Part 23 ⧫ Surreality

sur·re·al·i·ty

/səˈrēələdē/

noun

The state of being incongruous or surreal.

_______

Byun Bacon

saturday night. 7:30. meet me there.

3: 21 am

To put it lightly, Baekhyun had a slight issue with texting and staying up at the middle of the night. Of course, that wasn’t my first thought after waking up and seeing that text -- in fact, it took me a while to notice that it had been sent in the middle of the night, mostly because I was too busy trying not to collapse onto the bed and stay there. It was still considerably early, a Tuesday morning, and after seeing the texts, recollections of yesterday made my face burn what was probably a bright red. Chanyeol’s laughter was still echoing through my head, even though it had been pretty much twelve hours later. I was sure that I was never going to be rid of that laughter.

I have a date, my brain told me for the nth time -- though I still couldn’t get the thought through my head properly. A date with Byun freaking Baekhyun. The world is ending. Officially. I’m probably dead. This is the afterlife.

After staring at the text for a good while, I decided to reply instead of throwing my phone across the room, which had been my second, not-so-wise option. Though my reply wasn’t very wise or smart either.

Me

okay then

6:03 am

Smooth, I thought to myself, and I wasn’t sure if it really was smooth or just ultimately the dumbest thing I had ever done, before my the text tone on my phone sounded again.

Byun Bacon

also hit chanyeol with your textbook when you see him

6: 03 am

Byun Bacon

jongin too

and kyungsoo because he probably knows and he’s not going to stay quiet

6: 03

Because he knows. The thought itself made me want to laugh at the ridiculousness, because there was no way I could ever get used to it. Know that Baekhyun asked me on a date. I’m not sure if I know for sure.

Me

sure

6: 04

Read, the phone told me, but he didn’t reply even if he had read the message. Hurriedly tossing my phone onto my bed, I changed into my school uniform, ran to the washroom, and splashed a handful of cold water onto my face.

***

“I am proud of you,” Jihyun said. “Words do not describe how proud I am of you. And speaking of it, you’ve never introduced me to Baekhyun before. I want to meet this kid. Is he cute? Probably is.”

I stared at her across the rim of my mug and ignored her comment about Baekhyun being cute. Yes, I thought silently. He is, but I’m never saying that to anyone including him. “Excuse you, but I’m not introducing you to Baekhyun if it’s to save my life.”

“Do you mean your boyfriend?”

Obviously, telling Jihyun about… what was going to happen on Saturday was one of the worse mistakes I made in my life (my mistakes kept on getting worse and worse -- I was sure.), because she was unable to shut up. School had been enough to drive me crazy, especially with Chanyeol unable to keep his mouth shut. I was pretty sure our homeroom was aware of the whole thing, and that made me mad because half the time I wasn’t sure if it was real or not. My brain took it as it’s responsibility to remind me every ten seconds, too, and that, frankly, was enough for me to deal with. Just today, one of the more popular girls in my class, whom I remembered seeing Baekhyun talk to quite often, came up to me. “So it’s you and Baekhyun?” she had asked me.

I remembered comparing my life to a drama -- this was going to be the popular jealous girl who tried to backstab me whenever she could because of the guy, who happened to be Byun Baekhyun. She was going to give me some warning about bankrupting my family or something or hiring a hitman to kill me. Then, before I could scream and run, she grinned sincerely at me. “You guys look cute together,” she told me before leaving.

I decided that Chanyeol or Jongin had probably bribed her to say that and hurried to the girl’s washroom to splash cold water over my face.

It had been a horrifying day.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I told Jihyun after about a minute of silence, with as much patience I could manage, which was close to none.

“He asked you on a date,” Jihyun replied with a voice that told me she was more superior than I was. “So he is your boyfriend. And I’m going to rip your homework if you keep on denying.”

I stared at my homework. Finals was coming up soon and that was crucial to university, and having my homework ripped up wasn’t going to do anything good to my marks. And knowing Jihyun, there was a possibility she really would. “Anyways, I’m going to get water, and if you don’t stop talking about your boyfriend, we’re never going to get any studying done today. You can babble about your date later.”

Seeing that it was no use convincing her that I wasn’t the one who brought Baekhyun up, I turned back to my homework.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I whispered under my breath.

“I heard that,” she called from the kitchen.

***

Arriving at Cheonggyecheon at six thirty really wasn’t necessary, especially when I was actually supposed to get there at seven thirty -- but still, I was so nervous that I felt like I was going to faint right then and there just thinking about what was happening. So I ended up sitting on a bench for forty five minutes with nothing to do but imagine possible scenarios of what could go wrong -- and that was a lot of things, knowing my luck. People were few at this time, being it the time when everyone ate dinner. Besides, the sky was just beginning to darken slightly, and it was dark enough for the crevices and bumps in the sidewalk to remain unseen, and for one to trip over them. I, for one, was an unlucky victim of that.

Then there was the fact that I had to tell my grandma that I had been going to find Jihyun in order to be let out of the house. I wasn’t a fan of lying, especially when my grandma was scary as hell and I at it anyways, but this occasion really called for it.

Baekhyun arrived earlier than seven thirty, surprising, at exactly seven fifteen -- I spotted him walking down the road with his head down. Despite the fact that I needed glasses to see my surroundings properly, my glasses still lay on my desk at home -- so like usual, I ended up squinting (I had a justified excuse, though -- it was beginning to get dark, and it was harder to see in the dark).

He, for once, wasn’t wearing sweatpants and an oversized hoodie, I realized, the moment I could see him properly enough. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time seeing him in anything but that -- that, and the norm