Chapter 14

Awkward

 

 

Baekhyun’s feet tap incessantly against the stark white floor of the nurse’s office. He feels like he’s just taken about forty punches to the gut. He wants to die, he feels so stupid.

He was stupid to think that this would ever work out. He was stupid for sleeping with his best friend. Stupid for thinking that even after what they did, he could just waltz back to Jonghyun without another thought. He was stupid for falling in love with ing Park Chanyeol.

He wants to blame Kibum. The boy is glued to Jonghyun’s side as he holds the icepack to the injured boy’s cheek. Chanyeol’s punch hadn’t quite hit its mark, just barely grazing his cheek instead of right in the nose where Baekhyun’s sure it was intended for.

Chanyeol… . Baekhyun’s not even sure what to do anymore. At this very second, Chanyeol’s sitting in the principal’s office, probably getting in more trouble than he’s even been in his life. Baekhyun’s kicking himself for not going with him. He had just been standing there, watching helplessly as a teacher was dragging Chanyeol one way and the nurse was dragging Jonghyun in the other. Kibum and Taemin hadn’t gotten there yet, and he didn’t want Jonghyun to go alone. He feels goosebumps spread along his skin as he remembers the deathly glare Kai shot him as he followed Jonghyun to the office.

He still doesn’t know why Chanyeol even punched him. It was just as surprising to him as it was to everyone else.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters to Jonghyun for what must be the twentieth time. Kibum scoffs and rolls his eyes and goes to fix Jonghyun’s hair. Baekhyun doesn’t miss the way Jonghyun leans into Kibum’s touch, even with a giant icepack pressed to his face. Baekhyun sits next to Taemin, who’s boredly fiddling with his watch, and carefully inspects the other two’s interactions from across the room.

Kibum’s delicate hands roam over Jonghyun’s face, almost reverently. He fluffs the pillows behind his head and leans in close to mumble things, unheard to Baekhyun and Taemin. Baekhyun’s never seen the normally scary boy act so soft. Almost like he’s Jonghyun’s mom or something. Or… completely in love with him.

“Oh, my god,” Baekhyun whispers. At least, he was supposed to whisper, but it ends up coming out louder than intended and Taemin and Key turn to him curiously. He figures Jonghyun would too, if half his face wasn’t swollen.

“What?” Taemin asks, but Baekhyun doesn’t answer. His gaze is fixed on the blonde boy across the room who’s looking at him like he’s grown another head. “Baekhyun?” Taemin pokes his shoulder but he ignores the younger boy once again. He stands up swiftly, not entirely believing the words that are about to leave his mouth?

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

“What?” Kibum screeches, springing away from Jonghyun in a matter of seconds. Jonghyun peers up at Baekhyun with that pitiful puppy dog look and he just wants to smack it right off of his face, now that the pieces are all falling into place. He also can’t help the small smirk of amusement that falls over his face at seeing Kibum’s metaphorical in a bunch.

“You,” Baekhyun points at Kibum, so there’s no mistaking who he’s talking about. “Are in love with him,” he inclines his head towards Jonghyun, still lying in the bed as confused as ever. “Aren’t you?”

“No, god!” Kibum says indignantly, though it’s more than obvious that he’s lying.

Baekhyun starts laughing almost maniacally, like he can’t even control himself. He’s still pointing to Kibum who looks absolutely terrified at whatever Baekhyun is about to say next. He really, really likes the sudden rush of power he feels, after Kibum’s mere presence has made him uncomfortable for so long.

“You were jealous. You are jealous!” He accuses as Kibum starts vehemently shaking his head. “Because I liked him and he liked me, too but you’re in love with him and, oh, my god, you were so jealous! So you told me to sleep with Chanyeol knowing full and well what would happen! You’re an evil, conniving little—“

“Wait,” Jonghyun says hoarsely, promptly stopping Baekhyun mid-rant. He sits up in obvious pain and discomfort, looking between the now stark white Kibum and the crazed Baekhyun worriedly. He opens his mouth to speak but can’t get the words out before another voice unexpectedly buts in.

“Park Chanyeol?” Taemin pipes up. Baekhyun whips around, having completely forgotten about the younger boy. He’s staring at Baekhyun in a mixture of shock and disgust. “You slept with him? Even after I told you that hyung liked you?”

“Well, y-yeah,” Baekhyun stutters out. “But Kibum—“

“Don’t blame this on me,” Kibum spits out. “No oneforced you to sleep with him. You made that decision on your own.”

“Wait,” Jonghyun tries weakly again. Baekhyun hears him but the urge to shut Kibum up is just too strong to ignore.

“You told me that it would guarantee him,” he jabs his finger towards Jonghyun. “Becoming my boyfriend. You told me he was experienced!”

“Well I’m sorry you’re so gullible and believe everything people tell you,” Kibum snaps back. “But it’s obvious that you and Park Chanyeol are more than buddies. Don’t think that no one sees you two falling over each other in the hallway.”

“WAIT.”

All three heads snap towards Jonghyun, who looks like he might pass out at any second from the pain flitting across his face. He’s still holding the icepack to his cheek and his eyebrows are furrowed in confusion. Baekhyun feels a small jolt of sympathy for the boy. Except that’s it.

No fanboying. No thoughts about how he wants to kiss his perfect face all over. Just sympathy. He’s sorry that he ever put the innocent Kim Jonghyun in this position.

He’s sorry about a lot of things right now.

“Can someone please explain,” Jonghyuns asks tiredly. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s just like he said,” Baekhyun says softly, slowly coming to accept that his life is turning to utter right in front of him, and therefore giving up.  “I slept with Chanyeol. I slept with my best friend and now I’m in love with him and I’m sorry Jonghyun, but you’re so perfect and too perfect for me and you don’t have to talk to me ever again after this, but I’m just going to say that you should give Kibum a chance. Because being in love with your best friend unrequited . A lot. So… bye.”

Baekhyun feels himself go lightheaded from the nonstop flurry of words that have just left his mouth. Jonghyun, Kibum, and Taemin are looking at him in similar states of surprise. Baekhyun takes one last look at the tragic scene before him before walking out the door as fast as he can without making it seem like he’s running away.

 

 

Baekhyun makes a beeline for the principal’s office. He’s running off adrenaline now. Now that Jonghyun is out of the picture, more or less (Baekhyun only realizes in hindsight how sudden and harsh that confession was and thinks he should probably apologize for it later), he feels like he can scream his love for his best friend from the rooftops. Finally admitting it out loud has done something to him, made it more real. He feels like, even if he’s rejected, he has to tell Chanyeol how he feels before he implodes from the inside out.

The trek to the principal’s office is an easy one. Baekhyun has been there a few more times than he’d like to admit, though not for anything serious. Mostly tardiness, and the one time he was caught making out with someone behind the bleachers on the soccer field.

He reaches the somewhat intimidating looking office in record time. He’s about to go in, but he notices an undeniable flash of auburn in the corner of his eye.

It’s Chanyeol, of course, but Baekhyun stops dead in his tracks when he notices that the boy Is folded nearly in half, with his head resting a top his awkwardly bent knees. He hears something and… is Chanyeol crying?

“Yeol,” he says softly, approaching the boy like he would a frightened animal. Chanyeol’s head snaps up and Baekhyun’s fears are confirmed when he sees the trails of tears making their way down his flushed cheeks.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

It’s not Chanyeol’s voice, but another person’s entirely. Baekhyun looks up as Kai closes the door to the principal’s office behind him, glaring at Baekhyun none too friendly.

Baekhyun feels all his energy from moments ago start to leave his body. One look at Kai’s face tells him that maybe coming here wasn’t the best idea after all.

“You have a lot of nerve,” Kai says, purposely putting himself between Baekhyun and the sniffling Chanyeol. “He just got suspended because of your dumb .”

“What?” Baekhyun sputters out in shock, trying to maneuver around Kai to look at his best friend, but Kai is a considerable amount taller than him, making it nearly impossible. “Yeol…”

“Stop it!” Kai says harshly, pushing Baekhyun’s shoulder, not too roughly but just enough to hurt. “Just run back to Kim Jonghyun or something because you’ve obviously done enough damage here.”

“No,” Baekhyun says, not at all liking the way Kai is becoming so defensive over Chanyeol. No one is allowed to defend Chanyeol except for him. Byun Baekhyun. That’s it. No one else. “Jonghyun… he’s… I’m not—“

Kai shakes his head and starts laughing, but not in a ‘haha you’re so funny’ way. It’s more like a ‘wow this idiot is still talking’ sort of way. “Just when I start to think you've actually decided to stop being stupid, you go and pull like this.”

The insult doesn’t hit as hard as it might normally. Baekhyun is feeling pretty torn up inside already, just hearing Chanyeol try to muffle his cries into his knees. He wants to rush past Kai and hug his best friend for all it’s worth, but he knows if he does, he’ll be the one being carted off to the nurse next.

“You just couldn’t let it go, could you?” Kai asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “You finally get the balls to ask him out… and then you fall apart at the first glimpse of Kim Jonghyun and his stupid shiny car? I was starting to think you deserved more credit than that, but I’m seeing that I really couldn’t have been more wrong.”

“Wait,” Baekhyun says, feeling a sense of de ja vu come to him as he pictures Jonghyun sitting helplessly on the nurse’s cot. “What are you talking about?”

Kai rolls his eyes. “Are you even on earth, anymore?” He claps his hands in front of Baekhyun’s face a few times, making the shorter boy take a few steps back. “Chanyeol’s suspended! You just more or less abandoned him to trail after your precious Jonghyun.“

“No,” Baekhyun says tiredly, just wanting to reach Chanyeol, who is outright sobbing now. He feels his heart start to crack into little tiny pieces but Kai is still stubbornly holding his ground. “Do you even know what you’re talking about? I didn’t ask anybody out. Jonghyun is… I don’t even care anymore.”

“What?” Kai’s demeanor softens the tiniest bit, but his tone is still harsh. “But earlier I asked you if you… and you said yes. And with the way you two were acting—“

“You thought I asked him out?” Baekhyun cries, his hands in his hair as the beginnings of complete and utter frustration start making their way through his body.

“Yes,” Kai says defensively. “When I—wait, what did you think I was talking about?” Kai leaves the question in the air for a moment before, “What the did you guys do?”

‘I’m already going to hell anyways’ Baekhyun thinks morosely as he launches into the not-so-detailed version of the story. Kai listens with his mouth gaping open, peering back at Chanyeol from time to time. The taller boy is listening with a look between embarrassment and horror etched on his face, hot tears still spilling down.

Baekhyun feels guilt manifest itself in his stomach, especially as he skims through the part about Kibum and his convincing him to sleep with Chanyeol, aka the incident that started this whole disaster in the first place. He knows that he’s setting himself up to be hated by both Kai and Chanyeol but he has to get this off his chest and it’s not like his brain will actually let him stop talking anyways. It does however, conveniently let him leave out the part about falling hopelessly in love in the process.

He’s panting from lack of air by the time his story is over. He also feels the guilt creep up from his stomach (except he think it might actually be vomit too, with the way he’s feeling) and he looks right past Kai’s shocked face into Chanyeol’s. 

“You mean…” he begins slowly, in such a sad, defeated voice that it brings tears to Baekhyun’s eyes. “You were just using me?”

No,” Baekhyun says, finally pushing past Kai and squatting in front of Chanyeol much like that day outside the library. “I wasn’t—“

“But that’s what you said,” Chanyeol whispers, eyes glued to his lap. “Kim Kibum said that if you slept with someone, it would be easier for you to be in a relationship with Kim Jonghyun. That’s exactly what you said so don’t try to lie to me!” Chanyeol’s voice has taken on a panicked edge as he brings his hands up and presses them roughly into his eyes. “God dammit!” he cries.

Once again, Baekhyun is thrown for a loop by Chanyeol’s uncharacteristic cursing. “I… that is what I said,” Baekhyun tries. “But I—“

“You said you loved me,” Chanyeol whimpers, knocking his head back on the wall and making a sickening crack. “Of course I thought you asking me to sleep with you out of no where was weird, but you said you loved me so I let it go. You didn’t mean it though, did you? You were probably imagining it was Kim Jonghyun the entire time.” Chanyeol’s face crumples at his own words and even more tears gather at his lashes. “Oh, god! You were, weren’t you?”

“No,” Baekhyun pleads, scrambling to take Chanyeol’s hands into his own. To his surprise, the boy lets him. Baekhyun takes a deep breath and figures, this is it. He needs to tell Chanyeol this very second how he feels or his life might as well be over. He thinks of all the things he could say, like how he loves all of Chanyeol’s little twitches and sniffles and how he loves his crazy hair and his big eyes and his too tall body and too long limbs and he really, really loves the way that his head fits right into Chanyeol’s neck, but the words just sort of die in his throat so he settles for, “I love you.”

Baekhyun’s not sure what he was expecting Chanyeol’s reaction to be, but Chanyeol pushing him away is not it. Baekhyun watches and feels what’s left of his heart start to fall away, bit by bit, as Chanyeol wobbly stands up and wipes his nose on his blazer sleeve.

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol says. He hasn’t stopped crying yet. “I-I want to believe you, but you’ve been doing this to me for too long. I’m sorry, b-but… I can’t.”

Baekhyun and Kai stare at each other in shock as Chanyeol walks away. They can hear him crying even after he’s halfway down the hallway.

“I ed up,” Baekhyun whimpers pathetically, sliding down the wall and mimicking Chanyeol’s earlier position. The tears start to fall rapidly, especially after he hears Kai half-heartedly agree with him.

“You’re not a mean person,” Kai says softly, sitting down beside him and resting what’s supposed to be a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’re just really, really stupid.”


 


 

hold on... let me go find my favourite gif

me right now^

GOD I AM SO SORRY FIRSTLY

i was drowning in a sea of confusion for a while and this was soooo stupidly hard to write 

but thats done with now and i don't even wanna talk about it anymore

so

ANYWAYS

HELLO GUYS!~ wow omg thank you so much for 600 subscribers!!! lol omg what are you all even doing. i don't know but thank you anyway ;__;

if you didn't notice i posted the hunhan foreward too. i'm quickly beginning to regret that decision lol but subscribe if you want v( ‘.’ )v

(and omg i love how i never went back and edited my a/n for the last chapter. epic fail on my part lol)

AND OMG I LOVE YOU GUYS. i recently followed a lot of you on tumblr and you guys are THE cutest human beings ever like omg how do these cute people even follow me (╥﹏╥)

this story is almost finished btw. IT MAKES MY HEART HURT TO SAY THAT but there will probably no more than 2o chapters in total. oh god. i'm gonna cry. 

so before i get too emotional i just want to say thank youuu for reading my little awkward story and loving it and being cute and i just really love you guys. all 600 of you (╥﹏╥)

so here is my tumblr and like i said YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING and if more of you talked to me, well... that'd just be wonderful ^_^

oh and btw. ayana unnie... am i unblacklisted now? (✿◠‿◠)

~Ari <3

Like this story? Give it an Upvote!
Thank you!
jinkirei
first chapter will probably maybe hopefully be up tonight~

Comments

You must be logged in to comment
qinwang #1
thank youui
idk----
#2
thank you for the story!
Aezxmin
174 streak #3
Chapter 18: Ohhh another case of "miscommunication"

If you love someone, you have to say and prove it.
itzmeguyz
161 streak #4
Chapter 19: this is so beautiful... thank you >333
xiaonara
#5
Chapter 19: This story is beautiful im crying......