Part 10 ⧫ Remissness

re·miss·ness

/rəˈmisnəs/

noun

Negligent, careless, or slow in performing one's duty, business, etc.

Characterized by negligence or carelessness.

_______

“Fine,” I replied.

“What?!”

I didn’t even have to exaggerate; Baekhyun literally flipped over from his chair in surprise. There was a cringeworthy-ily loud thunk when he hit the ground, along with his high pitched shriek that I had grown quite accustomed with these couple months - which resulted in the turning of quite a couple heads, producing a few sympathetic ‘oohs’ and quite a few more shakes of the heads. I could literally hear the unspoken word lingering in the air; idiot.

I quite agreed with that, even if I felt rather sorry for him.

Baekhyun pushed himself from the ground, pulling his chair up with him, looking at me wide-eyed. He looked fairly good for someone who had a high fever (and had hit his head rather hard on the ground); the times I was sick, I was normally in bed feeling sorry for myself. I hadn’t ever flipped out of a chair when sick; but then again, I had never wandered to a friend’s house in a short sleeve t-shirt at midnight while drunk, so I couldn’t quite relate with Baekhyun at the moment.

“That hurt,” he grumbled, ruefully rubbing the back of his head which he seemed to have hit somewhere (quite hard). “What were you saying?”

“I might be able to get you a place to stay for a night,” I muttered a bit unwillingly, blinking the surprise away from my mind. It’d been months; and I still hadn’t gotten used to Baekhyun’s clumsiness. It probably had something to do with the fact that he seemed to be worryingly clumsy fifty percent of the time, and the other half, I found myself envying how graceful he could be. “Her dad owns a chain of hotels… I think she may be able to get you a place to sleep for a night. I’m not sure, though. There’s a possibility that you may have to go home or go back to Chanyeol’s house-- don’t raise your hopes.”

Baekhyun nodded obediently, and I had to stifle a laugh of how much he looked like a child, nodding after his parents had explained instructions to him. The laugh kind of died in my throat when I realized that this whole incident was practically because of his brother, and because he was trying to avoid him. I still had so many questions about it; it was his only family member that he left that I knew of -- what had forced the two apart? Baekhyun was stubborn, I knew, but steering clear of a family because of what? It must be something severe, must it? After both parents’ death, what would be severe enough to turn away from the one person one had left?

“Iseul?” Baekhyun asked, jerking me from my thoughts. “You’re literally staring at the screen and not doing anything.”

“Huh?”

“Aren’t you going to call someone…?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh, I’m going to do that now.”

Jihyun’s number was the first one there was on speed dial, thankfully, and trying to ignore my burning cheeks, I turned heel as quick as I could and retreated to a corner of the library where I tried to escape from my already reddening face. Unfortunately, I couldn’t exactly do so. I could only hope Baekhyun didn’t see.

“Hello?” her voice cut through my thoughts like knife on butter. “Ugh, it’s you. What do you want?”

“I’m with Byun Baekhyun. Please, no more sass or sarcasm for today or I’m throwing myself out the window.”

“Oh dear, what did he do this time?”

“He existed.”

I could hear Jihyun’s signature silent laughter from the other side of the phone, and I found myself snorting along with her. Insulting Byun Baekhyun had become one of my favourite hobbies, and Jihyun knew it. It was just amusing to do so, to his face and behind it, since he didn't seem to mind either way.

“No,” she choked out after she was done laughing. “What is it this time? You’ve never phoned me when having your… quality time with him.”

"I'm tut—"

"—If you know what I mean," Jihyun finished.

I went into a fit of coughing so bad that a lady actually stopped beside me and asked if I needed water. I shook my head no, but it probably looked like I was convulsing more than objecting because she hurried away and then came back with a cup of water. I thanked her weakly and listened to Jihyun’s snickering on the other side, obviously content with the fact that she almost just killed me.

"Can we not?" I asked her. "I seriously just have to teach him chem because he's really stupid and a complete and total idiot all the time. Besides we meet at the library and that’s a public place and there’s no way we could ever-”

“Aha, you admit you want him,” she sang, and I fought the urge to go outside where I would have a proper excuse of why my cheeks were so red at the moment. Forget it, I really was going to throw myself the window any more sarcasm or not. “Aw, Iseul, I’m so proud of you. Finally moving on from your little crush on Choi Minho? After so long? My baby has grown up soooo well-”

“Shut up, you idiot,” I retorted, because it was the only thing I could get out at the moment. The word 'idiot' only reminded me of Baekhyun, which lead to more coughing. It was a miracle Jihyun deciphered what I was saying. She snickered on the other end, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be thankful or mad that she wasn’t here with me so that I couldn’t strangle her.

"Don't think so low of yourself," she mocked. "You're an idiot, but it's only for ninety nine percent of the time."

I took another sip of the water the lady had given to me and tried not to choke on it, because that would just be unfortunate. 

When I didn't reply, Jihyun spoke again. "Okay, let's be serious. Why did you phone me?"

I jumped into explaining Byun Baekhyun's currently situation as discretely as possible, trying not to go into a lot of detail about his brother (though I was quite in the dark about it myself, really). How he had no place to go for a night, claiming it as an 'argument with his brother,' and how he currently had an extremely high fever and how the idiot had left his phone somewhere too, so he couldn't call any other friend.

Jihyun might've been more confused after my explanation than before, because her response to the whole thing was an extremely skeptical, "What?"

"Can you just book him a room or something because your parents—"

"Yeah, I'm banned from that. Maybe he really is going to have to sleep in library washroom. Remember last time?"

Half of me couldn’t quite believe how easily Jihyun was brushing it off -- on the other hand, I knew quite well why she had been banned from the hotel. Pushing back the urge to whine and complain to her, I shoved my complaints down my throat and tried to remain as composed as possible. “Then what do you think I do?”

“The last time I checked, you had an apartment too?”

***

"Okay, I'm going through this one last time," I told Baekhyun as we stood in front of the door of my apartment. I stared at the keys in my hand and all my courage abruptly dropped again, completely diminished. "Argh, remind me why can't you go to Chanyeol's again?" I asked, though he had answered me numerous times already and I knew the answer.

"His parents would call my brother. We've been through this four times, Iseul." Probably more than four.

"Jongin?!" I knew the answer to that too.

"His too."

"Don't you have a lot of friends? Where are they when you need them?"

"Aren't you my friend?"

I don't know why, but my heart fluttered at that. "Uh, yeah, but—" Before I could say, A friend who's normal and who's grandmother wouldn't kick you out if she saw you, Baekhyun interupted me.

"Exactly. You're a friend and you're helping me out," he stated in a voice that I couldn't argue with (yet still wanted to). I snorted at his confidence, though I knew that he knew that I wouldn’t just stop here and kick him out.

I groaned in frustration and hid my hands in my face. "If you get caught by my grandma, then we're both as good as dead, you know? I have no idea why I'm helping you in the first place." I raised a finger in what hopefully was a threatening manner and poked him with it. "And after my grandma is do