Chapter 23: Busted

My curiosity beat my common sense when I found myself tip toeing towards the front door and stuck my ear by the door. Of course, I couldn’t hear anything from it and I wonder whether he would’ve realized if I open it slightly.

I’m getting so curious, it’s driving me crazy! Why is Yerin calling him late at night? Why did he even answer it? Why do they talk for so long? What do they even talk about?

All these questions nearly made my head explode as I tried to ease myself mentally with the answer I couldn’t find myself convinced by it.

“No matter what, we always feel we have connection. And I don’t want anybody to ruin that. So Hana, back off.”

Baekhyun couldn’t possibly think the same, did he?

The sound of the door opening made me flinched, driving me out of the wave of insecurities and I was met with a questioning look by Baekhyun. My face contorted into the same expression as well, thinking what was so weird that he was staring at me like that and then, I realized I was standing bare footed by the entrance, deep in my own trance.

“What are you doing here?”

Oh damn, my brain suddenly shut down. “Nothing.” I answered and walked ahead of him back into the house, didn’t even dare to look at him, afraid that he’ll find out. “Who are you talking to?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as I could.

Please, be honest with me. I’m okay if you tell me it’s Yerin. Just tell me.

“It’s nobody, just a friend asking how I’ve been doing.”

“But at first, you look upset.”

“That’s because I thought someone got a wrong number calling me.” He nonchalantly replied, too nonchalant that I can’t help but frowning at how smooth he was lying to me. “You know how barely I ever really go out except hanging out with Chanyeol and Jongdae. And I’ve gotten really busy being with you,” he placed his arms around my waist and left a kiss on my forehead before he went to the former spot he was at earlier and back on with his seemingly evil plan.

“Is that all?”

That finally perked Baekhyun’s attention when I heard him sighing lowly. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. If your friends want to meet you, you should meet them. I seriously wouldn’t want to get in the way. ” Honestly, I would’ve believed if I didn’t hear her name. He had a lot of friends, hang out with a lot of them, someone as outgoing as him was someone who everyone knew he would’ve a lot of acquaintances around him. I know him…but I heard her name and I can’t get it out of my head.

It was normal in this era to see people looking at their phone for almost 24/7. It was almost everyone’s companion, a gadget anyone couldn’t live without. But I’ve started to get wary every time I saw how Baekhyun typing away something on his phone or snorted at the text he read or even when his phone blinked with incoming texts that he didn’t even bother checking when he was with me.

There were once I asked him what he was laughing at and it was a funny meme of Chanyeol’s ugly face that Jongdae edited and sent out in their group chat room to make fun of him. “This is not funny anymore.” Baekhyun hissed when Jongdae started sending in his faces next.

Baekhyun turned to me. “Do you know how to make memes out of this ugly er?”

I can’t help but burst into fit of laughter while crushing his serious face because I found that to be too adorable.

There was nothing to doubt about. It had been on for days and every time I asked, he wasn’t hiding anything. Just except for that one night. No trance of Yerin or whatsoever. But it kept bothering me.

So, I would say that had made me come to have slight dislike – I found hate to be too strong to describe her when my mind itself was making me having this messed up feeling – towards Yerin.

~~~

“What is this, honestly?” I whined, throwing the envelope away on my table. I didn’t even bother to look more into the content of the letter when I recognized the name displayed on top. The former president of photography club, 2014/2015, the biggest jackass in university I have met.

He was a talented guy with decent look, I admit but that sure made him have an attitude I can’t stand of. How I wish he is a cab driver now, life seriously need to pull down that man so that he knew what modesty is.

“Alumni reunion? Oh, I think that’ll be fun. There’ll be so much of memories to remind of. I’d love to have a day to reminisce those times.” Jinae chimed as she stared at the letter dreamily.

“But none of those I want to be reminded of.” I snapped and that surprised her, only realizing that it wasn’t the same situation for me so she muttered “Sorry.” while grinning innocently. “I bet they’ll just going to ask for money for the club funding and wanting to know how ed up everyone is now and brag about theirs and continue bragging and on and on.”

“You’re not at loss. Just show off Baekhyun to them and they’ll shut up for sure. No one can hit jackpot twice. Then they know how much they have underestimated you.”

“Do I look like I’m someone who would do that?”

“That’s your problem!” Jinae scolded. “You always get self-conscious when people darted you with such comments but you never realized your own values that those people couldn’t see except those who loves you.” I snickered at her sudden emotional outburst. “Are you going?”

“I don’t know.” I leaned against the chair and massaged my temple.

~~~

“So, you’re saying you wrote this book?”

“You saw the autograph inside.”

“It could be you pranking on me. I swear if this was actually scribbles to get on my nerves-“

“Tell me how many Byun Baekhyun you have known in this world.” Baekhyun stated casually while biting off his chicken before continuing while chewing. “How many are there Byun Baekhyun in this world? Very little.” He emphasized.

“You mean, like you?” I interrupted. “One of a kind.” I smirked at him which I heard Sehun groaned in annoyance in response. “What’s the big deal anyway, Sehun?”

“It is a huge deal. Dahee ignored me for days for this and you know how I rarely read – “

Baekhyun shook his head from the side. “You guys sound the same when talking about that. It sure runs in the blood.”

“I just want to know if there’s continuation or not. I’m curious to death to know if there’ll be a continuation to this series,” and Sehun turned to Baekhyun. “If you are the writer, you would have known. Would there be?”

“It’s private and confidential, of course.” Baekhyun acted snobbishly, knowing how he had the upper hand on Sehun now. “We aren’t even that close and the last time I remember, you call me an –“

“Hyung!” Sehun exclaimed. “We can get close. You’re dating my sister. We’re nearly like family, don’t we? Would you let me call you hyung and tell me what’s going to happen?”

I gaped at the sudden interest. “Ya Oh Sehun, you didn’t even acknowledge me as your sis –“

“Hyung?” Baekhyun feigned a look of disinterest. For god sake, I knew how he was jumping on the inside. They were making me laughing at this sight of these two were acting.

“You’re cool. Like really cool. I really found you to be super cool. I mean I’ve never read any books before because it was usually written by a bunch of boring people but you are not boring. Dahee can’t stop talking about you. She even sent out a lot of emails to you. She is a really a big fan of you.”

“From what I’m seeing, I think you’re the big fan.” I commented.

“You’re right. I’m your fan. Seriously hyung, Jiwon is not dead like what the others thought at the end, right? She is actually watching over their every move without them knowing and plans for a revenge, right? How can bad guys got away in the end? Does that even make sense?”

“Is this horror story? Like someone wake up from their death?” I spoke absentmindedly as I have no idea what Sehun was talking about but wanted to let them know that I’m here, in case they’re starting to forget me. I'm getting an headache, there's too many words in one page. Manhwa would've been better.

“Let’s get close, hyung.” Sehun sure didn’t fail to make my jaw hanging open.

Baekhyun scrunched his nose like he wasn’t so pleased with the suggestion. “I don’t know.  Brother in law sounds a lot better to me.”

“You’re kidding me, seriously. Brother in law?”

“What is wrong with that? It’s a good practice for the future.” I can’t hold in my laughter when it came to him and his stupid thoughts. He was unbelievable.