Baekhyun takes a sip of his coffee as he walks into room 203, yelling out an excited, "Good morning, Mr. Kim!", before setting his laptop and satchel down at a desk in the corner of the tiny room. "Is there anything I could help out with today?" he asks, placing his hands on his thighs and leaning forward expectantly. Kim Joonmyeon, the attendance staff, smiles as he greets Baekhyun. "Good morning! Could you please sort those files?," he says, pointing to a stack of manila folders perched precariously on his desk's edge, "They're the teachers' attendance folders. Pull out the papers and put them in alphabetical order. Check the door slot while you're at it. Some of them might have dropped theirs in this morning." 

Baekhyun nods, and gets up from his padded office chair, strolling over to the front door and peering into the plastic bin placed under the slot. He looks through the various papers and pulls out a few folders. He returns to his seat and puts them in alphabetical order: Do Kyungsoo, Huang Zitao, Kim Jongdae... He chuckles as he spots the numerous es draw on the folder, all seemingly simultaneously ing, and sketches another phallic object on the beige surface of the folder. He puts it away and continues filing. When he finishes putting them in order, he starts pulling out the pages, neatly stacking them atop each other. He finishes just as the bell rings for fourth period, picks up his possessions, and waves a goodbye to Joonmyeon. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Kim!" 

"Alright, have a nice day, Mr. Byun!"

The next day, Joonmyeon tells Baekhyun that since he seems to be such an organized person, he'll be assigned to order the teachers' attendance folders everyday, along with some odd jobs, when he finishes early. 

******

It's a Monday morning when Baekhyun finds the first note. He did the same routine: strolling into 203 with his coffee, putting his stuff down, picking up stray folders, ordering said folders, and pulling papers out. But when he pulls out the papers of the 46th folder, he finds a post-it note stuck to the attendance sheets. Good morning! looks back at him in a messy, shaky, scrawl of a handwriting. 

Baekhyun smiles as he pulls the yellow square off of the first sheet. He turns the folder around; it reads "Park Chanyeol, Chemistry Department". "Park Chanyeol," he murmurs to himself, the corners of his lips pulling up into a warm smile. He pulls out a sheet of loose leaf paper and scribbles a quick, "Thanks! Good morning to you, too!" before stuffing it back into the manila folder and continuing with his filing. 

******

The next week, Baekhyun finds more post-its, from a different school staff.

Yah, Baek, I heard you work for the attendance office???? Don’t you have a class to teach???? And stop drawing on my folder! I had the perfect number before and your additions only make it more crowded!!!!

Baekhyun chuckles as he quickly writes down a response to Jongdae. 

it. And yeah, I’m volunteering at the attendance office, but only during my free period. You should try it - it’s a nice break from Pre-Calculus. 

He sticks the yellow square inside the designated folder, before pulling it out again and drawing another ing onto the note. Baekhyun snickers quietly to himself. But not as quietly as he thought, because Joonmyeon is eyeing him from the other side of the room. “Is everything okay, Mr. Byun?” he asks. 

Baekhyun merely shakes his head, and chuckles, “I’m fine, Mr. Kim. And please, do drop the formalities; call me Baekhyun.” Joonmyeon smiles and nods, before turning back to his work. “Baekhyun, feel free to call me Joonmyeon.”

They work in silence afterwards, and the only sound heard in the room is the echoing of flipped pages and scribbling graphite. Baekhyun’s movements become repetitive, and he’s pretty much running on autopilot - until he reaches the 46th folder: Park Chanyeol, Chemistry Department. He takes a breath as he starts to pull the pink pages out of the folder. Last week’s notes were all repetitions of Good Morning! and Thank you for your work!, but today’s note is completely different. It’s flirtatious, and Baekhyun finds himself blushing as his eyes repeatedly run across those two words, scribbled onto a small, yellow square: You’re cute.

******

By his fourth week of working at the attendance office, Baekhyun has managed to befriend Joonmyeon. The two gossip about the teachers who always hand in their attendance folders late over boxes of snacks, and have promised to stay in contact outside of work, exchanging numbers. 

By the fourth week, Baekhyun has also acquired a decent stack of post-it messages. Most were from Jongdae, who would write entire soliloquies and monologues dedicated to either his morning class, the latest faculty gossip, or the cute English teacher across the hall, Kim Minseok. Lately, the amount of post-its Jongdae would send in with his attendance folders was insane. There would be more yellow papers than pink, and often times, the post-its would fall out of the folder in bunches, as Jongdae would frequently draw comics and staple them together. Joonmyeon was getting frustrated with the Pre-Calculus teacher, but Baekhyun found it hilarious. He’d carefully pull each and every post-it comic book out of his friend’s folder, reading through them as he filed the others. 

Included in Baekhyun’s stack, in addition, are a few of Park Chanyeol’s messages. Not all of them, as that would require another stack of its own, but his favorite ones. After that first teasing note, Chanyeol had begun sending Baekhyun numerous compliments on his hair, his hands, his collarbones, his . Of course, Baekhyun kept the one about his derriere - it made him feel much more confident in himself.

Your looks fantastic in those jeans you’re wearing today, but I think that every day regardless of what you wear.

Granted, all the notes Baekhyun received were a day old, as teachers drop in their folders at the end of the school day and Baekhyun picks them up the next morning, but they had an equally strong impact on him regardless. In fact, just thinking about Chanyeol’s note makes the red and pink quickly rise from Baekhyun’s chest, up his neck, and into his cheeks. He’d started wearing jeans a lot more frequently as of late.

He opens Chanyeol’s folder, excited to see what new message he would receive today, and is not disappointed when he finds another sticky yellow square with that same familiar scrawl. 

You look stunning with that new hair color.

Baekhyun had dyed his hair a light pink over the weekend, and, according to Mr. Park, he looked stunning. The pinkette felt a slight heat rise to his cheeks, as he swiveled his chair around to place the sticky note in his satchel. “That’s definitely going in the stack,” he murmurs to himself, smiling happily at the compliment he’d received. He was sure this Park Chanyeol saw him every morning, and had been nervous as to his reaction to his new hair color. Baekhyun is happy Chanyeol likes it. 

******

An alarm sounds, and Baekhyun is woken from his slumber. He groans and rolls over to check the time on the clock: 7:35 AM.

He groans once more, but not at his alarm this time. Baekhyun closes his eyes as he tries to concentrate. There’s a splitting headache, and it’s pounding right behind his eyes. “Great”, he thinks, as a pained whine escapes his mouth, “a headache is exactly what I needed.” 

Baekhyun rolls himself out of bed and immediately calls the attendance office to inform Joonmyeon that he will not be present today. Joonmyeon picks up on the first ring. 

“SM High Attendance Office, Kim Joonmyeon speaking. How may I help you?” Baekhyun sighs internally. The attendance staff is far too happy at this hour in the morning. 

“Listen, Joonmyeon, I have a horrid headache, and I’m probably going to be out today. Would be possible to find a last-minute sub for me? Sorry I won’t be there to help you during my third period free.” 

“Oh, it’s no problem!” Joonmyeon chirps brightly, “Sorry to hear you’re sick, rest up and feel better! I’ll call the administration to find a sub. I’ll text you when I find out.”

Baekhyun spends the rest of the day wrapped up in a blanket burrito, groaning at the state of his head, and occasionally getting up to eat a snack or use the toilet. 

******

When Baekhyun strolls into room 203 four days later, on the following Wednesday, he isn’t expecting much. Or at least, that’s what he tells himself.

He had secretly been hoping that with the amount of written interaction going on between him and this Chanyeol guy, the latter would notice his absence. 

“But what’re the chances of that?” he laments in his head, “He probably didn’t even notice.”

Boy, was he wrong. When Baekhyun strolls into the attendance office that Wednesday morning, after chirping out his greeting to Joonmyeon and picking up the manila folders, he is faced with a small stack of envelopes inside of folder number 46. 

A quick scan reveals that Park Chanyeol has written him multiple letters, fussing over his condition and wondering where he’s been.

Baekhyun allows himself a small smile. It is hastily wiped off, however, when he catches Joonmyeon staring warily at him out of the corner of his eye. “You alright there, Baekhyun? Are you not recovered yet?”

Baekhyun responds with a quick shake of the head and a chuckle, “No, I’m fine, thanks, just…. pondering.”

Joonmyeon laughs nervously, “Yeah… pondering. Right.”

Normally, the pinkette might’ve been a little flustered at his bizarre choice of words, but that morning, Baekhyun was far too happy as he realized that Chanyeol cared more than he thought.

For the second time since they’ve begun this charade, Baekhyun writes a response. This one is noticeably longer and more affectionate.

******

With the revelation that he and this Chanyeol are becoming a little more serious with the flirting, Baekhyun’s insecurities start to set in. 

It’s not that anything has been going wrong, but that nothing has been going. It frustrates him a little.

“If Chanyeol likes me this much, why hasn’t he said anything about meeting?” he wonders to himself. Baekhyun feels his former happiness at discovering this morning’s note deflate a little.

“You know what, I’ll make the move, then,” he thinks determinedly.

And with that, Baekhyun takes it upon himself to write on a sheet of loose leaf, “Can we meet up sometime?”

He nervously sticks it into the folder with all the pink papers, releasing a heavy sigh. 

A whisper, “Please like me.”