“Kyunggie” Chanyeol’s voice rang out through the cafeteria, causing almost every head in the room to turn his way. Ignoring the stares, he simply made a beeline towards where Kyungsoo was already sitting and eating. “JONGIN IS SLOWLY BUT SURELY TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE,” he continued, much to the distressed ears of his classmates. He caught sight of Kyungsoo’s raised eyebrows as he walked over. When Chanyeol arrived at the table, he plopped down across from his friend. Stealing the sandwich from his friend’s fingers, Chanyeol fixed him with a pouty stare as he stuffed the sandwich into his mouth. Kyungsoo stared at him for a few moments before sighing. “Fine. How is Jongin ruining your life this time?” “Spreading lies again, are we Yeol?” Jongin’s voice interrupted them as the tanned boy slid onto the bench next to the doe-eyed boy. Chanyeol stuck out his tongue childishly at Jongin. “It is the perfect truth. And you know it.” Kyungsoo turned to Jongin. “Care to fill me in on what’s going on?” The other smirked. “Me and Yeollie hyung here have just made a bet.” “Oh for Gods sake, not another bet,” Kyungsoo groaned, burying his face in his hands. “What is it this time?” “Well, Chanyeol hyung was saying how he can get anyone to fall in love with him in a month. And I made it into a bet. So, I chose a person for him to seduce.” Kyungsoo stared. “…..who’s the girl?” he asked nervously. “It’s not even a girl!” Chanyeol cried dramatically. “It’s Byun Baekhyun!” Kyungsoo's eyebrows shot up as he turned to look questioningly at Jongin. The tanned boy shrugged. “Gender wasn’t specified beforehand and it’s not like I’m going to make it easy on him, am I? 200.000 won are at stake here. And I can’t lose money. Or my dignity.” “Forget dignity, you guys, this is just plain wrong,” Kyungsoo said. “Purposefully playing with someone’s emotions and leading them on like that when you don’t feel the same way… Especially with someone like Byun Baekhyun.” Chanyeol was taken aback. “What do you mean, ‘especially Byun Baekhyun’? He seems relatively normal to me. No uncontrollable explosions of emotion from him that I know about, at any rate.” Jongin snorted, but Kyungsoo was still completely serious. “Thats not what I meant,” he said, half-playfully hitting Chanyeol’s shoulder. “I’m talking about people who don’t have a lot of people to turn to and boost them back up. Baekhyun’s got what, one, maybe two friends? It’s just not right.” Jongin was confused. “So you’re saying it would be okay if we did it on someone else?” Chanyeol perked up at this, hoping half-heartedly that Kyungsoo would proclaim working on Baekhyun an absolute no and force Jongin to choose a nice girl for him to seduce. Unfortunately, fortune was just not on his side that day. “No, I’m saying it would be wrong in any capacity-” Kyungsoo began to say, when Jongin cut him off. “Brilliant!” he exclaimed. “If it’s wrong either way, it doesn’t matter whether or not we keep Baekhyun as the subject. Sorry Yeol,” he added as an afterthought. Chanyeol nodded. If he was honest, he’d kind of expected as much. He couldn’t deny that the bet would be weird for him, though. He wondered how in the hell he’d be able to pull this off. Chanyeol hadn’t been lying when he told Jongin that it was exceptionally easy to get girls to fall for him. He himself didn’t even understand his own appeal, but as long as it got him girls he didn’t particularly care. But with Baekhyun, Chanyeol had virtually no idea how he was supposed to seduce the other boy. For one, Chanyeol had never spoken to the boy a day in his life. He had an idea that it might be a tad awkward to suddenly try to romantically into Baekhyun’s life. And by a tad awkward, he meant that cringe-inducing levels of awkwardness would be achieved. Another problem- Chanyeol didn’t even know if Baekhyun liked boys. He spared a moment to consider his own uality. He wouldn’t deny that in his life he had thought some boys were attractive, but he had never given it too much thought. He decided to push the whole issue to the back of his mind, to be examined on a later day. As Kyungsoo and Jongin lasped into a conversation about the finer points of seducing unsuspecting targets, Chaneyol let his eyes drift across the cafeteria in search of the infamous Byun Baekhyun. —— “Hey Baek!” Yixing said as he dropped his overflowing tray of food on the table, milk sloshing over the side of the carton and peas rolling off his plate. Baekhyun smiled slightly at the Chinese boy. “Hi,” he greeted simply. “Got enough to eat?” “I think so, I might have to go back for seconds though, they’re making-” It took Yixing a few seconds to realize his friend was joking. Baekhyun hid a smile as he snorted softly. Yixing grinned. “Baek, you realize there will never be enough food, right?” Baekhyun rolled his eyes, not even bothering to answer Yixing. He picked at his fries absently, far off in his thoughts. He looked up when he realized Yixing was speaking. “What?” “I said, so what exactly did you do to piss off Park Chanyeol?” “What?” Baekhyun repeated, confused. “He’s been staring at you all day, man. First during math this morning, and now he’s been looking at you all lunch. So, what did you do?” Baekhyun just stared blankly at Yixing. Was he completely insane? “I think you’re imagining things. I’ve never even spoken to him, let alone given him any reason to pay attention to me,” he said. Yixing raised his eyebrows, digging into his food. “Then explain to me why he’s staring at you right now.” Baekhyun very obviously turned around in his seat, eyes searching for Park Chanyeol. His eyes found the other boy with his two ever-present friends, Kim Jongin and Do Kyungsoo. Yixing was right. Chanyeol's eyes were boring directly into his, and they seemed to be trying to figure something out. Chanyeol quickly turned back around in his seat again, fighting down a blush. Yixing laughed and rolled his eyes. “This Chanyeol guy is nice. Real subtle. You are truly the master of being smooth.” “Shut up,” Baekhyun mumbled. His ears felt hot. He was burning with embarrassment at being caught so blatantly seeking out the other boy to stare at him. Sure, Chanyeol had been looking, but Baekhyun had clearly had the intention of staring at him. Baekhyun honestly had no clue why the other boy was giving him such attention, if what Yixing was saying was indeed true. If he was honest, it made him a bit apprehensive. Chanyeol and his friends didn’t pay attention to people who weren’t their friends unless they had a reason to. He wasn’t too sure if he was too fond of the possibility of being one of those ‘reasons’. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the other boy…. Actually, that’s exactly what it was. Baekhyun didn’t like it. Not one bit. —— Chanyeol rubbed the back of his head frustratedly, finding Baekhyun in the cafeteria. He decided to take an actual full inventory of the other boy. The first thing that Chanyeol noticed about Baekhyun (the first thing that everyone noticed) were his eyes. They looked incredibly beautiful. Next was his hair. He wanted to touch it to find out if it was as soft as it looked. He figured he’d be finding that out soon enough. When he thought about Baekhyun's lips, Chanyeol realized that he’d never actually seen Baekhyun smile. Or laugh. Or heard him talk. Chanyeol hoped that he didn’t have one of those high, girly voices. Anyway, Chanyeol came to the conclusion that Byun Baekhyun was actually not that bad looking. Understandably, this was a realization that was accompanied by copious amounts of relief. After all, if Park Chanyeol was putting his uality and reputation on the line for some guy, he at least wanted it to be worth it. He watched as Baekhyun said something to his friend, who he was sitting with, and got up to throw something out. He noted with appreciation that Baekhyun's body was long and lean. The boy evidently knew how to dress himself well, too. With that pleasant deduction, Chanyeol finished up his creeping on his target and tuned back in to Kyungsoo and Jongin’s conversation. “No Jongie, you’re the one that’s gettin it wrong! It’s... ‘Stop! Don’t touch me there, this is my private square,’ not ‘Stop, please touch me there, this is my pleasure square’! That’s just creepy, man!” Chanyeol stared. “Are you guys seriously arguing over the lyrics to the Protection song? The words are clearly don’t touch me there. Jongin I hate to break it to you, but in this case you’re the one that would get seriously unlucky and Kyungsoo wouldn’t. He knows the words.” “I’m offended!” Jongin cried. Kyungsoo laughed and turned to Chanyeol. “So hyung, any ideas on how to woo our Baekhyun?” Chanyeol groaned. “Nope. You?” Jongin held his hands up. “No way am I helping you. I wanna win this.” Kyungsoo looked stumped for a minute, ignoring Jongin’s whispered “Don’t help him!” “You could start off by saying "hi" to him in the hallway, maybe,” Kyungsoo suggested after a while. “That is the single most lamest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Chanyeol said. The doe-eyed was once again, offended. “I don’t see you having any other ideas!” Chanyeol sighed. Kyungsoo was right. Unless something better came up, he was going to have to take this the horrible way. Yay for slow and awkward beginnings. The bell rang, signalling the end of lunch. Chanyeol and Jongin went off to Chemistry class while Kyungsoo headed off to English. Chanyeol seriously needed to think of a plan, and fast.