Part 8 ⧫ Misconstruction

mis·con·struc·tion

ˌ/miskənˈstrəkSH(ə)n/

noun

The action of misconstruing words or actions; misinterpretation.

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"How's this even going to work?" Baekhyun asked me, holding up his chemistry textbook. "You shouldn't have agreed to this, Iseul."

After Mr. Choi left, Baekhyun had followed suite in a matter of seconds. I was forced to chase after him when the thought occurred to me that I was supposed to be tutoring him, or whatever our apparently insane teacher had ordered, which I also needed to sort it out with him too. There were a few students milling around in the hallway, but when I found Baekhyun, he was slowly dragging his feet towards the front entrance with as much enthusiasm as I felt. Which was how I ended up slowly losing my temper.

I was about to yell at him that my name was Iseul when I realized he was doing it on purpose to annoy me. "If you didn't get a zero on that test, it would've never happened," I retorted, feeling my temper rising. "By the way, how does anyone even get a zero when guessing on a multiple choice test? That's quite a feat to accomplish. I applaud you.”

He stopped walking for a moment and bowed. "Thank you," he returned in a just as sarcastic voice.

I had to admit, Baekhyun’s sarcasm was more advanced than me, so I didn’t even try to reply to his thank you.

"Whatever. We need to sort this out," I attempted, though it was quite obvious Baekhyun didn't want to talk about his chemistry marks or anything that had any remote relevance to chemistry. "Maybe at twelve every Saturday we can meet somewhere for an hour—"

"You're actually taking this seriously?" he asked incredulously. "Can't you just tell him that you were teaching me and never do it? Besides, I can't go on Saturday, especially in the middle of the day. That's just ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous?"

"Who meets up on a Saturday morning to learn stuff? I have plans on Saturdays."

"With what?"

"My friends?" he asked if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

I can't with this guy, I inwardly groaned. I can't. There's something wrong with him. What if I had left the classroom sooner? What if that idiot hadn't knocked over my pencil case? What if I hasn't gotten a ninety eight on this test? I would've never been in this situation.

"Seriously, Iseul!” he said again. I didn’t even know I was staring at him in what probably looked like annoyed disbelief until he raised his hands in a surrendering pose. “I’m not lying. It’s not like I’m trying to make excuses to escape this -- actually, I don’t need excuses to escape it. There’s seriously no shame in trying to avoid studying and being tutored by someone, no offense. Just tell Choi that you did it or something.”

A blast of cold air greeted me as I shoved open the school doors. Baekhyun followed close behind, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his coat, hunching his shoulders forward. “Not going to work,” I told him. “Look, I don’t really want to do this but I literally have one choice. You’ve seen how scary Mr. Choi is when he’s mad. You may not be scared of him, but I am.”

“Not scared of him?” Baekhyun let out a long breath, which came out in white puffs in front of him. He shuddered. “Anyone in the right mind would be scared of Choi. I don’t care if he fails me, but he has that crazy look when he’s mad like, I’m going to hunt you down and make you sorry. Seriously.”

If it were possible, I would’ve choked on air in disbelief. After all that sassing Byun Baekhyun did, he declared that the teacher was scary? If he had thought Choi was scary, wouldn’t he have shut his mouth the moment he was yelled at? I voiced my thoughts at him.

“I sassed him?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure if I was losing brain cells because of all the utter stupidity spilling out of his mouth, or if I was losing brain cells by simply being in a three meter radius of Byun Baekhyun. “If you hadn’t, then I probably wouldn’t be here now. Nor would you, for the fact.”

“. . .oh.”

We walked in uncomfortable silence for a while when I finally found the ability to speak again. “So, what time works, then?”

He groaned. “You really are serious about this?”

“I wish I wasn’t. As I said, we can do it every Saturday at twelve. I’ll meet you at a public library or something.”

We reached the bus stop, which seemed to be where he was going too. I could see my breath billowing out in white clouds in front of me, like smoke. My cheeks felt frozen, and the cold was seeping right through the jacket I had on. I desperately wished I was home at the moment. The sun was still out, but I had a feeling that I’d be dark before I got home and I normally always brought a pocket knife out with me after dark. In fact, I tried to avoid going out after dark completely, though that was getting harder due to the shorter days and longer nights winter offered. It practically limited me into coming home at somewhere between five or six, though safety ruled more or less above comfort.

“Can’t we meet at night and not in the middle of the day?” Baekhyun asked yet again. I had been to lost in the thought of getting home to hear him until he had asked me for the fourth time. “Iseul, are you even listening?”

“Huh? Yeah.”

“You’re not,” he said in an accusatory voice as if I never said anything. “Anyways, I don’t want to go to the library to get taught. I mean, Choi probably wants that. Being tutored by a classmate in a library seems… it’s too much for me. Can’t we just go to my house instead?”

Breaking into a fit of coughing seemed to be the proper response to that sentence.“What?” I managed to get out between coughs.

He frowned at me like he hadn’t said anything wrong. I figured that Byun Baekhyun didn’t even hear eighty percent of the things he said, because there was no other logical explanation for him.

“Can’t you just come over to my house or something on Saturday night? Library is too quiet. I don’t really like libraries,” he explained (not that it would even count as explain, because it wasn’t making any sense to me) in a patient voice. He then frowned rather thoughtfully. “Librarians don't seem to like me either.”

It took me a couple of seconds to respond and for his words to actually compute into my head, then a couple more seconds for me to stop coughing, then a couple more to calm myself down. By the time I finally spoke Baekhyun had raised an eyebrow expectantly at me like he had been waiting for me to speak for a long time. “Okay, let me get this straight,” I said incredulously. “You want me to go to your house to teach you? Instead of a library, which would be a considerable amount safer?”

He frowned. “Why not?”

Hello, we barely know each other? And not only that, I had always been taught to never go to a stranger’s house. Not that Byun Baekhyun really counted as a stranger, but still, I didn’t exactly know him that well. In fact, the only friends’ house I had ever been in was probably Jihyun, and she was a close friend and not a boy. 

“Library,” I insisted. “I’m not going to your house.”

“Exactly what Choi wants,” Baekhyun grumbled back, kicking snow onto the road. He was still wearing sneakers despite the fact that there was at least ten centimeters of snow, so I figured that I wouldn’t waste anymore time arguing with his logic. “Seriously, why can’t we just go to my house? It’s not like I’m going to kidnap you or something. Actually, you were the one who did that last time-”

“I did not kidnap you.”

“-and besides, we know each other. My parents aren't…they won't be there. No one will bother us.”

Yeah, I kinda rather your parents be there, Baekhyun. Someone’s going to kill me before I’m in a house alone with you.

“Iseul! Seriously, do you even