost ten years, Kyungsoo is grateful for Hyunsik’s smile because sometimes it’s the only thing that can get him to open up. Some days he has so much pent-up stress that he can barely breathe and one glass of wine is not enough to relax his nerves enough to fall asleep. Some days Kyungsoo loses control and drinks a bit too much and he ends up Floo calling Hyunsik in tears, sobbing that he can’t do this and that he doesn’t know what to do. It happened when Baekhyun left him, when his favorite owl Lucifer ate his research thesis, when Taekwoon dumped him for a pretty Obliviator called Hakyeon and also a week before graduating from the Healing school. Hyunsik knows how to pick up the pieces when Kyungsoo collapses.
“Look, I don’t want to intrude in your business, but you’re a bit… How can I say? When it comes to Baekhyun you’re a little unforgiving, Kyungsoo.”
He doesn’t answer immediately. They keep playing in silence, eating each other’s pieces one after another, until only a Hyunsik’s king and Kyungsoo’s king and knight remain on the chessboard. Only then, Kyungsoo speaks.
“He was the one who left,” he replies, in the end.
“But now he’s back, am I wrong?”
“He’s not back because he wants to talk with me. He’s back because he’s hurt and I work in a hospital!” sighs Kyungsoo.
“Sure, he went into the hospital because he hurt himself. Eleven times in a month. Do you really believe it? Oh, by the way, checkmate.”
~
Work is boring the following day, so boring that Kyungsoo starts to think about Hyunsik’s words. The previous night, he threw his friend in the fireplace, pouring Floo powder all over him and sending him home because he could say another word and go on with his ridiculous assumptions.
Of course Hyunsik is wrong. Baekhyun put the word end on their story a lot of time ago, there’s no way he’s going back now.
Thinking of Baekhyun makes him restless and antsy. He usually only indulges in this kind of thoughts when he’s a little tipsy and the alcohol dulls the buzzing in his brain, helping him unravel lost, knotted feelings from the messy bundle of his memories.
He still remembers the fight so well, when he puts a bit of effort, it was about Baekhyun leaving for Japan to pursue a career in professional Quidditch and Kyungsoo deciding to stay in London to study to become a Mediwizard, it was about them being too stubborn and too in love and too young and wanting to stay together even if their hearts were telling them it was time to go their separate ways, that things would’ve worked out, somehow, but they only seemed to be getting worse and worse, just like their fight, until…
“Healer Do?”
His reverie is interrupted by Sunyoung’s voice.
“Yes, Nurse Park how can I help you?”
“Your favorite patient is waiting in the ER.”
Baekhyun? Again? “But he just came in yesterday. Didn’t the potion work?”
“I think it’s something different this time.”
“My turn is over, you can ask Healer Jaehwan to take care of him.” Yes, pile more work on Jaehwan. That would teach him not to tell on Kyungsoo to Hyunsik, the traitor.
Hurried steps interrupt their conversation. It’s Jongin, sporting a darkening bruise in the shape of a slipper on his forehead. “I don’t think he wants Lee Jaehwan, Healer Do. I think he wants only you. He asked, specifically, for your help.”
“Jongin, please tell me you didn’t skip on your duty with the rabid former minister to sneak out in Mr. Byun’s room.”
The boy’s eyes shine as he shows Kyungsoo a Baekhyun card. “I’m sorry, that’s exactly what I did, but look! Personally signed! And he told me that the next time he’ll bring Mr. Lu around and he’ll sign me his Chocolate Frog card too…”
“Thrilling.”
“Anyway, Baekhyun accepted to sign my card only after I promised to call you personally.”
Amber smirks at him, “Oh, so bold. I like this Mr. Byun already. Go to him, Kyungsoo, he’s waiting.”
But my turn is over, is what Kyungsoo wants to say. Minseok’s voice coming from his office beats him to it.
“Healer Do! Stop whining and treat Mr. Byun’s wound, whatever is it this time.”
He sighs, pitifully. There’s no meaning in wasting his anger on Nurse Liu and Jongin and Healer Kim. Maybe it’s time to convey his feelings directly to Baekhyun.
“Put a cool patch on your forehead, Kim Jongin,” he shouts as he leaves the room, “and remember that no wizard has the right to throw a potted plant, a water glass or a slipper at your pretty face just because they’re in a sour mood. But if you leave your duties again to fanboy over your celebrity crush, I’ll have you thrown out of the hospital faster than you can say Byun Baekhyun.”
He also takes a mental note to scold the former Minister during his next shift because Kyungsoo is very territorial, and he’s the only one who can bully his own assistants.
~
Kyungsoo doesn’t ask where his favorite patient is, since Baekhyun has been in the ER so often in the last few weeks that he already has his own bed in the West Ward.
He wastes no time in slamming the door open and storming inside.
“What now?” he says, trying to convey all his irritation in those two short words.
Baekhyun simply raises his hand, where blood is flooding from his fingertip. “Broken nail,” he answers, “while trying to catch the Snippet.”
Kyungsoo gauges the damage for just a second before deciding that the scratch is not even worthy of his working time, much less his free time.
“Sehun!” he shouts, waiting until the tall boy arrives trotting down from the Spell Damages Ward. “Oh Sehun, what are you going here? Why aren’t you sponge-bathing the old Miranda Bath? I thought you were on duty for the rest of the week…” Sehun’s eyes fill with terror and he starts babbling something. “No, wait, don’t answer, never mind…” He doesn’t have time to listen to Sehun’s pathetic apologies about why he’s skipping on the job Kyungsoo has given him. He probably made puppy eyes at Nurse Song until she left him go. “Just… keep care of him, please. He has a split nail, a light Healing Charm will go.”
“Hey, where are you going?” whines Baekhyun, “I thought you were going to treat my wound.”
“That’s hardly a wound, Baekhy-” he almost slips, “-Mr. Byun, and I have better things to do than to hold your hand while you wait for it to stop hurting enough to go back to your flat.”
“I hope your assistant is good, the coach says that for a Seeker the fingertips are very important, do you hear me Do Kyungsoo? Kyungsoo? You'll have my death on your conscience! Kyungsoo!”
He can hear Sehun’s mouth falling open at the blatant display of familiarity, but he can’t focus on his assistant right now.
Kyungsoo. Look at this Kyungsoo. Wait a moment, Kyungsoo. Close your eyes, Kyungsoo. I’m gonna kiss you, Kyungsoo.
There was a time when Kyungsoo’s name was the most important word that ever came out from Baekhyun’s lips, sometimes uttered with reverence, attention and love, sometimes whined with the fine company of one of Baekhyun’s trademark pouts, the ones that make the world turn upside down, Baekhyun’s most lethal weapon.
Kyungsoo had developed a certain kind of… resistance, against Baekhyun’s magical seduction powers, ones that don’t include a wand but simply his bright, expressive eyes and his lovely mouth. But maybe the five years spent away from Baekhyun nullified his efforts, because he finds himself oddly defenseless against Baekhyun’s childish call for attention.
If he’s not careful enough he’ll fall in a web of consolidated gestures, habits made his own after years of awkward attempts at sharing your life with another person. Now, for example, would be the best moment to ruffle Baekhyun’s hair and pinch his cheek and then leave him there, because it’s only his fault that he injured himself and he can’t, he really can’t, for Merlin’s sake, go around bothering other people and demanding only the help of certain healers like a spoiled kid.
That’s what Kyungsoo would do if he still were Baekhyun’s boyfriend. Or he could treat his wound without showing any kind of emotional reaction, because that is what a professional Mediwizard would do. Unfortunately, Kyungsoo is neither of the two. He’s not Baekhyun’s boyfriend, he hasn’t been for years, but he doesn’t possess the ability to treat him as a normal patient either.
Baekhyun looks at him, sweet and tempting, almost begging, and Kyungsoo wants nothing more than to card nervous fingers in his eyes and pull his face upwards to kiss him.
He groans, feeling desire dance in his stomach like ember sparks. Then, he flees.
He turns on his heels and runs like he has a flock of dragons at his back, ignoring Baekhyun’s calls for attention, Sehun’s confused babbling and Healer Lee Jaehwan baffled look as he stumbles over his colleague, coupled with that strange thing he does with his eyebrows when he finds one of your weaknesses that he’ll later either tell Hyunsik or personally exploit against you at the most uncomfortable times.
Kyungsoo ends up in an empty corridor near of the East Ward, right in front of the empty magic fountain that is supposed to be gushing pumpkin juice, but the spell has been stuck for weeks now, so no one ever goes there anymore. There, the Mediwizard regains his breath.
What was that, Do Kyungsoo? Did you just leave a patient all by himself in the ER? With the only assistance of Oh Sehun? Are you crazy?
He slaps his cheeks, two times. It’s a good thing that no one ever comes this way because he doesn’t want to be seen with two bright red hand-shapes on his cheeks.
After a while, he starts breathing normally again as he considers that, well, he didn’t do such a bad thing after all. His turn was already over and it’s not like he has time to spare for the little celebrity of the ER. He does his best to ignore the gnawing voice whispering in his heart that he would’ve stayed for another patient, but the way Baekhyun cried out his name, like he used to do in the past, the irreverent, childish curve of his mouth…
He slaps himself one third time, just to make sure that his traitorous mind doesn’t start digging through the vein of thoughts.
~
The following day, during the precautionary vaccination that the Ministry ordered against the oncoming dragon pox epidemic, Sehun turns towards Kyungsoo. He’s smirking a little, the kid, he’s only nineteen and he’s already plenty taller than Kyungsoo. Maybe he should be filed together with Jaehwan in Kyungsoo’s list of people who need to be kicked in the ass. “Hey, Healer Do, you really broke that poor Quidditch player’s heart today. He was really looking forward to have you treating his wounds.”
“Really?” he asks, sarcasm dripping into his voice. “Thank you, Sehun, now I am really enlightened. I didn’t get it when he sent poor Jongin through all the whole hospital looking for me.”
“Well, why didn’t you stay then? He looked really sad afterwards. He moped.”
Kyungsoo can feel a vein twitching over his eyebrow. He doesn’t like where this conversation is going.
“He thinks you hate him,” confesses Sehun.
“Wait a moment… Did you talk to him?”
Sehun sends him a look of pity and incredulity. And when even Oh Sehun is looking at you like you’re a lost case there definitely is a problem.
“Everyone talked to him, Kyungsoo. He comes almost every day hoping to see you and you don’t even spare five minutes of your time for him. It’s unsettling and I don’t know who’s more pathetic, the Quidditch star with the ridiculous crush on the Mediwizard or the Mediwizard who’s thick enough not to realize it.”
Kyungsoo stares with wide eyes. Sehun pales. “Oh, crap. I shouldn’t have said that.”
He tries to make a hasty retreat, but Kyungsoo grabs his arm to stop him. “Is he really coming to see me?”
Sehun sighs, defeated.
“Well, at least you’re not completely dense. If things keep going this way maybe that poor lad will be able to ask you out on a date before the next Christmas.”
~
It’s not like Kyungsoo doesn’t think about it, because he does. Sehun’s words haunt him at night, at the end of exhausting shifts at the hospital, when he falls on the bed with his green lime vest still on and fails to fall asleep because he’s thinking about Baekhyun’s soft lips, bruised and softly open, Baekhyun’s nervous hands covered in band-aids, Baekhyun swallowing potion after potion and cleaning his mouth with the sleeve of the hospital gown.
It would be easier, to stop thinking about him, if only Baekhyun didn’t come every two days, with a Butterbeer intoxication, a Batter elbow that he shouldn’t even have since he’s not a Batter, a dragon bite, some other kind of disease, injury, wound or infection that makes Kyungsoo want to scroll him, many times, and tie him to the hospital bed so he can stop hurting himself and wasting everyone’s precious time.
“Where would he even find a dragon?” mutters Kyungsoo, hands on his hair, a haunted expression on his face.
“He must be pretty desperate,” answers Hyunsik, matter-of-factly, letting Kyungsoo feed him a toast. Only his head emerges from the flames that crowd Kyungsoo’s fireplace. It’s strange, because Hyunsik hates Floo calls, he always prefers to visit Kyungsoo directly instead of hanging between two different places.
“Desperate, yes, likewise.” He snorts. “I see him every day, he could’ve talked to me countless times already.”
“Yes, and since when Baekhyun has been good at apologies?”
Kyungsoo makes a sour face and Hyunsik jeers in victory.
“Exactly, never! He doesn’t know what to do and you keep walking away from him. Don’t think Jaehwan is not telling me…”
“So it really was Jaehwan… I’m going to kick his ass tomorrow, I swear.”
“No, you won’t. Talk with Baekhyun. Kyungsoo. Just do it, for Merlin’s sake. Don’t you think five years have been long enough for the two of you to be angry at each other? The worst it can happen is that you stay friends, and it would be better than being nothing at all, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t,” he answers, and the coldness in his voice surprises him as much as Hyunsik. “Sorry Hyunsik, I didn’t mean… It’s complicated.”
He remembers Baekhyun and his tousled curls and his pointy canines smiling at him during Charms at the beginning of fourth year. Just a smile, it was all Kyungsoo needed, and something exploded like the warmth of summer after a tepid spring. Their summer lasted three years, but after the fight, after graduation, after Baekhyun walking out of his life with his mouth set in a tight line and dry eyes, there was nothing. Not a Floo call, not an owl, not a word spoken in five years. But there was also nothing before, because they started going out almost immediately and they didn’t have time to be friends. He doesn’t know, he realizes with an eerily sense of doom, how to be Baekhyun’s friend, because they’ve never been friends.
It was different with Taekwoon, because they were friends before and they managed to recover their friendship afterwards, or part of it, but he doesn’t know how to do it with Baekhyun.
It’s not that he can’t imagine how it could be. It would be a bit like before, but without the kisses, without the secret words whispered in Kyungsoo’s ear and meant for him, and him only, without the secret curl of Baekhyun’s lips. A pale imitation.
Kyungsoo shakes his head at Hyunsik. “I’m sorry, but I’d choose nothing at all rather than friendship with him.”
“Does that mean you don’t want him to be anything for you, not even a friend, or does it mean that friendship is not enough and you want something more?”
He looks back at Hyunsik in horror, feeling strangely cheated. Hyunsik smirks at him – he’s smirking a lot lately – and chuckles under his breath. “From your terrified face I take it’s the second. Congratulations Kyungsoo, for reaching the final awareness that you still love Baekhyun. It was a pain seeing you in denial for all these years.”
He chokes and reaches down to take the butter and jam toast out of Hyunsik’s mouth. “It’s neither of the two for your information, and no more food for you, you… you’re evil! When did you become evil?”
“Somewhere around the moment your boyfriend dumped you and you became dumb, I guess. It was self-defense against your growing stupidity. Now give me back the toast, please. I need to be in force, I’m leaving in a few minutes…”
Kyungsoo is more than happy to run away from the dreaded topic of his absolutely ridiculous feelings for Baekhyun that he does not have. Not anymore at least. He’s over Byun Baekhyun, absolutely over.
He helps Hyunsik take another bite of the toast. “Where are you going, by the way? It’s the middle of the night.”
Hyunsik only sends him a glare to let him know that he totally knows he’s trying to change the topic of the conversation, but he answers anyway. “I’ve received a tip-off about an Auror roundup in the secret hideout of dark wizards. Tonight.”
Dark wizards? He didn’t know Hyunsik was that kind of journalist. He looked more like someone who would write of Herbology and History of Magic, not a true reporter working on the field.
“Please be careful. Dark wizards are dangerous people.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going alone. Do you remember Lee Changsub? He was in my House!” Kyungsoo vaguely pictures a goofy kid with sleepy eyes and a boisterous laugh, Hufflepuff, a year older than Hyunsik. “He’s an Auror and he said he’ll take an eye on me so I don’t get into trouble.”
“That’s… comforting,” whispers Kyungsoo. “I hope everything goes well.”
“I hope so too, I’m gonna get a promotion if this scoop goes well, can you believe it? I really want to settle down with Ilhoonie someday…” A dreamy smile lights up Hyunsik’s face and Kyungsoo can’t help but smile back. Hyunsik squints at him in a pathetic attempt at a wink. “Well, gotta go, say hi to Jaehwan from me, and TALK TO BAEKHYUN!”
“Good luck!”
~
Kyungsoo talks to Baekhyun. Well, he tries.
"I'm starting to think that there's something wrong with you."
“Clearly, otherwise I wouldn’t be in this bed cursing the day I rode a broom for the first time.”
“No, I mean, there must be something wrong with your head. Only a stupid would keep hurting himself in such a persistent way. Do you not care for your own wellbeing? You’re turning wounding your body into an art…”
Baekhyun doesn't answer, he whines pitifully in the back of his throat as Kyungsoo carefully checks his forehead. "You're lucky it's only a scratch, stupid." He adds the last words under his breath. Baekhyun's eyes are lucid with unshed tears, but Kyungsoo knows that it’s more from his penchant for drama than from real pain.
Lu Han waits at the side of the bed. The coach of the B-Bats looks nervously between the Mediwizard and his best player. "Will he be alright?"
"Forehead cuts are always bloody, I'm more worried about a concussion. Do you mind if I keep him here for tonight?"
He doesn't miss the quick glance that passes between Baekhyun and Lu Han. They agree too easily. The possibility that all of this is carefully planned and Baekhyun is really injuring himself on purpose becomes a bit more real.
"Sehun will be in charge of you for tonight," he assures to his whining patient. "We don't really have a ward for Quidditch injuries, so I'll have you moved into the First Floor, creatures induced damages and such."
Baekhyun pouts, and then winces in pain. A drop of blood falls from his forehead to his cheek. "Sehun is the kid from the other time? I don't want him, he's a pain in the ass. Too smug."
At least they still agree on something.
"Would you prefer me to leave you in the capable hands of one of your fanboys then? Jongin is a good healer, but you could die of blood loss before he stops staring at your face and realize it."
"Can't you stay? Why can't you spare a little time for me? Come on, Kyungsoo,” he prolongs the last syllable and Kyungsoo’s breath hitches, “to honor Hogwarts' old times."
He bats his eyelashes, but that's not what unsettles Kyungsoo. It's the way his name slips out of Baekhyun's lips, still a little bruised from another fall from the broom just three days earlier, slightly disclosed. There’s no hesitation or doubt in his voice, it’s like he's practiced Kyungsoo’s name forever.
"To honor Hogwarts' old times," he repeats, like a robot. His cheeks feel on fire.
Somewhere, hidden in Kyungsoo’s mind, resounds a vicious laugh and Kyungsoo can’t help but think that it’s the sound of karma. Maybe this is what he deserves for hiding his feelings in the deep crevices of his heart for so long. A vicious, violent comeback in the colors of crimson and gold, like Baekhyun's scarf back in high school, like the violent blush on Kyungsoo's cheeks and the reflex of sun shining through the glass of the window on Baekhyun's caramel hair. “To honor Hogwarts’ old times, you say? We did a lot of things back in Hogwarts.”
It’s Baekhyun’s turn to redden, caught in the cage of Kyungsoo’s eyes. It feels like they’re threading on a thin line. “I mean,” he stutters, Baekhyun almost never stutters, “it wouldn’t be the first time you hold my hand while I rest after an injury, right?”
A rush of memories flood Kyungsoo’s eyes, from that time Baekhyun got injured during Care of Magical Creatures and Kyungsoo spent the night in the infirmary holding his hand, and then when he was discarded it was already very late in the night, and instead of coming back to the dorms they wandered, risking detention, until they ended up sweaty and panting on the Aritmancy classroom with their pants huddled at their feet and their hands dirty.
Oh, but Baekhyun is playing dirty. Kyungsoo can do that, too.
“Can you stay still? I have to clean your wound and apply a Healing Potion.”
Baekhyun eyes him warily, a veil of red still bright in his cheeks. He took the first step, now he’s waiting for Kyungsoo to acknowledge him.
It’s not easy. Kyungsoo was never the most assertive one in their relationship. At first, it was all about Baekhyun, Baekhyun coming onto him, kissing him, Baekhyun calling the shots, Baekhyun teasing and crossing the lines until Kyungsoo was forced to put him back into his own place. Baekhyun insisting to snap Kyungsoo out of his shyness, Baekhyun making him explode and putting him back together. They had clear roles and maybe that’s why they fit, until they couldn’t fit anymore. But now, even if Baekhyun is back, Kyungsoo doesn’t know if he can go back to the way they were before.
“Will it hurt?” asks Baekhyun, looking so little and pale and young on the white hospital sheets. It makes Kyungsoo wants to tease him.
“A little,” he answers. “Do you want me to hold your hand then?”
Baekhyun splutters, clearly taken aback. He probably thought he had to fight harder to rebuild some sort of confidence between them, enough for Kyungsoo to willingly offer to hold his hand. Maybe break another bone or two.
“It’s a pity though,” continues Kyungsoo, as he checks Baekhyun’s forehead before he starts to apply the Healing Potion, “we don’t have an Aritmancy class here.”
Baekhyun splutters, his haw falling open as he stares at Kyungsoo in bewildered embarrassment, not daring to believe what he just heard. Kyungsoo chooses that exact moment to pour Antiseptic and healing Potion on the wound, enjoying Baekhyun’s pained scream at the scorching sensation.
~
To Kyungsoo’s surprise, Hyunsik arrives with a broken arm and in a Stupeficium-induced stupor a few hours later. He’s not alone. His friend, Changsub, is with him to help him stand on his own feet. Then there’s the squadron of Aurors, with the red jackets and the shining badges.
They’re carrying a man with magic handcuffs. His eyes mouth and nose are bleeding copiously.
“Nurse Liu,” Kyungsoo calls, immediately, “we have a patient suffering from severe blood loss due to… a Curse, I think. Call Healer Kim immediately! Take him to the Fourth Floor!”
The man has cold, malicious eyes that Kyungsoo tries to ignore. However, the mark inked into his skin, a skull and a snake, dark against the pale arm, is more difficult to ignore.
Kyungsoo stays a few minutes with Hyunsik to scold him and remind him to be more careful in the future – a scoop is not worth his health – but his mind can’t help but wander to the Deatheater. He hopes Aurors know what they’re doing. That wizard looked dangerous and desperate.
Maybe it’s that nervousness and the relative lack of anything to do that brings him back to the West Ward that night. He expects the Baekhyun to be sleeping, getting some rest like Kyungsoo had told him.
Baekhyun is not sleeping. He sits on the edge of the bed, still and quiet, as if he’s waiting. As if he knew Kyungsoo would come to him.
“You should sleep.”
His voice doesn’t even startle Baekhyun. Instead, he stretches, wincing as his muscles scream in protest after the long hours of inactivity.
“I’ve had enough of sleeping. Your tall slave with the blank face knocked me up for good this afternoon. He gave me three cups of… I don’t even know what, and I slept like a baby until a few hours ago.”
A Sleeping Potion. Kyungsoo should’ve thought about it first. Sehun is too smart for his own good.
“Did the Cursed man wake you up?” he asks, a little worried. They had to soundproof the whole Fourth Floor before he woke up the whole hospital.
Baekhyun weakly pushes himself up. “What Cursed man?”
“Ah,” Kyungsoo raises his hands and gives Baekhyun a cocky grin, “I’m sorry, Auror stuff. I’m bound to secrecy, professionalism and everything else.”
Baekhyun tries to give him the puppy eyes, but Kyungsoo has already said too much.
“You’ll probably read it in tomorrow’s newspaper if you sleep long enough to be awake by the time they bring it in for the special patients.”
“Am I a special patient?” he teases. Kyungsoo would really like to break his cheeky face if it wasn’t so damn handsome. That, and between flying Bludgers, idiotic teammates, dragons and his complete lack of interest in personal safety, Baekhyun is doing a great job of destroying his face on his own.
“No, you’re just the most annoying.”
“That may be your opinion. Mrs. Jung from the front desk loves me. As well as all the other nurses. And half of your trainees.”
Kyungsoo snorts. “That’s because there’s only two of them. Don’t try to drag my kids into this. I know you’ve been exploiting Jongin’s little crush on you to force him to always call me whenever you show up.”
Baekhyun winks, guilty as hell and proud of it.
“Wait, don’t go,” he pleads, when Kyungsoo gets up to leave. “Since I put so much effort into having your attention all for me, why don’t you stay a while?”
“Having my attention? You mean throwing yourself on the ground at every given occasion, touching all kinds of dangerous animals and eating an incredible amount of Skiving Snackbox?”
Baekhyun has the decency to blush, at least.
“And the broken nail? Really, Baekhyun? A broken nail! And where would you even find a dragon?”
“Chanyeol,” he answers simply. Oh, trust the pyromaniac kid to find a job as a dragon trainer.
“Should’ve known that. Is Jongdae involved too?”
Baekhyun’s eyes are casted down. “He and Lu Han created the plan.”
“The plan,” mutters Kyungsoo slowly. “There was a plan. More than one of you thought this idea decent enough to give it a try. You’re all a bunch of morons.”
“You weren’t talking to me and I was miserable,” he says. As if it’s an excuse. He sighs. “I should’ve known you were too smart to fall for it. But I swear, the injuries were true.” Which, sadly, makes it even more dangerous and stupid. Kyungsoo sighs again.
“I’ll give you a true injury if you ever dare to hurt yourself again just to see me, Byun Baekhyun.”
Light fills Baekhyun’s eyes, flickering slowly. His voice is barely a whisper.
“Does that mean I’m forgiven?”
“Go to bed, Baekhyun, it’s really late.”
Baekhyun bites his lips. There’s something else on his tongue, a feeling or a wish, Kyungsoo doesn’t know. Baekhyun grabs his sleeve, pulls, softly, but it’s not his hand, carded in Kyungsoo’s Mediwizard robe, that drags his down. It’s his eyes, glowing in the dark like deep, dangerous waters at night. Kyungsoo wants to drown in them and before he knows it his nose brushes against Baekhyun’s and his breath is stolen by moist lips.
It lasts less than a heartbeat, Kyungsoo doesn’t even have the time to pull Baekhyun’s lips between his teeth, or drag his tongue on the seam of Baekhyun’s mouth. They both freeze and Baekhyun’s head jerks towards the roof.
“What was that?”
“Nothing Baekhyun, this is a hospital. There’s always someone doing something, at every hour. Now please go to bed, I’m not in the mood to force-feed you other Sleeping P-” He pauses and listens to what sound almost like sharp crashing sounds, but dulled, half-choked, coming from the staircase that leads to the other wards. “What the hell was that?”
Baekhyun throws him an annoyed look that screams I told you.
“Wait here for a moment, Baekhyun. I swear to god, if it’s the Mrs. Bath throwing a tantrum again…”
He doesn’t make in time to finish the room because the sound of an explosion tears the air, together with the Soundproof charm they had put on the upper floors. Kyungsoo doesn’t realize what is happening until he sees Jaehwan flying down the stairs and collapsing on the floor with a soft moan like an empty sack. He ducks instinctively when he hears Jinri shouting, just in time to dodge a heavy hex flying over his head. The spell passes through him with a hiss, hitting the Head Healer, old Augustus Pye.
The Cursed man, he thinks, as he takes cover behind one of the beds of the Emergency Room. He’s trying to escape, he’s trying to…
He sees the Curse flying towards him too late. It’s not green and that means it’s not an Avada Kedavra at least, a good news for Kyungsoo because there’s no way he can dodge it now. He is strangely calm, though. He’s in a hospital, at least he’ll receive immediate treatment.
He closes his eyes, but waiting for the wave of magic to hit him. The blow never comes.
He only hears Baekhyun’s gasp as he’s hit in Kyungsoo’s place and then he finds himself with an armful of unconscious Seeker.
~
Kyungsoo keeps his cool, even when his instinct is yelling at him to scream, panic, Baekhyun is cold, Baekhyun is not moving, Baekhyun is pale, Baekhyunohmygodpleasedontdie. He checks the Seeker’s heartbeat, his breathing rate, ignoring the loud crashes, the shouts and the hexes around him.
Only when he’s sure that Baekhyun is alive and in no immediate danger he draws his wand and turns towards the staircase. Judging by the scattered bodies in a red jacket lying on the floor, Aurors are not doing a good job in keeping their prisoner under control. From what he hears, the Nurses are now fighting against the Deatheater.
Kyungsoo was never good at Defence against Dark Arts, but he can’t leave the girls alone. He takes a deep breath, throws a last, lingering look to Baekhyun’s prone form. He’s alright, he is. Let’s eliminate threat and then you’ll be able to visit him properly.
The automatic door opens with a magic blink, and Minseok enters in the desert, devastated reception hall carrying a cup of takeaway Starbucks Coffee. He dodges a red light that comes bouncing on the walls from the First Floor, takes a look at the empty post of the Welcome Witch (today Soojung should’ve been there, but she’s upstairs screaming Spells against the Deatheater), then finally spots Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun.
“Is he alright?” he asks, calmly.
“He’s alive and breathing on his own.”
“I guess Healer Lee on the stairs is not dozing off because he’s tired.”
Kyungsoo steals a glance at Jaehwan’s prone form.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” replies Kyungsoo as politely as he can in the middle what is starting to resemble more a war field than a hospital.
“Very well,” nods Minseok. “Now, Healer Do, can you please tell me what the hell happened to this hospital during my five minutes of break?”
~
Kyungsoo takes a Stunning Spell to the head and is not awake to see the end of that big mess.
He learns everything from Hyunsik a few hours later, when Minseok wakes him up, together with Jaehwan, with a bulky Rennervate to help him with the patients. They’re more or less traumatized, but there are a few of them who’ve been hit by a runaway spell.
Many of the Aurors who were escorting the prisoner are on Intensive Care, but they’ll all survive. The hospital staff is mostly unharmed.
The Nurses of the First Floor, Song Qian, Soojung, Amber and Jinri, will probably receive the Order of Merlin. They managed to keep the Deatheater inside the hospital when all the Aurors went down.
The hospital is flooded with journalists, half of them are reporters hungry for the news, while the other half are paparazzi who’ve caught the scent of a scandal and want to know if it’s true that Byun Baekhyun of Ballycastle Bats has been involved in a mortal duel against Voldemort and he’s now dead. Minseok seals the door personally to keep them out, for Hyunsik’s joy. He’s the only journalist left in the whole hospital and Kyungsoo has the faint presentiment that his friend will be getting a promotion after all this mess wears down.
Even the Minister of Magic tries to visit, but before he can protest and make a political statement about safety in hospitals, Aurors duties and the rising threat of Deatheaters, he starts arguing with his predecessor, who wasn’t even hurt in the fight but is in a foul mood and ready to cut some heads and throw some slippers. Jongin and Sehun are just happy to not be the direct target of his anger this time.
As for Minseok, he’s the only experienced Healer awake when the Deatheater is finally taken down, mostly because he is the one who takes him down, in the end. “The best Bat-Bogey Hex I’ve seen in my life,” are Hyunsik’s words. With the way he’s dealing with emergency inside the hospital and ordering the whole staff around, Kyungsoo can already start to imagine who the next Head Healer of the hospital will be when old Augustus Pye retires next March.
The only problem left it how much Kyungsoo will have to hurt Baekhyun to make him pay for the fright he gave him.
~
“You never wrote to me!”
“Not my fault if they use crows in Japan instead of owls, and for your information those things bite if you don’t compliment them in Japanese!”
“Excuses! One after another! You can rot on that bed until you tell me the truth!”
“Don’t you dare leave me here! Where’s the bell? How do I call a nurse? Where is it? Kyungsoo! Don’t you d-”
Kyungsoo slams the door on Baekhyun’s irate cries. Now that Baekhyun has been moved from his ER room into a proper room in the Spell Damage ward, he’s officially not one of Kyungsoo’s patients anymore. Now Jaehwan is taking care of him, and even though Kyungsoo still hasn’t forgiven the other healer for not keeping his pretty mouth shut with Hyunsik, he also has to admit that his colleague has his strong points. He is, for example, just a bit sadistic, especially with whiny, annoying patients like Baekhyun. The Quidditch player has been bed-ridden for a couple of weeks, at least until the effects of the bad Curse that hit him fades off, after his third attempt to sneak out of the room because he was feeling bored and wanted to talk with Kyungsoo. To no one’s surprise, Baekhyun hasn’t taken his forced hospitalization well, becoming even grumpier than usual. On the opposite, Kyungsoo is finally free to do his job and visit Baekhyun afterwards.
“If only you didn’t spend all your time arguing,” sighs Hyunsik. He’s standing outside Baekhyun’s room with a flower bouquet, dandelions, carnation and white lilies, in his not-injured hand. The other arm is casted and useless. It’ll take a few more days to heal, especially because he refused to drink Skele-Gro to make it better. Half-bloods and their strange Muggle tradition, thinks Kyungsoo shaking his head pitifully.
Then he realizes what Hyunsik has said. “You’ll be glad to know that we don’t actually spend all of our time arguing. Sometimes Merlin spares me and he’s already sleeping when I come to visit him. Are those flowers for him?”
“Of course!” Hyunsik has all the reasons of the world to look this dashingly happy. “I even got a promotion thank to him!”
He waves the newest copy of the Daily Prophet, on the first page a very proud and smug Baekhyun smiles under a fat headline. How the West Ward was won. The footnote promises a full interview with the hero who saved St. Mungo’s hospital taking down a Dark wizard all alone at page 3.
Kyungsoo furrows his brow. “He did not defeat him. He was grounded by a Curse and almost died!” he shouts.
“Minseok didn’t want to be featured and you’ll soon find out that heroic Quidditch players saving the day sells quite well.”
“You should stop encouraging his suicide strike.”
Baekhyun’s voice echoes from the room. “Talks the healer who threw a baby Mandrake at a Deatheater just because I was hit by a flying hex.”
Kyungsoo curses and soundproofs the room. “Why is he so annoying? I used to think that Jaehwan had a good idea in bed-ridding him, but now that he can’t wander around bothering me while I’m doing my job, he puts all his spare energy in his bad mood.”
“Well then,” says a familiar, pissed off voice coming from the room of the former Minister, “maybe then you should engage him in another kind of activity to express that energy.”
They both turn to see Sehun leaving the room of the former Minister of Magic and sending a bad, bad gesture towards the closed door. “Stop being so insolent, Oh. I swear to Merlin, if you weren’t assigned to him already, I’d assign you to that old whiny wizard for other three or four weeks.”
“Well, then I’m lucky he’s leaving tomorrow. Now, if you excuse me, I have nurses to corrupt and nice old lady patients to charm.”
Hyunsik watches him leave with a chuckle. Kyungsoo roars when he realizes that his best friend is laughing at him. “Your workplace is interesting… I should’ve come here sooner.”
“Just bring your flowers to him and shut up, Hyunsik.”
~
Lately, that night, Kyungsoo visits Baekhyun and sits on his bed.
“I hope you brought me Chocolate Frogs, to make up for your rather dramatic exit this afternoon.”
“I hope you can shut up and enjoy your sweets before Jaehwan comes here and punishes the both of us in a very creative way for ignoring his directives.”
Baekhyun sighs as Kyungsoo quickly unwraps the frog.
“I don’t get why you aren’t the one treating me. That Jaehwan is a brute, I can’t believe he tied me to the bed.”
Kyungsoo stuffs the chocolate into his mouth to shut him up. “You have distracted me from your job long enough the past month, now I can finally get something done. And trust me, I’m not even sorry for Jaehwan, dealing with your unbearable attitude is the least he deserve for being even more unbearable than you.”
Baekhyun bites his hand in retaliation and Kyungsoo has to jerk away from him. He comes back, though, when Baekhyun uses the puppy eyes on him.
“What card did I get?” asks Baekhyun, excited like a kid.
“Oh, you got… yourself. Why are you in the Chocofrog cards anyway? I thought only important wizards of our time deserved to have a personal card.”
“Do you think I’m not important enough?”
“Quidditch players don’t deserve this honor. I’m tearing your card, Baekhyun.”
The Seeker looks mortally wounded. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re right, sign it so I can sell it on the black market and gain ten easy Galleons.”
“How do you know the value of my original sign on the black market?”
“Sehun and Jongin, the damn kids.”
In the last few days of convalescence, Baekhyun has developed a strange friendship with the two trainees, though Kyungsoo suspects that the three of them badmouth him most of the times, and Jaehwan doesn’t join the little group only because he’s too superior to hang out with peasants anyway.
Kyungsoo is not surprised that it took so little time for him to make himself at ease with Kyungsoo’s new friends and colleagues. Baekhyun is a very charming boy. Too charming, even, too used to always obtain what he wants. But this is Kyungsoo’s workplace, Kyungsoo’s career, Kyungsoo’s friends. It took a long time and a great dose of courage for him to admit that he wanted Baekhyun back in his life, but he’s not ready to let him wreak havoc in something he’s fought so much to build.
“If we want this to work,” he says, in a low voice, “we must set up some rules. Like, no more hurting yourself to attract my attention, no more jumping in front of curses because you’re feeling heroic and mostly no more coming to the hospital! It may be funny for you, but it’s very distracting for me.”
“Am I that distracting, Healer Do? We can play doctor and nurse if you want…”
Kyungsoo runs a hand through his messy hair and sighs. The thought is very exciting, more than he can admit to Baekhyun, actually… “Let’s skip the roleplay thing for the bedroom, okay? Try to behave in real life.”
“And what do I get if I behave?”
And really, he would like to be stern and firm, but Baekhyun’s smile is so radiant it could lit up the entire city, so he just leans down and kisses him.
~
“See? Everything went according to the plan!”
“Everything, Lu Han?”
“I must admit, I wasn’t expecting the Deatheater.”
“That’s it, I’m going back to work.”
“Minseokkie, don’t I deserve some cuddles for my efforts?”
“You don’t deserve anything.”
“Oh, you complain so much now, but I bet you’re secretly relieved that Kyungsoo stopped moping at least.”
“Now he stares at thin air like a love-sick fool and sighs dreamily all the time. Yes, I’m so, so relieved, you can’t even imag- Lu Han, what are you doing? Lu Han! Han-”
“I’m graciously giving you a reward. After all, nothing would’ve worked out without your kind collaboration.”
“Kind cooperation? Oh, you tricked me into helping,” shoots back Minseok, trying to wiggle out of Lu Han’s firm hold, with little results, “you dirty cheater!”
“Well, you weren’t exactly complaining,” replies Lu Han with a devilish smile and his even more devilish hands cupping his head and pulling him upwards. Minseok rumbles, mopes and finally gives up and kisses him for the joy of all the eavesdropping nurses.
A/N
-reference for this fic were found mostly at HarryPotterWikia.com
-the chess moves used in Kyungsoo and Hyunsik’s games come from a real chess game played in 2013 by Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen
-the title comes from an old western movie and a Led Zeppelin album
cupofteas►title: how the west ward was won
►pairing: baekhyun/kyungsoo hinted!minseok/luhan
rating: pg-13
►word count: 11.8k
►warnings: copious amounts of dumbness and cameos from other groups, brief mention of high school frottage, Dark Curses
►summary: Baekhyun finds many creative ways to end up on a hospital bed in the West Ward of St. Mungo’s Hospital, where Mediwizard Do Kyungsoo is always extremely pleased to see him and more than willing to treat all his wounds.
►author's notes: writing fluffy BaekSoo was a dire challenge for me and I wish I had more time to develop this beautiful prompt better. Thanks to my beta reader and all the beautiful girls who held my hand through this adventure!
“Ok, listen, I have this plan.”
“Don’t wanna hear it.”
“But you didn’t even let me start…”
“I don’t care Lu Han. I’ve known you for more than ten years, you suck at plans. I don’t want to take part in whatever mess you’re going to create…”
“Look, do you remember Baekhyun? My Seeker? He kinda has a crush on-”
“Lalalalalalalalalala, I can’t hear you.”
“-in the hospital. Are you listening to me?”
“I don’t care about it, Lu- Wait. Did you say hospital? No. No, I forbid you. You’re not bringing your shenanigans to my workplace. That’s final.”
“But…”
“NO.”
“I can be very… persuasive when I want, and you know it.”
“Please, no.”
It begins with screaming, a lot of unnecessary, high pitched screaming, and confusion, and Healer Kim Minseok, Kyungsoo’s direct superior, gesturing for him to come over because a famous Quidditch player fell off his broom during the first game of the league and they’re bringing him to the West Ward, and maybe a thousand of crazy fangirls are hogging the reception hoping to catch a glimpse of their star and the Welcome Witch is going crazy.
Kyungsoo is tired, cranky and in need of a good dose of caffeine. He’s helping the other healers with the oncoming dragon pox epidemic, when Minseok, his supervisor, calls him, fidgeting a little. That’s suspicious because Minseok never fidgets.
“Kyungsoo, listen, we have an injured Quidditch player down in the ER, can you please take care of him?”
Kyungsoo doesn’t really like Quidditch players. In his mind, they’re all a bunch of fools who like to risk their lives chasing flying balls on a broom. Dumb. Also, it doesn’t help that his former boyfriend was a Quidditch player who dumped him because he wanted to go professional and he needed to leave for Japan for a few years and couldn’t stand the pressure of long distance commitments.
It’s not common knowledge but Minseok knows it, Kyungsoo confessed it during the party that welcomed him in Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, but fortunately Minseok was the only one sober enough to remember it. He knows it and he’s still interrupting Kyungsoo’s duties to send him downstairs. Kyungsoo scrunches his nose.
“I know you would prefer to stay here and help with the dragon pox, and I really need all the help I can get here, but you should at least visit him. I can’t do it and all the other healers are busy.”
Kyungsoo is the youngest Mediwizard in the whole hospital, and one of the most talented, at least according to his diploma, but he’s still the rookie and he can’t ignore Minseok’s orders. “Can’t he wait? The ward is packed with kids that need to be visited.”
Minseok sighs. “It’s probably not even that urgent, but do you hear this commotion?” He refers to the screaming downstairs. “Looks like his whole fanclub decided to camp in the West Ward. They’re disturbing the nurses and the other patients and we can’t make them go away because we’re too busy here. I’m not asking you to give him a complete checkup, just- What now?”
He turns towards Nurse Liu, who’s bringing with her a little girl with blonde pigtails and a greenish face who’s starting to turn emerald.
“Healer Kim, this one is going through the Third Phase of the infection.”
“Bring her inside, I’ll see her immediately,” orders Minseok. “Listen, Healer Do, Quidditch players are drama queens and it’s probably only a scratch, so if you think that there’s nothing to worry about you can simply ask Sehun to babysit him. Now go and come back as soon as possible, we need you here.”
He simply nods and hurries towards the Ground Floor.
The situation he founds there is unbelievable. The main hall is crowded with people dressed in the colors of the Ballycastle Bats, one of the most popular teams of the season. Kyungsoo has to fight his way through hysteric girls in need of a Calming Potion and even more hysteric nurses. Nurse Jung Soojung looks ready to Stupefy all their unexpected guests. Kyungsoo wouldn’t move a finger to stop her.
Finally, he sets foot inside the emergency room. When he sees the patient, his heart misses a beat.
Kyungsoo’s brain takes a moment to catch up and connect the dots. Ballycastle Bats, famous player, fanclub. Oh, no. What a doomed, awful coincidence to have his ex-boyfriend from Hogwarts, the same person who dumped him for a regular spot in the Toyohashi Tengu here on St. Mungo’s West Ward, splattered on the hospital bed. Looks like five years weren’t enough to prepare him for this moment.
Baekhyun, Byun Baekhyun. I’m not ready.
Then the Quidditch player turns towards the door and his eyes get caught in Kyungsoo’s figure, standing uncertainly at the door, agape, a little breathless, wrapped up in his green lime healer vest.
Baekhyun hasn’t changed that much. The curve of his jaw, the messy fringe getting into his eyes, the elegant hands are the same as five years before, when Kyungsoo saw him for the last time.
He looks too small for all the crowd outside the door and yet too big and bright for the white, aseptic room.
Kyungsoo knows he’s the ace of his team, the young celebrity Seeker who brought the Ballycastle Bats to victory in the previous season, and probably also the Seeker of the national team for next year’s world cup, if he keeps showing such astonishing performances. And no, Kyungsoo didn’t stalk him the last five years, he just happens to be a very acculturated person who reads the Daily Prophet every morning and Baekhyun happens to appear on the first page quite often.
The Mediwizard’s mouth is dry. It’s really Baekhyun, and his jersey is open on his collarbones, and he’s pale and disheveled and Kyungsoo’s heart stutters and protests because it’s too sudden. He was supposed to get in and do his job just fine, an easy morning shift, but, and Kyungsoo knows it better than anyone else, nothing is ever easy when Baekhyun is involved.
Baekhyun is not alone. His coach, Lu Han, is with him, and Kyungsoo focuses on him, hoping to escape the inquiry in Baekhyun’s hazy eyes. He remembers Lu Han, he was a few year older than Kyungsoo in Hogwarts and quite popular. They never talked, being in different Houses and different years, but Kyungsoo faintly recalls him leading the Gryffindor team during his seventh year and raising the Quidditch cup on a cloudy day of summer after an overwhelming victory in the last game against Ravenclaw.
Maybe he should tell Jongin to give a call to Healer Kim. Weren’t they on the same year, back then at Hogwarts? Then he remembers that Minseok had been the captain of the same Ravenclaw team that Lu Han had crushed to win the cup of his last year, and wisely decides not to bother the other healer. Besides, they’re in the middle of an epidemic of dragon pox since last week and every experienced Mediwizard is crowding the Second Floor’s ward. Kim Minseok has his hands full of green babies and anxious moms, he surely doesn’t have time to spare for his old field rival.
“Please take care of our Baekhyunnie,” says Lu Han with a slight bow. There’s a hint of mockery in his voice, like he’s questioning Kyungsoo’s ability to do his job due to his young age. A lot of people tend to do it, and Kyungsoo finds it quite annoying.
He licks his lips, forcing himself to look professional. It’s difficult, when he doesn’t know where to start. His eyes grace the sharp angle of Baekhyun’s collarbones. He has to undress him, before he can visit him. Duh, awkward.
It’s not that he doesn’t trust himself, to be honest the level of Kyungsoo’s self-esteem is just fine, maybe even a little bit higher than it should be, but no amount of skills and personal talent can prepare him to stick his hands inside Baekhyun’s shirt. What he needs is courage and a bit of spine, but right now Kyungsoo feels like every bone in his body has mollified, leaving him a nervous mess.
“Can you please tell me the details of the accident?” he asks, politely, circling around Baekhyun like a hunting hawk.
He hears, more than seeing, Lu Han’s low chuckle at his uncertainty and it’s what ultimately pushes him to move. He gently helps Baekhyun to remove the training uniform, eyes trailing to bruised skin uncovered by the sliding of the fabric.
“It was a bad fall,” updates him Lu Han. "The referee managed to slow him down with a spell, but he was almost on the ground already and the landing was… quite painful I think.”
“Lu Han is exaggerating, as usual.”
Kyungsoo’s hands slip on Baekhyun’s chest when he hears his voice. It’s a little hoarse, a little rough, unpolished. So unmistakably Baekhyun.
“Are you hurting somewhere, Mr. Byun?”
Baekhyun seems to fall apart a little under his stare. A shadow of disappointment surfaces on his eyes, takes a gulp of air and immediately disappears, leaving the dark pupils calm and unreadable again. He shakes his head, bites his lips. Maybe pouts a little, but by the time he does that, Kyungsoo is already looking at his medical record.
“No.”
He’s lying. The Mediwizard presses on his sternum, feeling a morbid sense of payback when his patient chokes on his breath.
“Please tell me the truth from now on, Mr. Byun. Your career could be compromised if you lie about your condition to the Mediwizard who’s visiting you.” While he talks, Kyungsoo steals a sideways glance at Lu Han, who’s rumored to have left the field because of a neglected muscle tear.
“You cracked a rib and sprained your ankle, but that’s all. Nothing that a cup of Skele-Gro can’t solve,” he says, gesturing to Nurse Choi to bring a bottle of the healing potion.
Baekhyun grimaces, not particularly thrilled at the idea of Skele-Gro. Being an athlete there’s no way this is the first time he tastes it. Even Lu Han laughs at his player’s dejected face, and Kyungsoo almost slips a smile in the middle.
Jinri comes back with the potion just as Lu Han excuses himself. “I have to send an owl to the rest of the team, to tell them you’re alright,” he says. He leaves the room with a luminous smile.
Baekhyun scrunches his nose and moans in disgust, looking at his smoking cup of potion. The last time Kyungsoo saw him making that face was five years ago. Their last day in Hogwarts, during their graduation party, when Jongdae tried to turn Baekhyun’s Butterbeer in Firewhisky. Kyungsoo had laughed and teased Baekhyun together with Chanyeol, while Baekhyun chased Jongdae around the table for revenge.
Sometimes, Kyungsoo misses Chanyeol and Jongdae. They were good friends, back then, but they were more Baekhyun’s friends than Kyungsoo’s, and the Mediwizard didn’t keep in touch with them after the fight.
Kyungsoo checks if the cup is really empty like it should be, and in the meanwhile he wonders if Baekhyun still talks to them, here and then. If their friendship was strong enough to survive the distance, a whole continent between their best friend and them for two years. He also wonders if his and Baekhyun’s relationship would’ve survived, if only they hadn’t decided to end things before Baekhyun left for Japan.
With Lu Han gone, they fall into an uncomfortable silence, only broken by the loud chatter of Baekhyun’s excited fans that are camping out in the entrance hall.
Kyungsoo is almost tempted to ask Baekhyun something, like if he sometimes misses Hogwarts, what are his friends from Hogwarts doing or whether he’s really going to play for the national team. It’s not like he cares about the national Quidditch team, but the silence makes him nervous. He isn’t used to it. Baekhyun was never quiet, back then.
However, Baekhyun doesn’t look like he wants to talk, maybe he’s still too busy trying to deal with the uneasiness of the last drops of Skele-Gro on his tongue, or maybe he’s just browsing through the countless memories in his mind, far away fragments of a time when there was an us between him and Kyungsoo.
They wait, drowning in their own thoughts, at least until Lu Han comes back and drags Baekhyun away, after a flourished bow and a dashing, handsome smile.
“Well, it wasn’t so bad,” it’s what Kyungsoo tries to tell himself as the two figures disappear behind the door, followed by his last recommendations, rest, drink a lot of water, stop falling from brooms please, the last one thought, but never said.
“Are they gone?” asks Minseok a few minutes later, as he hurries towards the storage rooms to take other Sleeping Potion.
“Yes, it was nothing serious, just like you said, easy and fast. No need for hospitalization.” Minseok nods quietly with a knowing air. “Ah, and Lu Han sends his regards and hopes that the next time you’ll be free enough to come and say at least hi to him,” Kyungsoo dutifully recites, just like Lu Han has asked him to. “Is everything all right, Healer Kim?” he asks then, seeing Minseok’s face reach a lively shade of purple.
“No, don’t worry… Just wondering how much can a person’s obnoxiousness increase… because I swear, his keeps getting worse.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t really understand, but maybe that old dislike from boarding school hasn’t faded out yet and Minseok has unresolved business with Lu Han. It would be difficult to tell, since Healer Kim is very secretive about his private life and Kyungsoo respects his wish for privacy.
Not my business, he thinks, as he goes back to bully the new trainee healers, Kim and Oh, folding away his feelings for Baekhyun and putting them to sleep exactly where they belong: in the chest of Hogwarts memories and silly regrets, things that should’ve been long forgotten but that sometimes come back to haunt him in the form of his former boyfriend suddenly appearing at his workplace and tearing apart Kyungsoo’s peaceful life.
“Was that Byun Baekhyun? I mean, the real deal? Byun Baekhyun? Seeker of the Ballycastle Bats? And Lu Han, THE Lu Han was there too???”
Kyungsoo scoffs and chooses to ignore Jongin’s high pitched voice and the little stars crowding in awe and slight pain at the thought of his two celebrity crushes being there right when he was taking care of a girl who poisoned herself with a beauty potion gone crazy. Ignoring Sehun is a bit more difficult.
“And you let him go like that? Where is his sign? Do you know its value on the black market?”
Shaking down the pathetic whines of his two trainees, Kyungsoo gestures to a young boy with a purple nose to come in for the preparatory visit. His pretty face is starting to turn teal. Dragon pox. Another one. He sighs.
"Close the door please..."
"Jimin. Park Jimin."
"Close the door, Park Jimin."
The door falls shut on the loud cacophony of screams that only a fleet of adoring groupies finally leaving the hospital and furious nurses forced to clean up the mess can make.
The second time Minseok sends him down in the West Ward, Kyungsoo thinks it’s a fluke. It must be a fluke, right? Either that, or Baekhyun is quite clumsy to actually be a Quidditch star player.
The diagnosis is a swollen black eye and two missing teeth, whose lack gives Baekhyun an irreparable childish air that makes even the reception nurse, stern, young Jung Soojung who has a knack for terrorizing the rest of the hospital staff, swoon.
“A Bludther,” it’s Baekhyun’s muffled answer to Kyungsoo’s silent question. “Rigth in my fathe.”
“That I can see. Look at me, please.” It sounded more intimate that he would’ve liked, but he bites his lips and continues to inspect Baekhyun’s face. It’s easy to hide behind the mask of a healer and his lime green face mask, avoiding Baekhyun’s eyes. There are too many things Kyungsoo wishes to hide inside his heart again, but Baekhyun’s presence unsettles him, turns his secrets upside down until they’re fluttering in his eyes, in Baekhyun’s plain sight.
The emergency room echoes with the whispers of the other patients waiting to be treated, but there are no screaming teenagers this time.
“It didn’t happen during a game, did it?”
Baekhyun shakes his head, squinting in pain. “I wath thraining.”
That explains why people don’t know about Baekhyun’s visit to the hospital. Kyungsoo must be quick, before the news spreads like wildfire.
“Ah, I see,” he says, in the most conversational tone he can muster, “can you turn? Just a little?”
He graces Baekhyun’s chin with his fingers, a feather-like touch to angle his head upwards, exposed to Kyungsoo’s stare. He pretends he doesn’t see the way Baekhyun turns a little pink under his scrutiny. Baekhyun pretends not to notice the slight waver of Kyungsoo’s touch.
“It looks worse than it is,” he announces finally. “The teeth will grow back with the right potion. As for the swelling…” he murmurs just a few words, a simple healing charm, and the black bruise around Baekhyun’s eye disappears.
Baekhyun nods in gratefulness, not trusting his mouth with actual words until his teeth are all back.
“Try not to come here again for a long while, Mr. Byun, I get it that your job is dangerous, but you should be more careful from now on.”
Baekhyun’s eyes are sharp and quick. He really doesn’t like to be called by his last name, apparently, but Kyungsoo won’t risk calling him by his first. He hasn’t actually said Baekhyun’s name in years. Only in his head, he dares to taste those two syllables, over and over again. They echo in his brain, now and then, but lately, since Baekhyun showed up totally unexpected and bruised on the hospital’s doorstep, it seems like his name is a spirit let loose in Kyungsoo’s thoughts, a constant presence in his subconscious. It’s unsettling, how little does it take to destroy a few years of self-restraint.
“Well, I should go. Sehun will bring a potion for you. You have to take and wait until your teeth grow back.”
“Waith-”
He leaves the room in a hurry, leaving Baekhyun behind.
The third time is a bad fever that leaves Baekhyun red-faced and breathless on the tiny hospital bed, smiling in the burn of delirium. Kyungsoo stays by his side all night, holding his hands and listening to him talk about nothing and everything. Baekhyun blabbers about Hogwarts and the fear of not turning in his Potions homework in time, and Kyungsoo’s smile, and how much he hates the Batter of the Appleby Arrows who always tries to strike him harder than he should just because Baekhyun dumped him after their third date. He mixes up the present and the past, swears at his brother who’s going to marry next month and asked him to be best man and smiles at Kyungsoo with lucid eyes.
Kyungsoo silently slips out of the room when Baekhyun’s fever breaks, around three am. He leaves everything to Jongin and jumps inside the Floo network, collapsing in his bed at home. Baekhyun is alone when he wakes up the following morning.
After the fever, Baekhyun comes back with an indigestion, a missing toe that takes three days to regrow much to Kyungsoo’s annoyance, a sprained ankle and a rash on his neck that spreads into his chest and then towards his hips in less than six minutes. It makes Kyungsoo really skittish because he has to open Baekhyun’s jersey all the way down to his hips and take down his underwear to see where the redness ends. Baekhyun smiles shyly but somehow smugly through it all.
What angers Kyungsoo the most it that, one way or another, it’s always him who has to rush downwards and into the ER to assist Baekhyun.
“It’s because he always asks for you,” explains Soojung during their coffee break, after Sehun pours down all his frustration at her. “when they take him in. Apparently, he doesn’t trust anyone else.”
“Maybe he has a crush for our Kyungsoo,” squeals Jinri.
Kyungsoo chokes. Sehun chooses that moment to flop down on one of the couches of the tearoom, where the youngest healers and nurses usually spend their break since they don’t have an office of their own.
“Maybe, but Kyungsoo never talks to him.”
“It’s Healer Do for you, brat,” protests Sehun.
“Not during the break, Soo,” laughs Soojung, reaching up to pat Sehun’s head and ruffle his hair. The boy bows down graciously to let her do it. It’s a bit unfair, how they all spoil Sehun. Kid has all the nurses wrapped around his pinky finger with a smile and a set of puppy eyes. Same can be said about his partner-in-crime Kim Jongin. They’re the bane of Kyungsoo’s existence.
“Well, I guess it’s difficult to make conversation with someone who’s half dead all the time,” comments Soojung.
“Maybe our Healer Do is just shy,” says Jinri. “But I would’ve never pegged you for someone who got nervous in front of famous people, Kyungsoo. Didn’t you put one of Celestina’s Warbeck Banshees in a neck lock just a few weeks ago, because she didn’t want to take her anti-rabies shot?”
“She deserved it!” protests Kyungsoo vehemently. “I don’t care if she’s a singer or the next Minister of Magic Transports, since she was stupid enough to raise a Lethifold as a pet and get bitten by it, it was my moral duty to inoculate her the damn Potion.”
“Yes, through a wrestling move. Maybe he was too shy to ask her to stay still during the shot,” snickers Sehun.
“Mediwizard in training Oh, since you’re so lively today, you wouldn’t mind giving our patients Cursed by the Permanent Full-Body Bind a sponge bath, right? For the rest of the week. Nurse Park was complaining that it’s so difficult to do it alone.”
Sehun’s mouth falls. “But- But I....”
“Better go quickly, Sehun, before I decide to assign you to Jongin’s patient.”
Sehun scampers away as quickly as he can. Jongin’s assigned patient, the former Minister of Magic, is a nightmare for trainees and interns. His already awful personality got even worse after the bite of a Dugbog, which is also the reason why he’s hospitalized. His hobby is throwing his slippers at the poor trainee assigned to him. This week is Jongin, and the old wizard is doing his best to make the poor lad’s life miserable.
“So cruel, Do Kyungsoo. You don’t have an ounce of shyness in your body,” laughs Soojung, before she comes back to her duties at the reception desk.
Kyungsoo snorts in the most non-committal way he can manage and goes back to his espresso, hot and black, no sugar in it.
Hyunsik has been Kyungsoo’s best friend for more than ten years now. It was a strange bond the one that brought them together, forged between the light scratching of quilts on parchment and the savage shouts of Kyungsoo’s queen as she destroyed one of Hyunsik’s innocent pawns.
Now that they’re not in Hogwarts anymore, the soundtrack of their small chats has turned into the cracking of flames in the fireplace and the sound of Hyunsik’s castle as it crushes Kyungsoo’s bishop.
“I hate you,” mutters the Mediwizard, watching sadly as his poor red bishop is taken hostage on Hyunsik’s side of the chessboard, “when did you became this good at chess?”
Hyunsik laughs and pours them another glass of elf-made wine. “So, you were telling me about Baekhyun?”
Kyungsoo nods and stares at the board, trying to assemble his thoughts. It’s not often that he and Hyunsik can find the time to meet for a friendly rematch at Wizard Chess, between his shift at St. Mungo’s and Hyunsik’s work at the Daily Prophet’s.
Hyunsik was the only one between Kyungsoo’s friends who knew about him and Baekhyun. He was also the one who had to collect the pieces when Baekhyun took the Portkey for Tokyo two weeks after graduation and Kyungsoo was left alone and furious.
“There’s not really much to say. He’s always at the hospital, for one reason or another. Bishop in C6.”
“And you haven’t spoken to him? Knight in C6.”
“I haven’t… tried. I wouldn’t know what to say. I can’t just go to him and treat him like a friend all of a sudden. He avoided me until now, after all. If he wanted us to be friends, he could’ve done something before. Queen in C6.”
“Well, it’s not like you made yourself available. You put fire spells around your house to keep owls away. Castle in C8.”
“He didn’t write, I’m sure of it.” He ignores Hyunsik’s exasperated roll of eyes. “Besides, who says he wants to talk with me now? Maybe he just wants to be treated like a normal patient. He hasn’t tried to talk to me either. Pawn in H6.”
“Yes, he did. You just ran away, don’t try to deny it. Bishop in E3.”
“Who the hell told you that? No, wait, don’t say it. It was Jaehwan, right?”
If it’s true, Jaehwan is a dead healer. Dead. Just like Hyunsik’s King when Kyungsoo is done with him. His best friend hides a chuckle and Kyungsoo curses softly.
“I have my secret sources, obviously.”
It is difficult to resist Hyunsik’s smile and the healer finds himself smiling back. Hyunsik had a theory, back in Hogwarts. He was convinced that Kyungsoo purposefully chose to befriend smiley people because he himself was a grumpy bear. Baekhyun had laughed so much the first time he heard him talking about it.
Now, after almost ten years, Kyungsoo is grateful for Hyunsik’s smile because sometimes it’s the only thing that can get him to open up. Some days he has so much pent-up stress that he can barely breathe and one glass of wine is not enough to relax his nerves enough to fall asleep. Some days Kyungsoo loses control and drinks a bit too much and he ends up Floo calling Hyunsik in tears, sobbing that he can’t do this and that he doesn’t know what to do. It happened when Baekhyun left him, when his favorite owl Lucifer ate his research thesis, when Taekwoon dumped him for a pretty Obliviator called Hakyeon and also a week before graduating from the Healing school. Hyunsik knows how to pick up the pieces when Kyungsoo collapses.
“Look, I don’t want to intrude in your business, but you’re a bit… How can I say? When it comes to Baekhyun you’re a little unforgiving, Kyungsoo.”
He doesn’t answer immediately. They keep playing in silence, eating each other’s pieces one after another, until only a Hyunsik’s king and Kyungsoo’s king and knight remain on the chessboard. Only then, Kyungsoo speaks.
“He was the one who left,” he replies, in the end.
“But now he’s back, am I wrong?”
“He’s not back because he wants to talk with me. He’s back because he’s hurt and I work in a hospital!” sighs Kyungsoo.
“Sure, he went into the hospital because he hurt himself. Eleven times in a month. Do you really believe it? Oh, by the way, checkmate.”
Work is boring the following day, so boring that Kyungsoo starts to think about Hyunsik’s words. The previous night, he threw his friend in the fireplace, pouring Floo powder all over him and sending him home because he could say another word and go on with his ridiculous assumptions.
Of course Hyunsik is wrong. Baekhyun put the word end on their story a lot of time ago, there’s no way he’s going back now.
Thinking of Baekhyun makes him restless and antsy. He usually only indulges in this kind of thoughts when he’s a little tipsy and the alcohol dulls the buzzing in his brain, helping him unravel lost, knotted feelings from the messy bundle of his memories.
He still remembers the fight so well, when he puts a bit of effort, it was about Baekhyun leaving for Japan to pursue a career in professional Quidditch and Kyungsoo deciding to stay in London to study to become a Mediwizard, it was about them being too stubborn and too in love and too young and wanting to stay together even if their hearts were telling them it was time to go their separate ways, that things would’ve worked out, somehow, but they only seemed to be getting worse and worse, just like their fight, until…
“Healer Do?”
His reverie is interrupted by Sunyoung’s voice.
“Yes, Nurse Park how can I help you?”
“Your favorite patient is waiting in the ER.”
Baekhyun? Again? “But he just came in yesterday. Didn’t the potion work?”
“I think it’s something different this time.”
“My turn is over, you can ask Healer Jaehwan to take care of him.” Yes, pile more work on Jaehwan. That would teach him not to tell on Kyungsoo to Hyunsik, the traitor.
Hurried steps interrupt their conversation. It’s Jongin, sporting a darkening bruise in the shape of a slipper on his forehead. “I don’t think he wants Lee Jaehwan, Healer Do. I think he wants only you. He asked, specifically, for your help.”
“Jongin, please tell me you didn’t skip on your duty with the rabid former minister to sneak out in Mr. Byun’s room.”
The boy’s eyes shine as he shows Kyungsoo a Baekhyun card. “I’m sorry, that’s exactly what I did, but look! Personally signed! And he told me that the next time he’ll bring Mr. Lu around and he’ll sign me his Chocolate Frog card too…”
“Thrilling.”
“Anyway, Baekhyun accepted to sign my card only after I promised to call you personally.”
Amber smirks at him, “Oh, so bold. I like this Mr. Byun already. Go to him, Kyungsoo, he’s waiting.”
But my turn is over, is what Kyungsoo wants to say. Minseok’s voice coming from his office beats him to it.
“Healer Do! Stop whining and treat Mr. Byun’s wound, whatever is it this time.”
He sighs, pitifully. There’s no meaning in wasting his anger on Nurse Liu and Jongin and Healer Kim. Maybe it’s time to convey his feelings directly to Baekhyun.
“Put a cool patch on your forehead, Kim Jongin,” he shouts as he leaves the room, “and remember that no wizard has the right to throw a potted plant, a water glass or a slipper at your pretty face just because they’re in a sour mood. But if you leave your duties again to fanboy over your celebrity crush, I’ll have you thrown out of the hospital faster than you can say Byun Baekhyun.”
He also takes a mental note to scold the former Minister during his next shift because Kyungsoo is very territorial, and he’s the only one who can bully his own assistants.
Kyungsoo doesn’t ask where his favorite patient is, since Baekhyun has been in the ER so often in the last few weeks that he already has his own bed in the West Ward.
He wastes no time in slamming the door open and storming inside.
“What now?” he says, trying to convey all his irritation in those two short words.
Baekhyun simply raises his hand, where blood is flooding from his fingertip. “Broken nail,” he answers, “while trying to catch the Snippet.”
Kyungsoo gauges the damage for just a second before deciding that the scratch is not even worthy of his working time, much less his free time.
“Sehun!” he shouts, waiting until the tall boy arrives trotting down from the Spell Damages Ward. “Oh Sehun, what are you going here? Why aren’t you sponge-bathing the old Miranda Bath? I thought you were on duty for the rest of the week…” Sehun’s eyes fill with terror and he starts babbling something. “No, wait, don’t answer, never mind…” He doesn’t have time to listen to Sehun’s pathetic apologies about why he’s skipping on the job Kyungsoo has given him. He probably made puppy eyes at Nurse Song until she left him go. “Just… keep care of him, please. He has a split nail, a light Healing Charm will go.”
“Hey, where are you going?” whines Baekhyun, “I thought you were going to treat my wound.”
“That’s hardly a wound, Baekhy-” he almost slips, “-Mr. Byun, and I have better things to do than to hold your hand while you wait for it to stop hurting enough to go back to your flat.”
“I hope your assistant is good, the coach says that for a Seeker the fingertips are very important, do you hear me Do Kyungsoo? Kyungsoo? You'll have my death on your conscience! Kyungsoo!”
He can hear Sehun’s mouth falling open at the blatant display of familiarity, but he can’t focus on his assistant right now.
Kyungsoo. Look at this Kyungsoo. Wait a moment, Kyungsoo. Close your eyes, Kyungsoo. I’m gonna kiss you, Kyungsoo.
There was a time when Kyungsoo’s name was the most important word that ever came out from Baekhyun’s lips, sometimes uttered with reverence, attention and love, sometimes whined with the fine company of one of Baekhyun’s trademark pouts, the ones that make the world turn upside down, Baekhyun’s most lethal weapon.
Kyungsoo had developed a certain kind of… resistance, against Baekhyun’s magical seduction powers, ones that don’t include a wand but simply his bright, expressive eyes and his lovely mouth. But maybe the five years spent away from Baekhyun nullified his efforts, because he finds himself oddly defenseless against Baekhyun’s childish call for attention.
If he’s not careful enough he’ll fall in a web of consolidated gestures, habits made his own after years of awkward attempts at sharing your life with another person. Now, for example, would be the best moment to ruffle Baekhyun’s hair and pinch his cheek and then leave him there, because it’s only his fault that he injured himself and he can’t, he really can’t, for Merlin’s sake, go around bothering other people and demanding only the help of certain healers like a spoiled kid.
That’s what Kyungsoo would do if he still were Baekhyun’s boyfriend. Or he could treat his wound without showing any kind of emotional reaction, because that is what a professional Mediwizard would do. Unfortunately, Kyungsoo is neither of the two. He’s not Baekhyun’s boyfriend, he hasn’t been for years, but he doesn’t possess the ability to treat him as a normal patient either.
Baekhyun looks at him, sweet and tempting, almost begging, and Kyungsoo wants nothing more than to card nervous fingers in his eyes and pull his face upwards to kiss him.
He groans, feeling desire dance in his stomach like ember sparks. Then, he flees.
He turns on his heels and runs like he has a flock of dragons at his back, ignoring Baekhyun’s calls for attention, Sehun’s confused babbling and Healer Lee Jaehwan baffled look as he stumbles over his colleague, coupled with that strange thing he does with his eyebrows when he finds one of your weaknesses that he’ll later either tell Hyunsik or personally exploit against you at the most uncomfortable times.
Kyungsoo ends up in an empty corridor near of the East Ward, right in front of the empty magic fountain that is supposed to be gushing pumpkin juice, but the spell has been stuck for weeks now, so no one ever goes there anymore. There, the Mediwizard regains his breath.
What was that, Do Kyungsoo? Did you just leave a patient all by himself in the ER? With the only assistance of Oh Sehun? Are you crazy?
He slaps his cheeks, two times. It’s a good thing that no one ever comes this way because he doesn’t want to be seen with two bright red hand-shapes on his cheeks.
After a while, he starts breathing normally again as he considers that, well, he didn’t do such a bad thing after all. His turn was already over and it’s not like he has time to spare for the little celebrity of the ER. He does his best to ignore the gnawing voice whispering in his heart that he would’ve stayed for another patient, but the way Baekhyun cried out his name, like he used to do in the past, the irreverent, childish curve of his mouth…
He slaps himself one third time, just to make sure that his traitorous mind doesn’t start digging through the vein of thoughts.
The following day, during the precautionary vaccination that the Ministry ordered against the oncoming dragon pox epidemic, Sehun turns towards Kyungsoo. He’s smirking a little, the kid, he’s only nineteen and he’s already plenty taller than Kyungsoo. Maybe he should be filed together with Jaehwan in Kyungsoo’s list of people who need to be kicked in the ass. “Hey, Healer Do, you really broke that poor Quidditch player’s heart today. He was really looking forward to have you treating his wounds.”
“Really?” he asks, sarcasm dripping into his voice. “Thank you, Sehun, now I am really enlightened. I didn’t get it when he sent poor Jongin through all the whole hospital looking for me.”
“Well, why didn’t you stay then? He looked really sad afterwards. He moped.”
Kyungsoo can feel a vein twitching over his eyebrow. He doesn’t like where this conversation is going.
“He thinks you hate him,” confesses Sehun.
“Wait a moment… Did you talk to him?”
Sehun sends him a look of pity and incredulity. And when even Oh Sehun is looking at you like you’re a lost case there definitely is a problem.
“Everyone talked to him, Kyungsoo. He comes almost every day hoping to see you and you don’t even spare five minutes of your time for him. It’s unsettling and I don’t know who’s more pathetic, the Quidditch star with the ridiculous crush on the Mediwizard or the Mediwizard who’s thick enough not to realize it.”
Kyungsoo stares with wide eyes. Sehun pales. “Oh, crap. I shouldn’t have said that.”
He tries to make a hasty retreat, but Kyungsoo grabs his arm to stop him. “Is he really coming to see me?”
Sehun sighs, defeated.
“Well, at least you’re not completely dense. If things keep going this way maybe that poor lad will be able to ask you out on a date before the next Christmas.”
It’s not like Kyungsoo doesn’t think about it, because he does. Sehun’s words haunt him at night, at the end of exhausting shifts at the hospital, when he falls on the bed with his green lime vest still on and fails to fall asleep because he’s thinking about Baekhyun’s soft lips, bruised and softly open, Baekhyun’s nervous hands covered in band-aids, Baekhyun swallowing potion after potion and cleaning his mouth with the sleeve of the hospital gown.
It would be easier, to stop thinking about him, if only Baekhyun didn’t come every two days, with a Butterbeer intoxication, a Batter elbow that he shouldn’t even have since he’s not a Batter, a dragon bite, some other kind of disease, injury, wound or infection that makes Kyungsoo want to scroll him, many times, and tie him to the hospital bed so he can stop hurting himself and wasting everyone’s precious time.
“Where would he even find a dragon?” mutters Kyungsoo, hands on his hair, a haunted expression on his face.
“He must be pretty desperate,” answers Hyunsik, matter-of-factly, letting Kyungsoo feed him a toast. Only his head emerges from the flames that crowd Kyungsoo’s fireplace. It’s strange, because Hyunsik hates Floo calls, he always prefers to visit Kyungsoo directly instead of hanging between two different places.
“Desperate, yes, likewise.” He snorts. “I see him every day, he could’ve talked to me countless times already.”
“Yes, and since when Baekhyun has been good at apologies?”
Kyungsoo makes a sour face and Hyunsik jeers in victory.
“Exactly, never! He doesn’t know what to do and you keep walking away from him. Don’t think Jaehwan is not telling me…”
“So it really was Jaehwan… I’m going to kick his ass tomorrow, I swear.”
“No, you won’t. Talk with Baekhyun. Kyungsoo. Just do it, for Merlin’s sake. Don’t you think five years have been long enough for the two of you to be angry at each other? The worst it can happen is that you stay friends, and it would be better than being nothing at all, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t,” he answers, and the coldness in his voice surprises him as much as Hyunsik. “Sorry Hyunsik, I didn’t mean… It’s complicated.”
He remembers Baekhyun and his tousled curls and his pointy canines smiling at him during Charms at the beginning of fourth year. Just a smile, it was all Kyungsoo needed, and something exploded like the warmth of summer after a tepid spring. Their summer lasted three years, but after the fight, after graduation, after Baekhyun walking out of his life with his mouth set in a tight line and dry eyes, there was nothing. Not a Floo call, not an owl, not a word spoken in five years. But there was also nothing before, because they started going out almost immediately and they didn’t have time to be friends. He doesn’t know, he realizes with an eerily sense of doom, how to be Baekhyun’s friend, because they’ve never been friends.
It was different with Taekwoon, because they were friends before and they managed to recover their friendship afterwards, or part of it, but he doesn’t know how to do it with Baekhyun.
It’s not that he can’t imagine how it could be. It would be a bit like before, but without the kisses, without the secret words whispered in Kyungsoo’s ear and meant for him, and him only, without the secret curl of Baekhyun’s lips. A pale imitation.
Kyungsoo shakes his head at Hyunsik. “I’m sorry, but I’d choose nothing at all rather than friendship with him.”
“Does that mean you don’t want him to be anything for you, not even a friend, or does it mean that friendship is not enough and you want something more?”
He looks back at Hyunsik in horror, feeling strangely cheated. Hyunsik smirks at him – he’s smirking a lot lately – and chuckles under his breath. “From your terrified face I take it’s the second. Congratulations Kyungsoo, for reaching the final awareness that you still love Baekhyun. It was a pain seeing you in denial for all these years.”
He chokes and reaches down to take the butter and jam toast out of Hyunsik’s mouth. “It’s neither of the two for your information, and no more food for you, you… you’re evil! When did you become evil?”
“Somewhere around the moment your boyfriend dumped you and you became dumb, I guess. It was self-defense against your growing stupidity. Now give me back the toast, please. I need to be in force, I’m leaving in a few minutes…”
Kyungsoo is more than happy to run away from the dreaded topic of his absolutely ridiculous feelings for Baekhyun that he does not have. Not anymore at least. He’s over Byun Baekhyun, absolutely over.
He helps Hyunsik take another bite of the toast. “Where are you going, by the way? It’s the middle of the night.”
Hyunsik only sends him a glare to let him know that he totally knows he’s trying to change the topic of the conversation, but he answers anyway. “I’ve received a tip-off about an Auror roundup in the secret hideout of dark wizards. Tonight.”
Dark wizards? He didn’t know Hyunsik was that kind of journalist. He looked more like someone who would write of Herbology and History of Magic, not a true reporter working on the field.
“Please be careful. Dark wizards are dangerous people.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going alone. Do you remember Lee Changsub? He was in my House!” Kyungsoo vaguely pictures a goofy kid with sleepy eyes and a boisterous laugh, Hufflepuff, a year older than Hyunsik. “He’s an Auror and he said he’ll take an eye on me so I don’t get into trouble.”
“That’s… comforting,” whispers Kyungsoo. “I hope everything goes well.”
“I hope so too, I’m gonna get a promotion if this scoop goes well, can you believe it? I really want to settle down with Ilhoonie someday…” A dreamy smile lights up Hyunsik’s face and Kyungsoo can’t help but smile back. Hyunsik squints at him in a pathetic attempt at a wink. “Well, gotta go, say hi to Jaehwan from me, and TALK TO BAEKHYUN!”
“Good luck!”
Kyungsoo talks to Baekhyun. Well, he tries.
"I'm starting to think that there's something wrong with you."
“Clearly, otherwise I wouldn’t be in this bed cursing the day I rode a broom for the first time.”
“No, I mean, there must be something wrong with your head. Only a stupid would keep hurting himself in such a persistent way. Do you not care for your own wellbeing? You’re turning wounding your body into an art…”
Baekhyun doesn't answer, he whines pitifully in the back of his throat as Kyungsoo carefully checks his forehead. "You're lucky it's only a scratch, stupid." He adds the last words under his breath. Baekhyun's eyes are lucid with unshed tears, but Kyungsoo knows that it’s more from his penchant for drama than from real pain.
Lu Han waits at the side of the bed. The coach of the B-Bats looks nervously between the Mediwizard and his best player. "Will he be alright?"
"Forehead cuts are always bloody, I'm more worried about a concussion. Do you mind if I keep him here for tonight?"
He doesn't miss the quick glance that passes between Baekhyun and Lu Han. They agree too easily. The possibility that all of this is carefully planned and Baekhyun is really injuring himself on purpose becomes a bit more real.
"Sehun will be in charge of you for tonight," he assures to his whining patient. "We don't really have a ward for Quidditch injuries, so I'll have you moved into the First Floor, creatures induced damages and such."
Baekhyun pouts, and then winces in pain. A drop of blood falls from his forehead to his cheek. "Sehun is the kid from the other time? I don't want him, he's a pain in the ass. Too smug."
At least they still agree on something.
"Would you prefer me to leave you in the capable hands of one of your fanboys then? Jongin is a good healer, but you could die of blood loss before he stops staring at your face and realize it."
"Can't you stay? Why can't you spare a little time for me? Come on, Kyungsoo,” he prolongs the last syllable and Kyungsoo’s breath hitches, “to honor Hogwarts' old times."
He bats his eyelashes, but that's not what unsettles Kyungsoo. It's the way his name slips out of Baekhyun's lips, still a little bruised from another fall from the broom just three days earlier, slightly disclosed. There’s no hesitation or doubt in his voice, it’s like he's practiced Kyungsoo’s name forever.
"To honor Hogwarts' old times," he repeats, like a robot. His cheeks feel on fire.
Somewhere, hidden in Kyungsoo’s mind, resounds a vicious laugh and Kyungsoo can’t help but think that it’s the sound of karma. Maybe this is what he deserves for hiding his feelings in the deep crevices of his heart for so long. A vicious, violent comeback in the colors of crimson and gold, like Baekhyun's scarf back in high school, like the violent blush on Kyungsoo's cheeks and the reflex of sun shining through the glass of the window on Baekhyun's caramel hair. “To honor Hogwarts’ old times, you say? We did a lot of things back in Hogwarts.”
It’s Baekhyun’s turn to redden, caught in the cage of Kyungsoo’s eyes. It feels like they’re threading on a thin line. “I mean,” he stutters, Baekhyun almost never stutters, “it wouldn’t be the first time you hold my hand while I rest after an injury, right?”
A rush of memories flood Kyungsoo’s eyes, from that time Baekhyun got injured during Care of Magical Creatures and Kyungsoo spent the night in the infirmary holding his hand, and then when he was discarded it was already very late in the night, and instead of coming back to the dorms they wandered, risking detention, until they ended up sweaty and panting on the Aritmancy classroom with their pants huddled at their feet and their hands dirty.
Oh, but Baekhyun is playing dirty. Kyungsoo can do that, too.
“Can you stay still? I have to clean your wound and apply a Healing Potion.”
Baekhyun eyes him warily, a veil of red still bright in his cheeks. He took the first step, now he’s waiting for Kyungsoo to acknowledge him.
It’s not easy. Kyungsoo was never the most assertive one in their relationship. At first, it was all about Baekhyun, Baekhyun coming onto him, kissing him, Baekhyun calling the shots, Baekhyun teasing and crossing the lines until Kyungsoo was forced to put him back into his own place. Baekhyun insisting to snap Kyungsoo out of his shyness, Baekhyun making him explode and putting him back together. They had clear roles and maybe that’s why they fit, until they couldn’t fit anymore. But now, even if Baekhyun is back, Kyungsoo doesn’t know if he can go back to the way they were before.
“Will it hurt?” asks Baekhyun, looking so little and pale and young on the white hospital sheets. It makes Kyungsoo wants to tease him.
“A little,” he answers. “Do you want me to hold your hand then?”
Baekhyun splutters, clearly taken aback. He probably thought he had to fight harder to rebuild some sort of confidence between them, enough for Kyungsoo to willingly offer to hold his hand. Maybe break another bone or two.
“It’s a pity though,” continues Kyungsoo, as he checks Baekhyun’s forehead before he starts to apply the Healing Potion, “we don’t have an Aritmancy class here.”
Baekhyun splutters, his haw falling open as he stares at Kyungsoo in bewildered embarrassment, not daring to believe what he just heard. Kyungsoo chooses that exact moment to pour Antiseptic and healing Potion on the wound, enjoying Baekhyun’s pained scream at the scorching sensation.
To Kyungsoo’s surprise, Hyunsik arrives with a broken arm and in a Stupeficium-induced stupor a few hours later. He’s not alone. His friend, Changsub, is with him to help him stand on his own feet. Then there’s the squadron of Aurors, with the red jackets and the shining badges.
They’re carrying a man with magic handcuffs. His eyes mouth and nose are bleeding copiously.
“Nurse Liu,” Kyungsoo calls, immediately, “we have a patient suffering from severe blood loss due to… a Curse, I think. Call Healer Kim immediately! Take him to the Fourth Floor!”
The man has cold, malicious eyes that Kyungsoo tries to ignore. However, the mark inked into his skin, a skull and a snake, dark against the pale arm, is more difficult to ignore.
Kyungsoo stays a few minutes with Hyunsik to scold him and remind him to be more careful in the future – a scoop is not worth his health – but his mind can’t help but wander to the Deatheater. He hopes Aurors know what they’re doing. That wizard looked dangerous and desperate.
Maybe it’s that nervousness and the relative lack of anything to do that brings him back to the West Ward that night. He expects the Baekhyun to be sleeping, getting some rest like Kyungsoo had told him.
Baekhyun is not sleeping. He sits on the edge of the bed, still and quiet, as if he’s waiting. As if he knew Kyungsoo would come to him.
“You should sleep.”
His voice doesn’t even startle Baekhyun. Instead, he stretches, wincing as his muscles scream in protest after the long hours of inactivity.
“I’ve had enough of sleeping. Your tall slave with the blank face knocked me up for good this afternoon. He gave me three cups of… I don’t even know what, and I slept like a baby until a few hours ago.”
A Sleeping Potion. Kyungsoo should’ve thought about it first. Sehun is too smart for his own good.
“Did the Cursed man wake you up?” he asks, a little worried. They had to soundproof the whole Fourth Floor before he woke up the whole hospital.
Baekhyun weakly pushes himself up. “What Cursed man?”
“Ah,” Kyungsoo raises his hands and gives Baekhyun a cocky grin, “I’m sorry, Auror stuff. I’m bound to secrecy, professionalism and everything else.”
Baekhyun tries to give him the puppy eyes, but Kyungsoo has already said too much.
“You’ll probably read it in tomorrow’s newspaper if you sleep long enough to be awake by the time they bring it in for the special patients.”
“Am I a special patient?” he teases. Kyungsoo would really like to break his cheeky face if it wasn’t so damn handsome. That, and between flying Bludgers, idiotic teammates, dragons and his complete lack of interest in personal safety, Baekhyun is doing a great job of destroying his face on his own.
“No, you’re just the most annoying.”
“That may be your opinion. Mrs. Jung from the front desk loves me. As well as all the other nurses. And half of your trainees.”
Kyungsoo snorts. “That’s because there’s only two of them. Don’t try to drag my kids into this. I know you’ve been exploiting Jongin’s little crush on you to force him to always call me whenever you show up.”
Baekhyun winks, guilty as hell and proud of it.
“Wait, don’t go,” he pleads, when Kyungsoo gets up to leave. “Since I put so much effort into having your attention all for me, why don’t you stay a while?”
“Having my attention? You mean throwing yourself on the ground at every given occasion, touching all kinds of dangerous animals and eating an incredible amount of Skiving Snackbox?”
Baekhyun has the decency to blush, at least.
“And the broken nail? Really, Baekhyun? A broken nail! And where would you even find a dragon?”
“Chanyeol,” he answers simply. Oh, trust the pyromaniac kid to find a job as a dragon trainer.
“Should’ve known that. Is Jongdae involved too?”
Baekhyun’s eyes are casted down. “He and Lu Han created the plan.”
“The plan,” mutters Kyungsoo slowly. “There was a plan. More than one of you thought this idea decent enough to give it a try. You’re all a bunch of morons.”
“You weren’t talking to me and I was miserable,” he says. As if it’s an excuse. He sighs. “I should’ve known you were too smart to fall for it. But I swear, the injuries were true.” Which, sadly, makes it even more dangerous and stupid. Kyungsoo sighs again.
“I’ll give you a true injury if you ever dare to hurt yourself again just to see me, Byun Baekhyun.”
Light fills Baekhyun’s eyes, flickering slowly. His voice is barely a whisper.
“Does that mean I’m forgiven?”
“Go to bed, Baekhyun, it’s really late.”
Baekhyun bites his lips. There’s something else on his tongue, a feeling or a wish, Kyungsoo doesn’t know. Baekhyun grabs his sleeve, pulls, softly, but it’s not his hand, carded in Kyungsoo’s Mediwizard robe, that drags his down. It’s his eyes, glowing in the dark like deep, dangerous waters at night. Kyungsoo wants to drown in them and before he knows it his nose brushes against Baekhyun’s and his breath is stolen by moist lips.
It lasts less than a heartbeat, Kyungsoo doesn’t even have the time to pull Baekhyun’s lips between his teeth, or drag his tongue on the seam of Baekhyun’s mouth. They both freeze and Baekhyun’s head jerks towards the roof.
“What was that?”
“Nothing Baekhyun, this is a hospital. There’s always someone doing something, at every hour. Now please go to bed, I’m not in the mood to force-feed you other Sleeping P-” He pauses and listens to what sound almost like sharp crashing sounds, but dulled, half-choked, coming from the staircase that leads to the other wards. “What the hell was that?”
Baekhyun throws him an annoyed look that screams I told you.
“Wait here for a moment, Baekhyun. I swear to god, if it’s the Mrs. Bath throwing a tantrum again…”
He doesn’t make in time to finish the room because the sound of an explosion tears the air, together with the Soundproof charm they had put on the upper floors. Kyungsoo doesn’t realize what is happening until he sees Jaehwan flying down the stairs and collapsing on the floor with a soft moan like an empty sack. He ducks instinctively when he hears Jinri shouting, just in time to dodge a heavy hex flying over his head. The spell passes through him with a hiss, hitting the Head Healer, old Augustus Pye.
The Cursed man, he thinks, as he takes cover behind one of the beds of the Emergency Room. He’s trying to escape, he’s trying to…
He sees the Curse flying towards him too late. It’s not green and that means it’s not an Avada Kedavra at least, a good news for Kyungsoo because there’s no way he can dodge it now. He is strangely calm, though. He’s in a hospital, at least he’ll receive immediate treatment.
He closes his eyes, but waiting for the wave of magic to hit him. The blow never comes.
He only hears Baekhyun’s gasp as he’s hit in Kyungsoo’s place and then he finds himself with an armful of unconscious Seeker.
Kyungsoo keeps his cool, even when his instinct is yelling at him to scream, panic, Baekhyun is cold, Baekhyun is not moving, Baekhyun is pale, Baekhyunohmygodpleasedontdie. He checks the Seeker’s heartbeat, his breathing rate, ignoring the loud crashes, the shouts and the hexes around him.
Only when he’s sure that Baekhyun is alive and in no immediate danger he draws his wand and turns towards the staircase. Judging by the scattered bodies in a red jacket lying on the floor, Aurors are not doing a good job in keeping their prisoner under control. From what he hears, the Nurses are now fighting against the Deatheater.
Kyungsoo was never good at Defence against Dark Arts, but he can’t leave the girls alone. He takes a deep breath, throws a last, lingering look to Baekhyun’s prone form. He’s alright, he is. Let’s eliminate threat and then you’ll be able to visit him properly.
The automatic door opens with a magic blink, and Minseok enters in the desert, devastated reception hall carrying a cup of takeaway Starbucks Coffee. He dodges a red light that comes bouncing on the walls from the First Floor, takes a look at the empty post of the Welcome Witch (today Soojung should’ve been there, but she’s upstairs screaming Spells against the Deatheater), then finally spots Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun.
“Is he alright?” he asks, calmly.
“He’s alive and breathing on his own.”
“I guess Healer Lee on the stairs is not dozing off because he’s tired.”
Kyungsoo steals a glance at Jaehwan’s prone form.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” replies Kyungsoo as politely as he can in the middle what is starting to resemble more a war field than a hospital.
“Very well,” nods Minseok. “Now, Healer Do, can you please tell me what the hell happened to this hospital during my five minutes of break?”
Kyungsoo takes a Stunning Spell to the head and is not awake to see the end of that big mess.
He learns everything from Hyunsik a few hours later, when Minseok wakes him up, together with Jaehwan, with a bulky Rennervate to help him with the patients. They’re more or less traumatized, but there are a few of them who’ve been hit by a runaway spell.
Many of the Aurors who were escorting the prisoner are on Intensive Care, but they’ll all survive. The hospital staff is mostly unharmed.
The Nurses of the First Floor, Song Qian, Soojung, Amber and Jinri, will probably receive the Order of Merlin. They managed to keep the Deatheater inside the hospital when all the Aurors went down.
The hospital is flooded with journalists, half of them are reporters hungry for the news, while the other half are paparazzi who’ve caught the scent of a scandal and want to know if it’s true that Byun Baekhyun of Ballycastle Bats has been involved in a mortal duel against Voldemort and he’s now dead. Minseok seals the door personally to keep them out, for Hyunsik’s joy. He’s the only journalist left in the whole hospital and Kyungsoo has the faint presentiment that his friend will be getting a promotion after all this mess wears down.
Even the Minister of Magic tries to visit, but before he can protest and make a political statement about safety in hospitals, Aurors duties and the rising threat of Deatheaters, he starts arguing with his predecessor, who wasn’t even hurt in the fight but is in a foul mood and ready to cut some heads and throw some slippers. Jongin and Sehun are just happy to not be the direct target of his anger this time.
As for Minseok, he’s the only experienced Healer awake when the Deatheater is finally taken down, mostly because he is the one who takes him down, in the end. “The best Bat-Bogey Hex I’ve seen in my life,” are Hyunsik’s words. With the way he’s dealing with emergency inside the hospital and ordering the whole staff around, Kyungsoo can already start to imagine who the next Head Healer of the hospital will be when old Augustus Pye retires next March.
The only problem left it how much Kyungsoo will have to hurt Baekhyun to make him pay for the fright he gave him.
“You never wrote to me!”
“Not my fault if they use crows in Japan instead of owls, and for your information those things bite if you don’t compliment them in Japanese!”
“Excuses! One after another! You can rot on that bed until you tell me the truth!”
“Don’t you dare leave me here! Where’s the bell? How do I call a nurse? Where is it? Kyungsoo! Don’t you d-”
Kyungsoo slams the door on Baekhyun’s irate cries. Now that Baekhyun has been moved from his ER room into a proper room in the Spell Damage ward, he’s officially not one of Kyungsoo’s patients anymore. Now Jaehwan is taking care of him, and even though Kyungsoo still hasn’t forgiven the other healer for not keeping his pretty mouth shut with Hyunsik, he also has to admit that his colleague has his strong points. He is, for example, just a bit sadistic, especially with whiny, annoying patients like Baekhyun. The Quidditch player has been bed-ridden for a couple of weeks, at least until the effects of the bad Curse that hit him fades off, after his third attempt to sneak out of the room because he was feeling bored and wanted to talk with Kyungsoo. To no one’s surprise, Baekhyun hasn’t taken his forced hospitalization well, becoming even grumpier than usual. On the opposite, Kyungsoo is finally free to do his job and visit Baekhyun afterwards.
“If only you didn’t spend all your time arguing,” sighs Hyunsik. He’s standing outside Baekhyun’s room with a flower bouquet, dandelions, carnation and white lilies, in his not-injured hand. The other arm is casted and useless. It’ll take a few more days to heal, especially because he refused to drink Skele-Gro to make it better. Half-bloods and their strange Muggle tradition, thinks Kyungsoo shaking his head pitifully.
Then he realizes what Hyunsik has said. “You’ll be glad to know that we don’t actually spend all of our time arguing. Sometimes Merlin spares me and he’s already sleeping when I come to visit him. Are those flowers for him?”
“Of course!” Hyunsik has all the reasons of the world to look this dashingly happy. “I even got a promotion thank to him!”
He waves the newest copy of the Daily Prophet, on the first page a very proud and smug Baekhyun smiles under a fat headline. How the West Ward was won. The footnote promises a full interview with the hero who saved St. Mungo’s hospital taking down a Dark wizard all alone at page 3.
Kyungsoo furrows his brow. “He did not defeat him. He was grounded by a Curse and almost died!” he shouts.
“Minseok didn’t want to be featured and you’ll soon find out that heroic Quidditch players saving the day sells quite well.”
“You should stop encouraging his suicide strike.”
Baekhyun’s voice echoes from the room. “Talks the healer who threw a baby Mandrake at a Deatheater just because I was hit by a flying hex.”
Kyungsoo curses and soundproofs the room. “Why is he so annoying? I used to think that Jaehwan had a good idea in bed-ridding him, but now that he can’t wander around bothering me while I’m doing my job, he puts all his spare energy in his bad mood.”
“Well then,” says a familiar, pissed off voice coming from the room of the former Minister, “maybe then you should engage him in another kind of activity to express that energy.”
They both turn to see Sehun leaving the room of the former Minister of Magic and sending a bad, bad gesture towards the closed door. “Stop being so insolent, Oh. I swear to Merlin, if you weren’t assigned to him already, I’d assign you to that old whiny wizard for other three or four weeks.”
“Well, then I’m lucky he’s leaving tomorrow. Now, if you excuse me, I have nurses to corrupt and nice old lady patients to charm.”
Hyunsik watches him leave with a chuckle. Kyungsoo roars when he realizes that his best friend is laughing at him. “Your workplace is interesting… I should’ve come here sooner.”
“Just bring your flowers to him and shut up, Hyunsik.”
Lately, that night, Kyungsoo visits Baekhyun and sits on his bed.
“I hope you brought me Chocolate Frogs, to make up for your rather dramatic exit this afternoon.”
“I hope you can shut up and enjoy your sweets before Jaehwan comes here and punishes the both of us in a very creative way for ignoring his directives.”
Baekhyun sighs as Kyungsoo quickly unwraps the frog.
“I don’t get why you aren’t the one treating me. That Jaehwan is a brute, I can’t believe he tied me to the bed.”
Kyungsoo stuffs the chocolate into his mouth to shut him up. “You have distracted me from your job long enough the past month, now I can finally get something done. And trust me, I’m not even sorry for Jaehwan, dealing with your unbearable attitude is the least he deserve for being even more unbearable than you.”
Baekhyun bites his hand in retaliation and Kyungsoo has to jerk away from him. He comes back, though, when Baekhyun uses the puppy eyes on him.
“What card did I get?” asks Baekhyun, excited like a kid.
“Oh, you got… yourself. Why are you in the Chocofrog cards anyway? I thought only important wizards of our time deserved to have a personal card.”
“Do you think I’m not important enough?”
“Quidditch players don’t deserve this honor. I’m tearing your card, Baekhyun.”
The Seeker looks mortally wounded. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re right, sign it so I can sell it on the black market and gain ten easy Galleons.”
“How do you know the value of my original sign on the black market?”
“Sehun and Jongin, the damn kids.”
In the last few days of convalescence, Baekhyun has developed a strange friendship with the two trainees, though Kyungsoo suspects that the three of them badmouth him most of the times, and Jaehwan doesn’t join the little group only because he’s too superior to hang out with peasants anyway.
Kyungsoo is not surprised that it took so little time for him to make himself at ease with Kyungsoo’s new friends and colleagues. Baekhyun is a very charming boy. Too charming, even, too used to always obtain what he wants. But this is Kyungsoo’s workplace, Kyungsoo’s career, Kyungsoo’s friends. It took a long time and a great dose of courage for him to admit that he wanted Baekhyun back in his life, but he’s not ready to let him wreak havoc in something he’s fought so much to build.
“If we want this to work,” he says, in a low voice, “we must set up some rules. Like, no more hurting yourself to attract my attention, no more jumping in front of curses because you’re feeling heroic and mostly no more coming to the hospital! It may be funny for you, but it’s very distracting for me.”
“Am I that distracting, Healer Do? We can play doctor and nurse if you want…”
Kyungsoo runs a hand through his messy hair and sighs. The thought is very exciting, more than he can admit to Baekhyun, actually… “Let’s skip the roleplay thing for the bedroom, okay? Try to behave in real life.”
“And what do I get if I behave?”
And really, he would like to be stern and firm, but Baekhyun’s smile is so radiant it could lit up the entire city, so he just leans down and kisses him.
“See? Everything went according to the plan!”
“Everything, Lu Han?”
“I must admit, I wasn’t expecting the Deatheater.”
“That’s it, I’m going back to work.”
“Minseokkie, don’t I deserve some cuddles for my efforts?”
“You don’t deserve anything.”
“Oh, you complain so much now, but I bet you’re secretly relieved that Kyungsoo stopped moping at least.”
“Now he stares at thin air like a love-sick fool and sighs dreamily all the time. Yes, I’m so, so relieved, you can’t even imag- Lu Han, what are you doing? Lu Han! Han-”
“I’m graciously giving you a reward. After all, nothing would’ve worked out without your kind collaboration.”
“Kind cooperation? Oh, you tricked me into helping,” shoots back Minseok, trying to wiggle out of Lu Han’s firm hold, with little results, “you dirty cheater!”
“Well, you weren’t exactly complaining,” replies Lu Han with a devilish smile and his even more devilish hands cupping his head and pulling him upwards. Minseok rumbles, mopes and finally gives up and kisses him for the joy of all the eavesdropping nurses.
A/N
-reference for this fic were found mostly at HarryPotterWikia.com
-the chess moves used in Kyungsoo and Hyunsik’s games come from a real chess game played in 2013 by Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen
-the title comes from an old western movie and a Led Zeppelin album
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Date: 2015-05-10 04:12 am (UTC)Baekhyun you're so desperate lol but I don't blame you though, if I were you or was in your position, I would do the same, how could I not when we're talking about Do-fuckin-Kyungsoo!
So basically the whole hurt-yourself-to-reconcile-with-your-cute-ex was Luhan's plan? lol Were you plotting this just for Baekhyun or for yourself to get close to Minseok huh? A_A Seems like both.
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Date: 2016-06-06 03:40 pm (UTC)