Part 6 ⧫ Apology

a·pol·o·gy

/əˈpäləjē/
noun
A regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure.

_______

It was easy to grant Baekhyun’s wishes and stay away from him, because I wasn't in the mood for competition against 20 other people who were trying to talk to him. It was rather hard to believe Baekhyun had been in the same situation that I had been in because most of the time, he showed himself to be the complete opposite of me. I didn't really expect him to relate to me that much, but still — there were so many, too many differences.

I’d been the in the same school for at many years, and remained unnoticed for those years completely. I’d gathered a few of my own friends, but for the most part, I remained just about invisible.

Baekhyun and his friends, on the other hand, gained popularity not-too-slowly. Especially with girls.

Every class we shared, the area around his desk was surrounded by a crowd of people, male and female, all trying to either make friends with him or get noticed by him. Chanyeol, too — who unfortunately sat next to me, which meant the crowds of people around him were in the most part, suffocating me as well as probably him. I had even been offered 50 000 won if I could trade spots with a girl, just so she could sit next to Chanyeol in class.

I would’ve happily taken the money and left (in fact, I didn't need the money. If I could trade spots with someone who didn't sit next to a place where masses of crazy people gathered, I was happy to comply) to her spot, except her desk was right next to Baekhyun’s.

I remained in my own spot.  

Baekhyun seemed to be neutral about all the attention, though something I noticed about him was that he practically eluded cheerfulness when he wasn’t talking to me. I had no idea that being around me was so depressing that it managed to snuff out his surprising amount of brightness he had almost everyday.

Every time I saw him, he was either smiling, grinning or laughing. He seemed cheerful and happy a good proportion of the time, though sometime… it felt, possibly, a bit forced. He was a nice person though, I noticed -- mostly polite to the people who crowded around him, and of course, completely, blatantly, oblivious to the most seemingly obvious things. And extremely lacking in common sense. Still, even so, fairly nice. It was just that I had somehow managed, with my magical abilities, to piss him off. Somehow.

If he had been any other person, then I honestly wouldn’t have cared much, or possibly, at all. In fact, two months ago, I had been perfectly content with the fact that Baekhyun hated me.

But the fact that we had both lost our parents in unexpected fatalities, both car crashes -- the sense, the feeling of kinship was something I just couldn’t shake off. The feeling of wanting to be able to relate someone when I hadn’t been able to do so, ever.

Byun Baekhyun was the least of my worries, however. Midterm exams were coming up soon, and studying was one of my highest priorities. Just because I had found one person in the world who had been in similar circumstances as me (also, kind of hated me. But that was totally irrelevant) didn’t mean I could throw down my studies and turn my life into a sob-story over the fact that I had ruined the chance to have someone to relate to because of my own stupidity.

The lunch break was normally for an hour and a half, and the past few weeks, I had been heading up to the fourth floor of the school to eat and study. It rarely ever snowed in Seoul at this time of year -- in fact, the only times I had glimpsed snow had been in January, and once in November on an abnormally cold day. The fourth floor was more of a half floor, built on the roof of the third story, completely open to the sky. There was a wooden bench near the edge of the roof, with its paint peeling off and the screws and pieces of metal worn to rust from the continuous battering of wind and rain. It was as if someone had left it up here, and forgot about its existence completely -- though it was a perfectly good bench, placed perfectly to face the cityscape.

With the fresh air, it was easy to clear one’s mind and to concentrate on studying up here. The coldness, too, helped, surprisingly. Despite the fact that this ‘balcony floor’ was deprived of color, it was still a perfect escape and a place to calm down and think or simply spend time by oneself. It was nice too, because I seemed to be the only person who came up here.

Or, at least, until Baekhyun found out about it too.

The blast of cold air was a greeting I was used to when I opened the door to the fourth floor, though however, the fact that someone was sitting on my chair was not. Because of the direction the chair was facing, I couldn’t see their face, but the rush of surprise and shock was enough to almost make topple down the stairs back to the third story. I grabbed the wall for support just in time. Who was it that came up here?

Whoever it was sitting at the bench obviously didn’t notice my arrival, because they remained staring out at the horizon. Obviously, they were also immune to cold because the short sleeves they sported looked pretty much useless against the wind. After a moment of slight hesitation, I marched towards them, determined to take back what was mine. Seriously, this was someplace I had discovered. It might be school property, but in a way, it was mine.

I was planning on going up to the person and asking them nicely what they were doing up here, but a couple steps away from them, they had obviously heard me and turned around. Their eyes were wide as if been caught doing something bad, before recognition flickered across them. My first thought was, Dang it, I walked too loudly, which was also when I promptly recognized his face.

I froze.

Baekhyun reacted quicker than me, for once. He shot to his feet, almost throwing himself over the railing in the process of doing so. I kind of wished he did so, because the fact that it was him in my chair kind of maddened me. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

My body unfroze. “What are you doing here?” I retorted lamely, because it was the only thing that came to mind. One thing I noticed about myself: after the incident with Baekhyun, I would pity him and maybe even want to talk to him sometimes, but the moment I saw his face, it was like an automatic reflex to get annoyed and to snap at him and insult him.

“Touche,” he snorted. “If you’re here to apologize again, then leave me alone. I don’t want your pity, and I’ve had enough of people for a day.”  

“I’m not here to apologize, so does that mean that you can leave and I stay?”

Baekhyun obviously wasn’t expecting that response, because his features melted into confusion. “What?”

I lifted up the bundle of textbooks I held and my lunch. “Why would I follow you up here with my lunch and textbooks just to apologize to you? Been there, tried that, didn't work. Not going to repeat the process. Now can you get out of my spot?”

He obviously didn't understand what was going on just yet because he stared at me and asked yet again, “What?”

“God, is it that hard?” I set my textbooks and lunch down on the ground. They were too heavy to carry for much longer, and something told me that Baekhyun wasn't just going to leave. Nevertheless, I still tried asking, “Can you leave?”

The current situation finally seemed to make sense to Baekhyun, because he was kind of scowling at me again. Jihyun had told me I was a mood damper before, but I had no idea it was this bad. “Why would I leave? I got here first, before you. What right do you have to kick me out?”

“Then please kick yourself out. Is that better? Or shall I you out, Your Majesty?” I mocked bowed at him.

He glared at me. “Cut it. And I got here first.”

“I’ve been coming up here for weeks.”

“So? It's school property.”

I had no response to that, because it technically was school property. Still, it felt weird to see someone else sit on my bench where I normally had been sitting the past god-knew-how-many-days. At the moment, I didn't really care who Baekhyun thought he was and whatever he had been through because I was ready to fight for my bench. And my peace. This was practically the only quiet place in the whole school, and it had been contaminated with a noisy, annoying teenage boy.

“Can't you go somewhere else?” I finally asked. “You’re just sitting here doing nothing and I want to study for midterms.”

Baekhyun snorted and muttered something along the lines of, “Studying. Nerd,” under his breath.

I wanted to pick up my stuff and hit him with them, especially with the chemistry textbook. I had missed hitting his head with that textbook once, and this time, I was close enough to have an one hundred percent guaranteed smack on the head if I really tried to do so. The thought was tempting, but instead of throwing my stuff at Baekhyun, I placed them on the bench.

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