exomeme | part two hundred and twenty one

part two hundred and twenty one

chiyu chiyu

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theme: supernatural
tw: character death (doppar is a ghost), dead bodies, blah blah

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It's a long time past quitting time when the dark clouds start rolling in, and Baekhyun's still on his knees in the stony dirt, his neck permanently cricked and sore from huddling over the square foot of freshly-turned earth.

The job had come up back in March: some late Joseon-dynasty artifacts had been surfacing during the routine demolition of an old college dormitory on the outskirts of Seoul. Work was halted so SNU could bring in some experts from the archaeology and anthropology department to do some more research, make sure that nothing was inadvertently destroyed. Baekhyun, a fourth year, couldn't believe his luck at the timing. Exactly the thing he needs before he heads into his first year of graduate work.

He'd taken this internship for the job experience. At the time, it seemed only logical. A chance to work with his mentor on a real, live dig. Get some hours under his belt and a recommendation letter in his file. And really, what else was there to do during the May to August stretch? The other option, which wasn't really an option at all, had been his usual standby ever since he turned fifteen: delivery boy. An entire summer playing fetch and reeking of fried chicken and gasoline just sounded really fucking lame in comparison.

Besides. Professor Lee was world-renowned for this sort of stuff. And they hadn't done a dig this close to the city limits in years. There could be some major finds buried under this condemned boarding school—and Baekhyun wants to be right there when it happens. He wants his name in all of the magazines when they inevitably discovered something huge. Something groundbreaking that will change the way they understand their own history.

But so, far the experience has been less than inspirational. He's completely flat broke and broken (his back was killing him from crouching over the dig all day). And for what? A few pieces of broken pottery. Food wrappers. A plethora of cigarette filters offered up from the earth, still stinking faintly of sweet tobacco.

Not to mention—he's not even working at the center of the dig. Baekhyun's a newbie, so he's been relegated to the outer edges of the field. Lee's teaching assistant, Minseok, has been working at the central plots. They seem to be having better luck up there. Minseok actually found an intact pot the other day and brought it to Lee between careful palms, looking too afraid to even breathe on it, lest it shatter in his hands. A good find. Certainly more exciting, more valuable, than whatever Baekhyun's been discovering.

Baekhyun steals a glance at his watch as the first roll of thunder grumbles ominously in the distance. It's really late, close to dinner time. He hasn't even stopped for lunch yet. He's dirty and tired and just wants to take a hot shower and sleep for a million years. But a waterlogged dig can set back the work they've done by weeks, and the summer's quickly running out.

Lunch will have to wait a little longer. The rain won't.

—

He pitches the tent in record time and makes it over to the lone freshman on the team, Jongin, to help him wrangle his open before the heavens open up and reduce the site to a slick of muddy trails snaking between tents, white and voluminous like huge loaves of freshly-baked bread.

"What's the point," laments Jongin, morose, dropping his brush into the ten-centimeter hole punched into the earth below him. The rain is so loud overhead. "There's nothing here. I could be home right now."

"Only a little while longer," Baekhyun encourages, even though he's been thinking the same thing for the better part of three hours now. "We'll get dinner after you're done. Yeah?"

Jongin makes a quiet noise that sounds enough like an agreement for Baekhyun. He takes leave, returns back to his own tent and sits cross-legged, listening to the pounding of the rain and the shouts of his colleagues outside as they call to each other between tents. Nobody can see him now—and let's face it, Jongin's right. There's nothing here, Baekhyun reasons, pulling out his lunch box. It's long-since gone warm after sitting out in the sun all day but he eats it anyway, skewering it almost spitefully with one chopstick, shoveling food in his mouth while checking the news on his phone.

After he finishes, he checks his watch again. Still early enough. They're supposed to be done at five, but Lee has been pushing them until dark. Lee keeps insisting they should use the available daylight while they have it, stretching Baekhyun's summer into an endless string of sunburned days that begin at dawn and end long past dark. At least he's thoroughly, bone-tired when he gets home: he hasn't slept this well in his life.

Desperate to give his aching knees a break, he spreads out across the ground, stomach flush with the dirt, arms dangling into the plot. It's stuffy under the tent, the earth unbearably warm with the sunshine from earlier. The pattering slap of the fat raindrops overhead, slithering a path along the waxed canvas, lulls him to sleep.

He dreams of a boy sitting quietly across the plot, staring at him. When he wakes he is on his back staring up at the apex of the tent, an old sweatshirt draped over his shoulders to combat the cold breeze ruffling the tent flaps.

He is alone.

—

He almost mentions it to Jongin at dinner, but forgets when he inhales the first smoky, greasy whiff of galbi cooking on the grill. In fact, he doesn't think of the dream again until the following afternoon, when someone all the way over in quadrant 2 finds an intact set of phalanges belonging to the left hand of a human being, less than a meter below the surface of the topsoil. The whole camp erupts with excitement: the discovery of human remains means their efforts haven't been for naught.

There's more work to be done, immediately. The area's cordoned off, sectioned into an even smaller grid. Photographs are taken—followed by a meticulous extraction of dirt, sifted into pans—and then the process is repeated, brushing away the loose dirt with soft-bristled brushes to avoid causing any damage to what could be very fragile remains. By the end of the day, they've exposed an entire arm and what looks to be the jut of a pelvis. Probably male.

But the light's not on their side anymore. Professor Lee reluctantly calls the day to a close, but insists on someone staying behind to guard the find. "No telling what looters could do, if they knew something was here," Lee explains. "He may have been buried with something a thief may find valuable."

"I'll do it," Baekhyun volunteers immediately. Minseok eyes him dubiously.

"Are you sure? You're going to spend the whole night out here by yourself?"

Baekhyun sets his jaw to something resembling a stubborn expression and nods. If this is what it takes for Professor Lee to notice him, then so be it, even if he'd really rather be home in a warm bed.

But once he's alone in the tent, lit from within by a few work lights, he remembers the dream. How real it felt. The unexplained sweatshirt. Must've grabbed it from my bag while I was half-asleep, he reasons, pulling it around himself now to stay warm.

—

Baekhyun dozes again, curled under a crinkled, blue tarpaulin, and wakes with a start. His heart thuds crazily against his ribs, hands braced behind him to keep from toppling over. His ears are ringing loudly with the adrenaline.

He heard something.

No—he felt something.

Maybe both.

Something in the tent changes—everything's humming at a high frequency now, cold and ringing, the way the air feels thick with static just before a thunderstorm. And across the tent, crouched next to the hole—a young man, bowed over the skeleton and frowning.

Baekhyun wants to scream but feels it hitch in his throat and dissolve into nothing. Run, then, he thinks. His limbs pull sluggishly, legs still prickly with sleep beneath him. Everything feels surreal, like a particularly lucid dream.

"H-hello?" Baekhyun finally stammers out, knuckling at his eyes. The boy looks up at him, draws himself to his full height. Hakeyon studies him with narrowed eyes. Short and slim, with a delicate, young face. He's not grey, necessarily—not like the ghosts in cartoons, at least. Baekhyun can tell that eyes are dark, his hair a soft brown. He's just… faded transparent, a bluish sort of tinge at the edges, like the picture of a busted cathode ray television. Baekhyun makes the comparison, remembering the old set at his grandparents' house, the way the antenna used to sputter and distort the picture if Baekhyun didn't stand perfectly still, fingertip balanced at its end, as if he was the only person who could get the picture to come in clearly.

This is a terrible dream, Baekhyun thinks. Of course I'm getting spooked, being out here all alone like this. My mind's playing tricks on me. Or Minseok sent one of the other grad students to haze me.

"Hello?" he asks again. "Who—who are you?"

The boy blinks at him slowly.

"You're not supposed to be here on the site without authorization," Baekhyun asserts, feeling his spine stiffen to steel in his body. He draws himself up to his full height and hopes, wishes, prays that it's just the rain.

"Are you looting the place? I can tell you—there's nothing here. Just trash. Old trash. And all the valuable equipment is kept locked up. So just—get out of here, okay?" He picks up the trowel and raises it threateningly. He hopes the boy doesn't take him seriously because he's not much for physical altercations. "Go."

The figure disappears just as Baekhyun pitches the trowel across the tent. It lands with a metallic thunk where the boy's feet had been moments ago.

Baekhyun sinks to the ground and stares across the tent, hoping that his trembling is from the cold.

—

"Hey, hyung," he says to Minseok the next morning, "I'm not staying here late anymore. It's creepy as shit being here all by myself."

Minseok laughs into his coffee. "Are you scared? Wow, Baekhyun. I thought only kids believed in ghost stories."

"Look, fuck off," Baekhyun says tiredly, rubbing at his forehead with some annoyance. "You don't understand. It was just really creepy. I don't know if there are dogs or looters or what. I just felt really. I don't know."

Minseok watches him for a moment, his expression cloudy. Then, finally: "Fine. Don't worry about it. It probably isn't something a first-year should be dealing with, anyway."

Baekhyun knows he's just being factual—he even smiles kindly as he says it and pats Baekhyun on the shoulder as he walks past—but it still stings. He's perfectly capable of everything Minseok's doing. There's no reason why he should be excluded from this job just because he's got an overactive imagination.

He vows to get it together. There's no such thing as ghosts, he says, and goes back to his tent to get to work. He's got to find a way to impress Professor Lee somehow.

—

They unearth the rest of the body by noon.

The good news: the skeleton is intact.

The bad news: the skeleton is not Joseon dynasty. He's wearing a polyester windbreaker and a pair of Air Jordans. The remains can't be older than the early 1990's, maybe even sooner.

So it's a murder victim.

The research team is perplexed. What to do?—they're not equipped to handle a modern corpse. The coroner's notified. But it's a hot day, and there's been a stabbing in Itaewon, so they're told it's going to be a few hours at least. Long-dead bodies aren't a high priority.

Minseok enlists Baekhyun to help out, a silent offer of redemption for Baekhyun's cowardice from earlier that morning. Baekhyun's relieved to have something to do to help—in broad daylight, no less, so everybody wins. He sits guard obediently just inside the tent, long legs folded into the flimsy chair they give him. They've been instructed not to move the body until the coroner gets there.

Jongin's aghast but still keeps coming by to peek inside, like he can't believe there's a real live dead body on the site, even though that's really the whole point of his future career trajectory. There's something fascinating about a body that's only been dead twenty years instead of two hundred, though, and Baekhyun knows why Jongin's so curious. He'd been hoping to get a closer look at the skeleton himself. Privately, he's also curious about how a recent body came to be buried here. The site of a former college dormitory—so, a student, then? But why wasn't he reported missing? Why wasn't he found earlier?

"Who do you think it could be?" Jongin asks when he sneaks by for a visit, looking over Baekhyun's shoulder at the sheet covering the shallow grave. "A mob hit, maybe?"

Baekhyun snorts. "Don't be dramatic."

"Hyung—"

"Go do your job. Minseok's watching you," Baekhyun says, gesturing two tents over to where Minseok's head is poking out of a flap, squinting in their direction. Baekhyun retreats back inside the tent to avoid further conversations. He has one job at the moment, and he doesn't want to mess it up.

So he sits back on the ground. The tarp from last night stretches from one side of the grave to the other, like a massive duvet. Still, he can make out the shape underneath—the rise of bone, ribcage and skull pulled from the earth.

"Who are you?" he asks aloud, voice soft.

Do Kyungsoo.

Growing up, Baekhyun was acutely aware that it wasn't necessarily appropriate or mature to react to a fright by collapsing into the fetal position and screaming. He didn't react this way for the theatrics of it… it was just the unfortunate way his body chose to handle a shock, adrenaline thrumming electric through his veins as he dropped into a crouch and hugged his knees, waiting for the threat to pass.

It's the boy. From last night. He's back, standing in front of Baekhyun. Still bluish, still flickering.

It wasn't a dream. Baekhyun can hear the shouts of the research team outside—Jongin's booming voice calling low for Professor Lee to come see—the gritty whir of gravel under tires. That's probably the coroner's van, finally arriving.

Baekhyun's used to being laughed at. His parents, his classmates. He never expected to be laughed at by—what the hell was he, anyway? A ghost? Kyungsoo, or whatever the hell he calls himself, seems momentarily tickled by the way Baekhyun folded like a house of cards. He doubles over, hands pressed against his mouth, eyes crinkled into tight crescents of laughter.

It's a decidedly obnoxious way to laugh, Baekhyun thinks. He gets to his feet, sheepish. "What happened to you? Were you murdered? Why—why are you here?" Baekhyun asks. He's not sure if he means on the property—or in the grave in front of him—or just here, haunting him. Maybe all three, a little bit.

I don't know. Kyungsoo says, and it's like his voice is coming from somewhere else, deep inside of Baekhyun, like he's projecting his answers right into Baekhyun's mind. It's a truly weird feeling. I was hoping you could tell me.

—

"Who do you think it could be?" Baekhyun asks as they're slowly lifting the skeleton out of the makeshift grave. He can't stop looking at the bones, trying to reconcile the fact that he knows what this boy looked like, talked like with the fact that this boy has been dead almost as long as Baekhyun has been alive.

Minseok lifts a shoulder to his ear. "Not really for us to say. The police will take care of him."

"No, but—he's got to have a family, hyung. Somebody who misses him."

Minseok turns and studies Baekhyun's face for a long beat. "You think a kid goes missing and his family just… stops looking for him? Baekhyun. They're probably the ones who put him here."

"But he's so—" Baekhyun stops himself before he blurts it out.

"He's so what?" Amusement skitters across Minseok's face. "Have you been sitting out here with your ouija board, Baekhyunnie?"

—

Kyungsoo's waiting for him when he shows up the next morning. Baekhyun feels a thrill of excitement race up the back of his neck. He'd been hoping that Kyungsoo would still be there, even though the coroners had taken the physical manifestation of him away the day before. Do Kyungsoo's skeleton is in the morgue somewhere, but Do Kyungsoo's spirit is sitting cross-legged across from Baekhyun, watching him work.

Baekhyun'd been up all night on the internet reading about ghosts. Mostly crackpots talking about malicious hauntings, but he lands on a forum about unexplained

"So I've got a theory," he says, the minute the tent zips closed behind him. Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow. "Where else do you go? Who else do you talk to?"

There is no one else. Just you.

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part two hundred and twenty one

team zyx - baeksoo ghost au - 2866w

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