Part 19 ⧫ Peril

per·il

/ˈperəl/

noun

Serious and immediate danger.

________

For the past week, after bumping into Baekbeom at the subway station and delivering the cookies to Baekhyun, guilt had begun to crush me completely -- to the point where I had begun to steer clear of him and everyone affiliated with him at school. It was a horrible feeling, but I couldn’t help myself. Each day, it felt too late to even speak the truth -- maybe that was just me being a coward -- whatever reason it was there was no doubt that I felt horrid and there was nothing I wanted more than to spill out the truth. Even so, I didn't.

Surprisingly, neither Baekhyun nor Chanyeol approached me, even when I returned to eating lunch alone on the rooftops. It was getting warmer by now, due to the fact that spring was already beginning to take it’s toll on the environment, so eating outdoors wasn’t much of an issue to me. Being alone, however, for once, was. It felt odd -- no, more than odd, it felt completely devastating -- the eat lunch alone with no one for company, no laughter, no voices, with nothing but the sound of wind whistling to keep on company. I had already gone three days like this and I was pretty sure I was going to go crazy if I tried another.

However, I didn’t own the courage to apologize for leaving or to speak the truth. So, I did what I did best: I hid and avoided the problem instead of solving it.

The week was, undoubtedly, the longest I had ever experienced. I tried my best to ignore Chanyeol and Baekhyun in our overlapping classes, but every time I saw either of them, the guilt and the urge to just talk to them was simply overwhelming.

I was beginning to despair; part of me wished Baekhyun would approach me because I didn’t have the courage to do the same to him, and the other part of me was scared what he was going to say to me. Hell, he didn’t even know why I was ignoring him. I was being so unfair, so selfish -- but I really couldn’t help myself.

Thankfully, he solved the problem on Friday.

I was halfway to the bus stop when my phone rang.

Normally, there were about four people who were most likely to call me: Jihyun, my grandmother, Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Considering the fact that Baekhyun and Chanyeol probably knew I was avoiding them, it was probably neither of them. Which made it either Jihyun or my grandmother -- and I could feel my heart drop in disappointment at that thought alone.

However, the screen read Byun Bacon in bolded letters when I pulled it out of my pocket.

I was close to dropping my phone in surprise -- in fact, I did drop it but I managed to catch it before it hit the ground, and then, against my better judgement, I swiped decline. The moment I did it, regret almost made me trip onto the road (and possibly get run over by the nearest car) -- but I reminded myself that today, now, was not the time to talk to him. There was no way I was ready. Tomorrow, maybe. Anything but today. 

However, Baekhyun was persistent when he wanted to. Of course, at times, annoyingly so, but for once, I was glad that he had phoned me again. Without thinking twice this time, I accepted the call.

“Hi,” I said nervously.

“Seriously, decline?” The sarcasm in his voice was enough to make me feel a little better -- at least Baekhyun wasn’t mad at me -- or that I could tell. “If you decline once, at least be cool and decline a couple more times before accepting.”

“Only you would do that,” I shot back, and immediately, some of the weight lifted off my back. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoyed bickering with him.

“Actually, in the dramas I’ve watched, it’s happened a lot of times.”

“You watch dramas?”

“Yeah, judge me.”

“I already am judging you,” I replied, but I was probably grinning so widely by now that everyone who walked by and saw my face thought I was an idiot. In fact, it had come to the point where I was smiling so much that I was having trouble forcing words out of my mouth. A girl walked past me -- she was in my school -- sophomore year, I remembered -- giving me a strange look like I was crazy. I was tempted to call after her that I possibly was, but she had already disappeared into the crowd by then.

“I forgot,” Baekhyun suddenly said, and until there, I didn’t even know there had been an awkward span of silence on the phone. “You seemed to be ignoring me--” Seemed. Wow, how observant, Byun Baekhyun. “--this past week and I don’t know if peanut butter cookies trigger you or something, so whatever it was that I did, I’m really sorry. I don’t know, maybe you can drop by at the cookie place and we can have something that’s not super bitter black coffee and not-peanut-butter cookies?”

My heart jumped when he apologized, that he thought that he was the one who had done something wrong when it was really just all my fault. Then it also jumped when he asked me to go to the coffee place, because my stupid brain seemed to decipher that as a date, however many times I told it that it wasn’t. NO. This is NOT a date. Nope. There’s no possible way it’s a date, get that.

“Peanut butter cookies are fine. But black coffee isn’t,” I told Baekhyun, and that was promptly how I ended up taking a different bus than the one that lead home.

***

By the time I had gotten to the cafe, I had managed to hit my head against a pole again. My phone's GPS was also directionally challenged, because it kept on leading me around in circles to the point where I had smacked my palm against the screen in a desperate attempt to get it to start working properly again. I had also received a couple angry texts from my grandmother demanding my whereabouts and I tried my best to explain that I had something ‘urgent come up.’ At least it was a Friday.

The scene that greeted me was familiar, and comforting and scary at the same time. Baekhyun was sitting in the same table as last time, there was a plate of cookies in front of him, and a cup of what was probably orange juice in front of him. He had earbuds plugged in his ears, and when I opened the door, he didn’t react. The only difference was that it was dark now, and last time, it had been somewhere near noon or early afternoon. The warmth when I entered the cookie shop was a comfortable feeling, but then I remembered why I had been avoiding him the pas week and my heart sunk.

The cafe was considerably empty, seeing that it was located in a more rural part of Seoul that had smaller houses and less apartments. There was a couple in the back corner, who were laughing and grinning at something the other said. I marched over the Baekhyun and yanked his earbuds out of his years.

He let out a shriek of surprise, just like last time, and turned to glare at me. “What the heck, Iseul?” he demanded, almost knocking over his cup of orange juice. “Oh my god, are you crazy?”

“No, but you are,” I muttered, taking a seat across from him and eying the cookies. Last time I didn’t get to have any, and it was nearing six o’clock which was when I normally had dinner. If it hadn’t taken me an hour to get to this place…

“I ordered coffee for you,” Baekhyun said sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want so I got a latte?” He ordered a coffee for me. And was super thoughtful in the process of doing so. Does this mean anything? “I asked the waitress to make it when you got here in case it got cold. So it might have to be a while. Have a cookie.”

I took a cookie.

Awkwardly, Baekhyun smiled (or, attempted to smile) at me, though in the end, I was pretty sure anyone would mistake him for cringing, not grinning. “Uh, you’ve been just… gone the past week and anyone could see you’ve been ignoring me. I really don’t know what I did wrong, but whatever it is, I’m--” he paused, frowning. “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m actually apologizing to you for once, but whatever it is, I’m actually sorry.”

Something in my heart jumped when he said sorry -- because firstly, I could see how much pride it took for him to apologize. Baekhyun wasn’t too humble a person most of the time, but to put down his pride and apologize to me first was something that made my heart flutter. Unwelcomely. Secondly, the guilt came crushing down in a matter of seconds after his apology, because I was the one who should apologize for the unfounded ignoring; for lying to him about the cookies.

“Is the world ending?” I joked halfheartedly, unable to sound genuine however hard I tried, because he wasn’t even supposed to be the one saying sorry. “You’re apologizing. You, Byun Baekhyun.”

“Don’t push it,” he scowled.

“But it’s not your fault,” I blurted out. “You shouldn’t be the one apologizing to me. It’s really… it was really me. My fault, that is.”

He frowned at me in obvious confusion, and I felt even more rotten.

“You were obviously mad at me when you left the library on Sunday,” he said slowly. “I mean, if it was about Chanyeol’s phone, he’s already hit me a decent amount of times for that. And thrown shoes at me. So if it-”

“It’s not,” I interrupted. “It wasn’t your fault. I just… I was mad at myself and I was unable to face you. I didn’t want to-”

Baekhyun shook his head, wrapping his fingers around his cup of orange juice again (did they serve orange juice at cafes? How did he even get it?). I couldn’t help but notice his fingers again, like the many times before; long, slender, piano fingers. Had he started to play piano again, or was he done with music? They reminded me of Baekbeom, whom I met on the subway, whose fingers were, too, scarily alike to Baekhyun's. “Tell me later,” he said. “I’d rather just enjoy the cookies and orange