Chapter 5 – Jealousy… desire

FIRST OF ALL BEFORE WE GET INTO THIS CHAPTER I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL THE ANGELS WHO HAVE COMMENTED AND LEFT KUDOS. You've been like a big motivational stick up my  this whole time, pushing me to actually finish this monster. Thank you so much!! <3<3

Also, BAEKHYUN CREATED A YOUTUBE CHANNEL OMG?????? Can you even believe? GO SUBSCRIBE HERE

And also I am SUPER SORRY for taking so long to upload this chapter! I wrote most of it a week ago, but then school got all crazy and I had to try not to whack half my classmates' asses because they're JERKS, and then I had 209580 exams so I had to postpone my fanfiction duties until today. I hope you can understand, and as said I'm SO SORRY. Next time I upload late you can all whoop my . ( T n T )

ALSO ALSO ALSO, I'm sorry if this chapter is super clunky at times? Writer's block was a real pain this time. Hopefully I figure my  out next chapter though!

Chanyeol couldn’t help but feel disappointed by Baekhyun’s absence from school on Monday. True to the man’s word, him and Soojung had taken their senior class on their end-of-year field trip to the Seoul Arts Centre, leaving the canteen unusually quiet without the addition of the fifty odd students that were away. Over the past week, Chanyeol had quickly realised that the theatre students were some of the school’s loudest, and there hadn’t been a single instance during any of his lunchbreaks where there hadn’t at least been a small gathering of them at one of the tables, avidly rehearsing their lines for an upcoming production or practicing the lyrics to a song. Of course, even with the seniors currently away, there was still the low hum of conversation throughout the place, but something was definitely missing, and that missing something—or someone—resulted in Chanyeol ending up having to eat with all the other visual arts teachers, sitting squashed uncomfortably between Kyungsoo and Minseok at one of the crowded canteen tables as he stared at his dosirak in disinclination. His mother had filled it with beautiful, handmade gimbap rolls and yet, despite how good they looked, he had no appetite. The uncanny quiet in the canteen was unsettling him, making him feel awkward.

As the silence pressed on, he felt more and more eager to break it until finally he resorted to striking up conversation with Minseok, who was busy texting his wife.

“Hey, Minseok,” he said, before placing the lid back on his dosirak for later. Peering up from his unsent text message, the man turned to him, his eyes wide and curious.

“Mmh?” he prompted, before reaching out to pick up his Styrofoam coffee cup from his tray and take a sip.

Chanyeol fumbled with the hem of his sleeve for a moment before asking, “when will the senior theatre students be back from their field trip?”

Minseok lowered his coffee cup, brows furrowed in thought for a moment before he replied, “well, it depends on where they went. I wasn’t informed of this year’s destination.”

“The Seoul Arts Centre,” Chanyeol informed him, recalling his conversation with Baekhyun in the school car park on Friday.

“Oh,” Minseok amended, “well, there’s a lot to see there… they’ll probably be gone the whole day, then. Why?” he eyed Chanyeol inquiringly before reaching past him to steal a sandwich square from Kyungsoo, who grunted some indignant response in return.

“Oh, uh… no reason,” Chanyeol managed, realising that he hadn’t actually thought as far as the reason for his question yet.

“He probably wants to check up on his muse,” Amber called across the table at them. Chanyeol blanched, eyes wide and incredulous as he stared at her. ’How could she possibly know?’ he thought, ‘had Baekhyun told her something—?’

“Ah, it seems Madame Jung has yet another admirer,” Jongdae chimed in with a wink in Chanyeol’s direction, obviously having been listening in on their discussion.

“W-wait, it’s not—I don’t—” Chanyeol began, but Jongdae cut him off, looking far too amused as he stated, “it’s nothing to be ashamed of. She isenchanting, but many have fallen under her spell, only to be turned down… I wouldn’t risk it; behind the mask she’s the devil incarnate.”

The table erupted into laughter at the exaggerated comment. Even Chanyeol, despite feeling a little overwhelmed at being the of the joke, found himself joining in, the awkward aura from just seconds before dissipating into a silly sense of merriment that remained with them for the remainder of the afternoon.

The next day, however, their mood turned far more serious. In the morning, everyone had to attend a mandatory check-in meeting with their departments’ heads to present their progress reports, and needless to say, Chanyeol’s was crappy. Despite watching Grease five times over the last two days, he’d found little inspiration for his rewrite, and thus had only been able to present a few bars. Junmyeon had still been as reassuring as ever, insisting that Chanyeol would become more inspired with time, but his words of encouragement had fallen on deaf ears as Chanyeol mentally reprimanded himself for messing up so badly in his very first progress check-in.

By the time the whole ordeal was finally over, most of them were beyond unmotivated for their afternoon rehearsals. Kyungsoo had scheduled a joint vocal rehearsal for the vocal and theatre students, and as the visual arts teachers and the theatre coordinators crowded around the piano in the far corner of his and Chanyeol’s classroom, Chanyeol sat himself down quietly at their shared desk, away from the crowd, and let out a soft sigh. Peering over at the group, Chanyeol watched as Jongdae started playing some major scales on the piano for the students to warm up with. Beside them, Kyungsoo was pacing up and down the piano’s length, flipping through sheet music with a scowl on his face, whilst the other teachers were quietly conversing with each other, the sound drowned out by the chorus of the students’ voices, accompanied by Jongdae’s piano playing.

The sight seemed so complete—rehearsed even—like it had happened so many times already that everyone had just fallen into an unspoken routine, and it made Chanyeol wonder why he was even there. He couldn’t instruct the students on their singing, nor could he be of much musical assistance, as the room was already full of other, more experienced individuals as far as theatrical scores were concerned. However, his remaining classes for the day had been put on hold for the rehearsals, and attendance was mandatory for all the music and vocal teachers, so he couldn’t even make use of his lack of participation to try and find inspiration for his rewrite—

His train of thought was brought to a rather abrupt halt by a sudden bzzt bzzting coming from his phone where he’d placed it on the desk. Rolling his eyes, Chanyeol glanced over at the screen. It was a text from Yoora. Pursing his lips together in a thin line, his eyes flickered over to the crowd of other teachers for a second before he picked his phone up to read it.

'So, who is he?’ it read.

Chanyeol’s brows furrowed in confusion. Sliding his hands down so he was holding the device just out of view beneath the desk, he typed, ’who is who?’

It wasn’t two seconds later that Yoora replied, ’the GUY that stole you away on Saturday, duh.’ She followed the text up with two emojis rolling their eyes.

Why was everyone on his case all of a sudden? It wasn’t like Chanyeol walked around with love-hearts for eyes, picking the petals off of flowers, wondering “he loves me, he loves me not” aloud for the world to hear. This was becoming absurd.

’It wasn’t a DATE Yoora. I had to fetch something from a co-worker and we ended up eating together,’ he texted back, and it wasn’t strictly a lie, just a stretch of the truth.

’Is he cute though?’ came Yoora’s reply after a short pause in their conversation. Just as Chanyeol felt his cheeks start to burn, the text was followed up by another. ’Sorry, Soongyu grabbed my phone,’ it read, and Chanyeol couldn’t help but smile, shaking his head as he turned back to the other teachers. They were still all chattering amongst each other, though the students had stopped practicing for a short break and some of them had left the room to get some fresh air. Jongdae was still seated at the piano, studying some sheet music—probably the score Kyungsoo had been flipping through earlier—accompanied by Baekhyun, who had materialised out of thin air it seemed and was now leaning on Jongdae’s shoulders, peering over his head to read along with him, his lips drawn into a concentrated pout.

Completely drawn into the scene, Chanyeol barely realised his phone slipping through his suddenly clammy fingers until it fell to the floor with an unpleasant thunk. Jumping, Chanyeol looked down, hastily picked it up and looked it over, the screen to assess any possible damage to it. As he unlocked it, his phone opened up to his chat with his sister, the open question of ’Is he cute though?’ still open, unanswered, the bright colours from his Line wallpaper burning into his eyes, nagging for him to reply. Gnawing at the inside of his lip, Chanyeol stared at the words for a moment, before finally answering, ’almost too cute to be true.’

He could practically hear Soongyu and his sister squealing on the other end, though instead of engaging further with the two women, he turned back to the piano, flipping his phone between his hands as he studied the two men there, contemplating whether or not to get up and go talk to them.

However, by the time he decided to go over to them, the two of them had already started talking. They seemed to be talking about the music, or at least, it seemed that way until Baekhyun leant down to whisper something in Jongdae’s ear. As Baekhyun spoke, one of his hands slid up from Jongdae’s shoulder to his jaw, causing the man to simper at the clearly ticklish trail his fingers had traced, and then he was angling the man’s head to the side, his face so close to Jongdae’s neck that he could probably feel the man’s pulse—

Chanyeol forced his eyes off of them, shocked. His eyebrows were drawn so tightly together that the muscles of his face were hurting, though feeling was dampened by a sudden constricting in his chest, the sensation overwhelming Chanyeol completely.

Just what the hell was Baekhyun doing? Wasn’t that a little… unseemly a gesture for the workplace? Moreover, how could it possibly be appropriate in front of someone that Baekhyun had been giving signals to…? Or perhaps he hadn’t even been giving Chanyeol any signals at all? Maybe it was all just wishful thinking on Chanyeol’s part and had only been intended as polite friendliness all along?

“I wouldn’t worry about them,” came a voice from behind him suddenly, startling him. Whirling around, Chanyeol peered up to find Kyungsoo standing there, rummaging through some files in a set of drawers. Seemingly having found what he was looking for, he pulled a file out, turned to face Chanyeol.

“Baekhyun has no boundaries. Flirting is like a sport to him… I know that probably won’t make the sight any more pleasant, but it’s something to think about, at least,” he said, matter-of-factly. Chanyeol turned back to look at the two teachers again. Baekhyun had essentially draped himself over Jongdae like a coat, and the two of them were tittering uncontrollably. There seemed to be quite the connection between the two of them, some strong bond probably formed through years of friendship.

Did their close physicality really mean nothing? Was it all really just a game to Baekhyun?

“I think I’m going to go get some air,” Chanyeol declared abruptly, already rising to his feet to make a beeline for the door. Once outside, he turned down the hall towards the bathrooms, his feet carrying him as quickly as possible without breaking into a full on jog. He needed to get away from everyone, take a second to calm down.

Unfortunately, he never managed to get as far as the bathrooms. Just as he reached door to the men’s room, Junmyeon’s voice came flooding down the hall.

“Chanyeol, hold up!” he was calling. Popping his head back out of the small alcove that led to the bathrooms, he saw the visual arts director jogging up the stairs, taking them two at a time. There was a wide smile on his face that seemed a little unbefitting of the current circumstances.

Regardless, Chanyeol plastered on a similar smile, headed back out into the open to greet the man.

“Mr. Kim…?” he prompted, bowing to the man as he approached.

Coming to a stop in front of Chanyeol, Junmyeon took a second to fix his already-immaculate jacket’s lapels, smoothing his hands over the fabric before speaking.

“I wanted to come and inform you that your classroom is ready. You can settle in as soon as you want. Here’s the key.” Reaching out, he handed it to Chanyeol, a warm smile gracing his lips.

“Oh… thank you, sir,” Chanyeol said, gladly accepting the key and pocketing it. The man just nodded, placed a hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder, before heading past him towards Kyungsoo’s classroom. Chanyeol remained in place, his thoughts flying a mile a minute as Junmyeon’s footsteps slowly grew distant.

Then, “wait, Mr. Kim!” he called, spinning on his heel and jogging after the man. Junmyeon turned to face him, hand braced against Kyungsoo’s classroom door, a bemused look on his face.

“Could I go move my things now? I’d like to get it done before my classes tomorrow,” Chanyeol said, and it was true. He really did want to set the classroom up as soon as possible. It would mean finally being able to teach in a space that was his own. Plus, he would also be able to get out of the rehearsals, though Junmyeon didn’t have to know about that part.

“Well, if you feel it’d be the best use of your time, then sure,” Junmyeon answered. “You can get someone to help speed things up, if you’d like.”

Chanyeol perked up at that. “Thank you, sir,” he said, following Junmyeon into the classroom to grab his guitar case. Scanning the room, he took note of Amber, who was leaning against the broad windowsill that lined the far side of the room, scrolling through something on her phone. Grinning, he made his way over to her.

“Hey, want to get out of here?” he prompted, deliberately lowering his voice to an almost comical timbre. Amber looked up at him, snorted.

“More than anything,” she said, before asking, “where to?”

“My new classroom. Junmyeon said I could have someone help me move my things, and seeing as you look just about as bored as I feel, I figured you were the most worthy candidate of being saved.”

Amber poised a finger against her chin in mock-thought, before answering, “deal,” and following Chanyeol through the room as they collected his sheet music from where he’d left it scattered about during his last class the day before.

***

Chanyeol’s classroom wasn’t quite as big as Kyungsoo’s, but it wasn’t far off, either. The room was a bit of an odd shape, with a small recess at the back where it extended behind the boiler room next door. There definitely wasn’t enough room for a grand piano, but Chanyeol could probably make room for the keyboard in his studio if need be.

As him and Amber got to work moving chairs and desks around, they fell into an amiable silence, with Amber humming some new pop song whilst Chanyeol focused on deciding where his teacher’s desk ought to go. In the end, the small recess by the back windows seemed like the best option, so he heaved it across the room from where it was beside the door.

“You know,” Amber said finally once she was done arranging the students’ desks in rows facing the blackboard lining the classroom’s east wall, “I think I was probably an architect in another life. Just look at how neat these rows are!”

Peering up from where he was filing his sheet music in his desk drawers, Chanyeol took in the neatly lined up desks, impressed.

“Wow, what a waste of talents,” he commented, earning himself a playful scowl from Amber, which he returned in kind.

“All that’s missing now is a bookcase for all your music,” Amber said, moving over to the empty stretch of wall by the door and mapping it out with her hands. “You could probably put it over he—” cutting herself off, she peered through the doorframe out into the hall, a frown on her face. From where he was standing by his desk, Chanyeol couldn’t quite make out what she was looking at.

“Hey,” she said, her voice taking on a domineering tone as she spoke to whoever was coming. “You’re not allowed in until we’re done.”

“Relax, I’m here to help,” the voice said, and Chanyeol felt his gut drop. Baekhyun.

“Fine, but only if Chanyeol’s okay with it. He’s got major OCD with the desks—” Chanyeol offered her a look that shut her up.

The two teachers were looking at him expectantly, Amber with an eager look in her eyes, Baekhyun with something darker that he couldn’t quite make out. Somehow, it made Chanyeol scared to speak, almost like he wasn’t sure what his voice would sound like if he did.

“W-well, uh…” he began, but he was cut off by Amber as she started rummaging through her left trouser pocket.

“Actually, it’s perfect timing, Baekhyun. I could really do with a smoke.” Peering over her shoulder, Amber winked at Chanyeol before heading out of the classroom, already pulling her e-cigarette out of her pocket.

Chanyeol watched her leave, eyes fixed on the back of her head as she walked away. Once she was completely out of view, he turned around, busied himself with sorting through the last batch of music notes on his desk, unsure of what else to do.

Behind him, he could hear Baekhyun setting his bag down. It was just before 5PM, so he had probably spotted them on his way home.

“So,” he said, and he sounded closer than he had been a moment ago. “Were you just planning on avoiding me all afternoon?”

Chanyeol whirled around at that, his blood pressure rising along with his temper. Baekhyun was leaning against the desk closest to his own, a cool expression on his face as he stared Chanyeol down.

“Were you planning on leading me on for long?” he countered, his voice so low that if Baekhyun hadn’t been expecting him to speak, he probably wouldn’t have heard it.

“What do you mean?” Baekhyun asked, pushing himself off the desk so he was standing almost eye-to-eye with Chanyeol.

“You lead me on into thinking you were—were interested in me, and then you go and treat Jongdae the same! Does that mean nothing to you?” Chanyeol countered vehemently, his voice growing hoarse as it rose in timbre.

Baekhyun apparently didn’t quite know what to say to that. Throwing his hands up in the air, he said, “what do you want me to say? That flirting is like a sport to me? That I enjoy it? It’s superficial, Chanyeol. It doesn’t mean anything!”

“Oh, so your behaviour towards me was also just ‘superficial’?” Chanyeol asked, taken aback.

Now it was Baekhyun’s turn to explode. “No!” he exclaimed. “Because I wasn’t just flirting with you, Chanyeol! There’s a difference between flirting and buying someone lunch. That’s where things go into making-a-move territory!”

“Well then why would you even make a move on me in the first place?”

“… Because you’re my type, okay?” Baekhyun ran a hand through his hair, seemingly exasperated.

That made Chanyeol snort. “What, ‘tall and awkward’?” he asked, tone sardonic. “And what about your wife? I’m sure she didn’t exactly fit my profil—”

Chanyeol’s tirade was cut off by Baekhyun storming forwards, almost colliding with him as he shoved Chanyeol against his desk.

“No, Chanyeol! It’s not because of that,” he said, that stormy look finally gone from his eyes as he stared up at Chanyeol. “It’s because you’re ing cute, okay? That’s my type. I don’t care how monstrously tall you are.” There was a smile tugging at his lips, and suddenly it dawned on Chanyeol just how close they were.

“O-oh…” he managed, awkwardly angling his head down to peer at the other man. “Thanks…” The word came out as more of a question though as he searched Baekhyun’s face for any possible trace of a lie. Despite his best efforts, however, there was none to be found, and as Baekhyun drew closer, bracing a bold hand on Chanyeol’s hip, Chanyeol couldn’t find any fault in leaning in, his eyes fluttering shut as Baekhyun drew so close that their lips were almost touching—

“Hey, are you losers done yet? The caretaker just tried to kick me out,” Amber exclaimed indignantly as she walked into the classroom. The two teachers hastily broke apart, Baekhyun immediately grabbing his satchel off the desk he’d left it on and plastering his best fake smile on his face, saying, “well, I guess we should get the hell out of here, then,” to which Amber agreed, and Chanyeol couldn’t help but feel a faint twinge of satisfaction at the blush spreading down Baekhyun’s neck as he followed along after them.