Warning(s): some cursing
Length: 10.4k words

  03: reaction  

[ 1 ]

 

 

When Baekhyun moved to the United States to study law, it was one of the biggest culture shocks he had ever experienced. To this day, nothing compared to how awed he was by his first day in California, USA. Everything was just different. The weather. The people. The freedom. It choked him up, and he couldn’t believe that he was going to spend the next few years of his life there. He was more than a new student—he was a new person, and he held the desire to fit in with his new peers.

 

Cue the party scene.

 

Drinks flowed at those parties so freely and endlessly that it was easy to lose one’s self in the madness. Too ing easy. One drink always led to another, another led into a binge, and the next thing anyone would know, they were drunk at the bottom of a set of stairs.

 

Baekhyun, too eager to please, descended into the downward spiral of alcoholism within a month. All his friends were doing it, after all. And it was fun. No matter how destructive the parties he attended got, it was fun. So fun, too fun. He felt like he was at the top of the world. He made friends so easily when he was drunk, and god did he love the reputation he got. But eventually, he had to return to the real world, and the real world included hangovers, dependency, and most importantly—unhappy professors and betrayed friends.

 

The thing about alcohol was that if you weren’t careful enough, it’d take over your life in a heartbeat.

 

At first, Baekhyun refused to seek help. He never saw himself as someone who even had a problem in the first place. In fact, he thought everyone just wanted to hinder his youthful experience. However, he did come to his senses, and when he did, it was the hardest thing to do. Accepting the fact that he had a problem was hard enough, sure, but then it was actually trying to fix his problem.

 

Withdrawal. AA meetings. Crying. One or two relapses occurring just after a week of freedom. It wasn’t just difficult. It was nearly impossible. Nearly. Because now, Baekhyun is a testament of what dedication and hard work can do to people.

 

Point is, if he can get over alcoholism, he can get over anything.

 

Anything.

 

 

[ 2 ]

 

 

Baekhyun had known Kwon Taehee for years, so when she called him to take over her position as an English teacher while she attended to family matters, he didn’t hesitate to accept her offer. After all, he hadn’t properly visited Korea since his mother died, and that was ages ago. Not only that, he was intrigued at the prospect of taking a break from courtroom activities to teach once more. 

 

It wasn’t supposed to be anything else but a teaching gig, and he really didn’t expect to make much friends. In fact, he didn’t want to make friends. Korea was far behind him, and he had told himself countless of times that he wanted to establish his own law practice in the United States when the time came. Perhaps he would even take a job as a law professor in his alma matter. Point was, this teaching job would just be a teaching job—maybe even part vacation.

 

For the first few weeks, it was exactly that. He taught English and English literature for five days a week, went to a student’s house or a nearby library to tutor her, went home, read a few books, went to the movie theater, visited the bookstore, jogged in the morning, explored new restaurants and places, and had one-night stands here and there. It was perfect and undisturbed.

 

But in between all the peace he was enjoying, he noticed how a few of his students seemed to gain a particular fixation on him. He noticed it quickly too since his career as a lawyer taught him how to assess and evaluate situations at a moment’s notice.

 

There were three students that he noted gave him the most attention.

 

One of them was Park Chaewon. She was a rather shy and quiet student—her hair always covered her large sections of her face, and she showed her intrigue in him extremely subtle ways. In the mornings, before classes started, Baekhyun found encouraging notes on his desk (“you’ll do great today!” or “I’m looking forward to today’s lessons!”) that was signed with her name. When he approached her to thank her, she was notably shy and had a lot of trouble looking into his eyes. Slowly, the notes turned into something else. Soon, Chaewon was giving him coupons for free food or small bottled drinks. In his experience, people didn’t just do that on a whim every single day.

 

The second was Lee Naeun. She showed her intrigue in braver ways. Firstly, she was always approaching him before or after class and asking him about schoolwork. Normally, he wouldn’t think much of it, but the things she asked were always so simple and searchable to the point that there was no reason for her to ask him unless she just wanted to talk to him. Secondly, she always managed to find him in the hallway and ask about his weekend or a seemingly random topic. Now, it could have easily been dismissible, but Naeun was doing it too often for it to be a random occurrence.

 

Baekhyun was flattered, of course, that his students were giving him so much attention. He thought it was cute and a little endearing, but it ended there. They were just students, after all; they were simply channeling their excess energy onto him. Simply thinking about how adventurous a relationship with a teacher would be. Simply nothing serious.

 

But there was the third student—Kim Miyoung.

 

Kim Miyoung didn’t seem like anyone particular to him when Baekhyun first met her. She seemed liked every other student in the room: driven, intelligent, and naïve. He didn’t think much of her for the first few weeks he gave her tutoring lessons, to be honest, but he quickly realized that she held affection for him much like Chaewon and Naeun did.

 

Baekhyun noticed the subtle things first, like her inclination to ask him several questions at a time—first with schoolwork and then his personal life. Then he noticed how frequently she zoned in and out of tutoring sessions. Then he started seeing her at his favorite restaurant more and more frequently. Then she started quoting romantic poetry to him. Then she started to openly talk about her mystery crush to him. Signs blatant like those were hard to miss. He was always greeted with a smile, and like in cheesy teen movies, her eyes always seemed so awed at the very sight of him.

 

Now, he was very flattered, and if she was ten years older and not his student, he would have reciprocated. But again—he was the adult, and she was just a student.

 

A young, naïve student.

 

A student that he had to see nearly every day of the week.

 

A student who was infatuated with the idea of him.

 

It didn’t take long for Miyoung to become a distracting student as well. She wasn’t distracting in the way she was tempting, but she was distracting in the way she was always so talkative and distracted around him. In addition to that, Baekhyun liked it. He actually liked it. He liked her presence, her determination, the way she said certain words in English. He liked how she was always talking about literature and poetry, and it took a special type of determination in him to tell her that they needed to be doing schoolwork because he didn’t want to do schoolwork either.

 

Then Miyoung started talking about “some guy” she in which she found interest. At that point, Baekhyun started to feel less flattered and more terrible. He never liked to make assumptions, but he knew that each time she talked about the mystery fellow, she was talking about him. It was pitiful, and he encouraged her to act on her feelings by telling whoever she liked how she truly felt. There was a small flicker of hope in Baekhyun that she would, but she never did, and he felt terrible for it.

 

He knew what crushes were like; he had a few of them in his life, and while they could be fun, they weren’t fun when one was impossibly unattainable. At the very least, he wished that she’d just tell him so he could assure her that everything was going to be okay.

 

As Miyoung’s teacher, Baekhyun didn’t want to embarrass her by outing her. He didn’t want to be the one to say “I know you’re interested in me, but all we’ll ever be is friends,” so he didn’t say anything. Should he have said something? Perhaps he should have, but as her friend, he didn’t want to confront her like that. It would have broken her heart.

 

“Sounds like that girl really likes you,” his friend, Minseok, said one day over the phone. Baekhyun had just informed him of what had been happening in the last few weeks, and now he was looking for advice, but Minseok’s words gave him no solace. “Don’t give her false hope,” Minseok had said. “Set the line straight. You’re the adult. Don’t lead her on to believe things.”

 

Baekhyun swore to God that he wasn’t giving Miyoung any of that, and he had even emphasized the word friend to her on separate occasions, so why did she kiss him?

 

 

[ 3 ]

 

 

“Should I have ran out after her?” Baekhyun questioned his close friend, Seulgi, a mere twenty minutes after Miyoung kissed him.

 

“I don’t know. I don’t encourage this type of behavior from subordinates,” Seulgi said rather condescendingly. She had agreed to meet with Baekhyun at his apartment after he frantically called her. They had been friends since they were children, and at this point, she was the only one in Korea that Baekhyun trusted enough with what just happened. (Though, he was starting to question this decision.)

 

“You think I provoked this?” Baekhyun scoffed. “Seul, she kissed me.”

 

“Well, something in her head must have told her that it was okay to do that.” Seulgi, being a young and upcoming fashion journalist, was always known for being snarky and upfront—but this was too much for Baekhyun. He felt offended that she would think that he, a professional and a grown man, would purposely incite one of his own students to do something like kiss him. But Seulgi didn’t know how he fumed beneath a layer of cool. “You’re too nice, that’s why. She got the wrong vibes. You should have set the boundaries in stone from the start.”

 

“So, it’s my fault?” he demanded.

 

“Half of it is,” Seulgi corrected. “I mean, what girl is crazy enough to kiss her teacher? Would you ever do that?”

 

“No, I wouldn’t, but I’m not a teenager anymore nor was I a teenage girl. I don’t know what’s going on in her head.” Baekhyun sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. What was going on in Miyoung’s head? Did he really unintentionally provoke something like this? “,” he cursed under his breath, “I don’t want to lose my job over this.”

 

“Why am I even here?” Seulgi asked. “Do you just want someone’s shoulder to cry on?”

 

“Seul, I don’t know what to do.” Baekhyun looked up at her with a frown. She truly had no clue how to empathize with him. Perhaps it was because this was a unique situation, but he expected something more. “I need your help. Please.”

 

“Baek,” Seulgi imitated his exasperated tone, “I don’t know what to tell you. You either tell the stupid girl to quit it and tell her that you’re only her teacher, or try to fix things—which she’ll take the wrong way.” Before Baekhyun could protest, Seulgi was already cutting him off. “And she will take it the wrong way because she’s stupid. Going after a teacher?” Seulgi gagged. “You’ve got to be insanely dumb to do that.”

 

“She’s not dumb, though,” Baekhyun murmured. “I think—”

 

“Do you like her back?” Seulgi snapped. Her brows were arched, and she had crossed her arms. It was the classic pose Seulgi gave to anyone that displeased her.

 

“Not in the way you’re thinking.” Baekhyun rolled his eyes. Of course, he liked Miyoung. She was bright, cheerful, and intelligent. Yes, she was a little (or very) naïve, but he still liked her and wanted to maintain some sort of friendship between them.

 

Seulgi wasn’t having it. “If she wasn’t your student, would you be interested in her?” When Baekhyun didn’t answer within the next five seconds, Seulgi stood up with a heaving sigh. Was it for dramatic effect or was she that exasperated? Baekhyun could never know. “You’re an adult,” Seulgi said. “You already know what you have to do. You don’t need me here to tell you that it’s unprofessional and ethically wrong to let a student believe she has a chance.”

 

“I’m not—”

 

“Don’t argue with me.” Seulgi shook her head. Like Baekhyun, living abroad (for her, it was the United Kingdom and not the States) changed how much more willing she was to yell at him despite him being older. Her English had also started to sound British. “Whatever you do,” she said in a low, more respectful tone, “you need to be careful. Now,” she stood up, “I’m leaving. It’s my third-year anniversary with Joohyun, and I don’t want to be late.”

 

“Have fun,” Baekhyun called out after her halfheartedly.

 

When Seulgi left, Baekhyun groaned out loud and fell backwards onto the cushions of his sofa. It had been years—seven whole years—since he had an alcoholic drink, and he never felt the urge to relapse, but sometimes he missed having even just a slight sip to use as an escape. He would never go back to that life, but god would he do anything forget about his current situation. Anything except drinking, of course. All of that was past him.

 

Baekhyun rose up from his resting position and headed off to his bathroom for a cold shower. He didn’t know what he was going to have to do, and honestly, he didn’t want to know.

 

 

[ 4 ]

 

 

Monday finally came, and Baekhyun was more than glad when it did. He had tried to get in contact with Miyoung, but she never picked up his calls. Of course, he tried reaching out for her parents, but they explained that their daughter was sick with a terrible case of the flu and was unavailable for a proper phone call. Then he tried to reach out to Doyoung, Miyoung’s older brother, but Baekhyun received the same explanation as their parents.

 

But Monday was honestly no better. Miyoung wasn’t at school. It was her first absence in over three years as well.

 

I did this, Baekhyun thought to himself. If he had just reacted better, maybe he wouldn’t feel as terrible as he did now. Miyoung was most likely at home wallowing in her sadness—and it was all his fault. It was simply cruel. She obviously liked him, and he had broken her heart by reacting like a jerk. God, the way she gasped when he saw how he pulled away…

 

“Mr. Byun,” Naeun said cheerfully to him when class had ended. “How was your weekend?”

 

“Could have been better,” Baekhyun replied, barely glancing up at her. Naeun and her antics were endearing and maybe a little cute at first, but now it was just plain annoying. Unlike Miyoung, Naeun had no desire to connect to him on more personal levels; she simply twirled her hair around her finger as if that made her attractive. It only gave Baekhyun a headache.

 

“How?” Naeun continued.

 

“I don’t feel like sharing it with you,” Baekhyun said rather bluntly, taking Naeun by surprise. He had never talked to her—or anyone—like that. “Have a good day, though, Naeun. Make sure you do your assignments. Now, excuse me.”

 

Baekhyun quickly moved past the astonished girl and walked to the parking lot. He wanted nothing else but to confront Miyoung and deeply apologize. After all, yes, he cared about her and didn’t want to see her hurt because of something stupid he did. So, he got into his car, started the engine, and drove as fast as legally possible to her house.

 

When he got there, Doyoung was the one who curiously opened the door.

 

“Um,” Doyoung said with a strange tone (Baekhyun recognized his accent from the moment Doyoung first said anything in English; there was a slight bit of New York mingled in it), “my sister is still sick.”

 

“No, she’s not,” Baekhyun replied confidently. “Can I come in?”

 

Doyoung stood by motionlessly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He glanced behind him as if Miyoung could overhear their conversation. “She told me everything, and I really don’t think she needs to see you out of all people.”

 

“How is she?” Baekhyun gulped as he asked this. Although he had never been through a situation like Miyoung’s, he could imagine the heartbreak because he had felt that before. He wasn’t rejected from the first move, but someone had fallen out of love with him, and that experience was one of the worst feelings in the world. “Is she okay? Is she eating? Walking around?”

 

“What do you think?” Doyoung gave Baekhyun a pointed look. “She’s been in her room all weekend—going out only to eat and use the bathroom.”

 

“Then you have to let me see her.”

 

“Did you not hear what I just said?” Doyoung scoffed. “You have to leave. She doesn’t need to see you, so just drop off her schoolwork and go.”

 

Baekhyun sighed. The longer he stood out there, the worse he felt. “Doyoung, listen to me. I’m the only who can make her feel better. She’s—” Baekhyun cut himself off. Judging from Doyoung’s face, he wasn’t having any of it. “Look,” Baekhyun breathed, “please. I just want to make things right. I know how she feels, and it . I don’t want her to feel bad.”

 

The two of them held some sort of unofficial staring contest. Baekhyun wasn’t even some prospective boyfriend, and Doyoung wasn’t a strict father, but it sure felt like that. Finally, Doyoung broke the silence.

 

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll let you in, but if she tells you to leave, then you leave, okay?”

 

“You have my word,” Baekhyun promised. “Where is she?”

 

“Right this way.”

 

Doyoung directed Baekhyun to take off his shoes since Miyoung’s room was upstairs. Her bedroom happened to be at the end of the corridor, and since the Kim family lived in a large house, that corridor was dozens of meters long. Now, there were only a few types of walks that made Baekhyun nervous. One of them was the walk he had to make when he faced a courtroom filled with people on his first solo case. Another was the walk he made to his ex-girlfriend’s house when he had realized he had forgotten important documents there three months after they broke up. This walk—the one down that corridor—was the third one that made Baekhyun genuinely anxious.

 

“Miyoung,” Doyoung said as he knocked on the door. “Someone wants to see you.” Baekhyun braced himself for when (or if) the door opened. “Miyoung.” Inside, Miyoung grumbled, and Doyoung’s patience was too thin. “Miyoung, Jesus Christ, open the goddamn door.” Baekhyun was astonished at how relaxed Doyoung was to curse. “Miyoung! , open the door!”

 

“ off!” Miyoung yelled back, surprising Baekhyun even more. He didn’t even know that she knew how to curse in English. The syllables and the accent of the ck sounded slick on her tongue. “I already had lunch!”

 

“It’s not lunch,” Doyoung argued. “Just open the door, and you’ll see.”

 

“And I’ll see what—”

 

Miyoung finally opened the door.

 

Baekhyun, who was standing beside Doyoung, felt his heart drop as Miyoung’s eyes moved from her brother to him. She looked pretty as she usually did; her eyes were swollen and red, but that hardly pressed a dent to her physical attractiveness. However, unlike the well-kept, tidy student who always wore her uniform, there was only a girl dressed in a long shirt that reached midthigh, her lips chapped and trembling. All the confidence that Baekhyun saw in her when they first met was gone and was replaced by vulnerability.

 

“Mr. Byun?” Miyoung whispered. “W-W-W-What are y-you doing here?”

 

“I came to see you,” Baekhyun replied, trying to smile. Beside him, Doyoung moved away.

 

“I’m going to be downstairs,” Doyoung said. He gave Baekhyun another pointed look. It was clear that Doyoung truly loved his sister; he had that protective aura older brothers emitted when their younger siblings were hurt. “Remember what I told you.”

 

Doyoung walked back downstairs, leaving Baekhyun and Miyoung alone.

 

“Why do you want to see me?” Miyoung asked in a broken voice. She was on the verge of crying again, and Baekhyun could tell easily. He had multiple witnesses and clients break down in front of him; he knew what it looked like. “You…” She visibly swallowed. “You didn’t…”

 

“Forget what I did or didn’t do.” Baekhyun moved forward with hesitance. He didn’t want to overstep her boundaries. “Can we sit somewhere?”

 

“Uh, yeah, w-w-we can go inside my room.” Miyoung moved aside to allow Baekhyun in, but he was even more hesitant of that. “What is it?” Miyoung asked. “Mr. Byun?”

 

“No, I—Just leave the door open, okay?”

 

Once he had stepped in, Miyoung—of course—closed the door. “I’m not comfortable with it opened,” she said when he gave her a backwards glance.

 

Well, what if I’m not comfortable with it closed? Baekhyun didn’t dare say anything. He was simply glad that she even allowed him to talk to her. For now, he cared about whether or not she was comfortable. After all, he had done enough of making her feel the way she must have felt when he pulled away that Friday night.

 

“You can sit on my bed.” Miyoung sat on the corner and patted a place beside her. Baekhyun really didn’t want to sit on her bed, but her eyes were rimmed with tears, and they begged for compliance, so he did as she suggested.

 

“About what happened on Friday,” Baekhyun started, “I—”

 

“You don’t like me back,” Miyoung filled in quickly. Her arm was touching his, and she made no effort of changing that. “I know, Mr. Byun. You don’t have to explain. What I did was horrendous. I’m sorry.”

 

“But it wasn’t horrendous.”

 

“You didn’t kiss me back.” Her voice was breaking.

 

“That doesn’t make what you did horrendous.” Baekhyun tried to look into Miyoung’s eyes, but she was adamant on staring at the floor. “I think what you did was very brave. You took a shot in the dark, and though it may not have paid off, I appreciate that you acted on your feelings.” He paused. If the situation was reversed, he would be considered as a ert or offender. “Your kiss—it was just unwarranted, Miyoung, and I hope you realize that.”

 

“Un-war-run-ted?” She finally looked at him, her head tilted in question.

 

“It was improper,” Baekhyun explained. “You can’t just kiss people without warning.”

 

Miyoung seemed to understand this—but in a particular, twisted way. “So if I told you I was going to kiss you, would you have kissed me back?”

 

“That’s not what matters here.” Baekhyun shook his head quickly. He didn’t want to encourage anything troublesome—and that included giving Miyoung the idea that he was willing to pursue an inappropriate and unprofessional relationship with her. “What matters is that you acted upon your feelings and that you had feelings in the first place.”

 

Miyoung stared at him for a few seconds, frowning as she did so. “That’s what you came here to tell me? You’re congratulating me?”

 

“No, of course not.” Baekhyun shook his head again. “I’m here to tell you that we can still be friends, Miyoung. Nothing changes the fact that we are still friends.”

 

“Mr. Byun,” Miyoung found the strength to raise her voice, “you don’t have to sugarcoat anything.” Her lips played a small smile; sugarcoat was an English idiom that she must have picked up from her brother or the Internet. “We’ll never be friends because I never wanted to be your friend in the first place. And you’re forgetting something. I kissed you,” she paused, her breath hitching in , “and don’t you know how many daydreams of a kiss take place before one actually takes place?”

 

Baekhyun remained silent—not because it was a rhetorical question, but because he was yet again genuinely awed by the way Miyoung concocted a sentence like that. She really had been reading and reviewing countless of stanzas of poetry.

 

“Miyoung, please. We can be friends.” Baekhyun found his voice, but he didn’t find the strength and backing for the meaning of his words. “Think about this logically, please. We can’t be anything else but friends, so we might as well be friends.”

 

His words went through Miyoung’s left ear and went out through the right. “Do you only like me as a friend, Mr. Byun? Or is there something more?”

 

“Miyoung…”