Tao

            His message made it unclear what Baekhyun wanted from me. I stood there, puzzled, reading and rereading his note, hoping to have it suddenly clarified for me. My wishful thinking believed that Baekhyun would mysteriously appear at my house and confess his undying love for me. He would have, behind his back, a bouquet of flowers- not roses, those were too cliché- and he’d smile at me and ask for my forgiveness. It would be so romantic and we’d live happily ever after.

            I collapsed onto my couch, burying myself in the dark blue fabric, waiting for my prince to show up. Giggling in the silence of my room, I imagined him dressed in elegant robes and adorned with a dashing crown on top of his brown hair. There were countless scenarios that entered my thoughts in the following hours: dates we could go on, kissing, moving in together, more kissing, adopting children, tons of hot . I felt my cheeks warm and my heart begin to race as I imagined the last scenario, secretly hoping it would happen sooner rather than later.

            I buried my face in my pillow, suppressing my girlish shrieks; my imagination was too vivid! The darkness of covering my eyes allowed my neglected drowsiness to catch up with me, and eventually I was lulled into sleep, dreaming not-so-innocent dreams.

            Sometime whilst he was pounding into me and I was crying out in pleasure, his beautiful face turned into that of a monster and he started to strangle me. His expression of lust had transformed into one of anger and hatred and his fingers closed in on my neck, squeezing the breath out of me.

            That was when I woke up. The unfriendly sun intruded on my living room and allowed its garish light rays to pierce my eyes: not cool.

            Something else was not cool; Baekyhyun hadn’t come to proclaim his love or wake me with a kiss or any other action in likeness of a fairytale. In my frustration, I sat up and threw my pillow at the window, “He acts so cool and then he becomes a coward and chickens out! How could he?” Three other pillows sat at the other side of the couch; of course, I had to throw them at the window, as well, “He’s such a ! He’s going to pay.” I stood and hastily left the room, not even bothering to change my clothes, heading to his apartment.

            Unfortunately, the walk to his complex was one that could take ten minutes; ten minutes of others staring at me as I fumed down the street. Each look from each person made me feel worse and worse, like my anger was contaminating their good morning. At one old lady, I even yelled, “What are you looking at?” If this had been a drama, she’d not have scoffed; this was an excellent show unfolding right at her feet.

            Arriving at Baekhyun’s apartment complex, I grinned mischievously, already having his apartment pinpointed just from the outside. I walked in with a confident gait and strolled over to the front desk, asking the lady- the one with the overdone makeup- “I’m looking for Byun Baekhyun. What number’s his room?” She relayed the number to me, lazily, and shooed me away. I scowled and headed towards the elevator. Once it arrived, the air became awkward because there were only two people in the elevator: some student, as I assumed him to be, and me.

            The boy had a strange color of hair, something like straw, and he was staring forward intensely . The silence in the small space was practically unbearable, so I focused on the rhythm of our breathing until we arrived at the floor. He pushed out of the space first and I followed, literally; this boy was going in the same direction as me, so I felt incredibly creepy. I made my footsteps quiet to make sure he wouldn’t notice me following, silently trailing along.

            However, when he arrived at my destination room number, I gasped, giving myself away. The boy looked utterly surprised to have me behind him and pounded on the door, hard. I hid from the boy who opened the door, retreating away and praying he wouldn’t look to his left. The boy, Chanyeol was his name, I think, was too preoccupied with the boy I followed to bother with me, “Hey, Kris, tell me where you’re going next time. Don’t just leave.” The blonde, seemingly named Kris, nodded guiltily and, like a dog with its tail between its legs, scrambled into the room.

            The door closed and I simultaneously fell to the floor, hoping that Kris wasn’t complaining about some strange boy who stalked him in the hallways. Chanyeol, being Baekhyun’s best friend, was not someone I wanted to freak out. If anything, I wanted to impress him and sway him into liking me as someone good enough for Baekhyun. “Kris, if you ing tell him that, I’ll punch you,” I muttered into my drawn up knees

            I imagined the pretty boy with black and blue bruises all over his face, and it made feel, strangely, better. That is, until I heart laughter echo from the apartment.  Surely they were making fun of the strange creeper in the hallway. Faint mutterings followed the laughter, followed by more faint mutterings; they were so obviously making fun of me.

            I pouted but it did nothing; it did not make my life any easier.

            Slowly, I stood, deciding to reclaim control of my life, and moseyed over to the door, hesitantly ringing the doorbell and looking at my feet in embarrassment. The door unlocked and creaked open, revealing a curious Chanyeol. “Tao! Long time no see! What brings you here on such an early morning?” The boy threw open the door, revealing a messy apartment and a frowning Kris. Chanyeol was only in his boxers and a pair of fuzzy socks, and he grinned sheepishly, “Sorry, I didn’t really have time to get dressed. Perched on the sofa, Kris scoffed, to which Chanyeol replied, “Oh, hush.”

            They both reverted to staring at me, expecting a reason for my intrusion, “Uh, I was looking for Baekhyun. We had a little bit of a misunderstanding yesterday that I want to clear. Do you know where he is?”

            The curly haired boy awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, “Actually, he’s out. He’s gone for the entire weekend. He said something about ‘clearing his head’ or something. He’ll be back late on Sunday, so you could catch him then, I guess. From what I understand, this misunderstanding really set him off. You know, he’s really sensitive, particularly when it comes to you.”

            I wanted to press him for more answers, but the boy literally pushed me out the door and said, dramatically, “I’ve said too much! If he’s going to clear his mind, you should do the same! Out you go!” The door slammed in my face and I heard more faint mutterings and laughter. Irritated, I made my way back to my apartment: the elevator ride was lonelier now, and the looks from the old women bothered me more as I walked.

            My apartment complex looked extremely unfriendly, now, like a cold prison. I had imagined coming back here, in love, in happiness, but luck was not on my side. I cursed Baekhyun for leaving as I trudged up the stairs.

            In my apartment, I, once again, collapsed onto the couch. “Clear my mind? How on Earth am I supposed to clear my mind? My thoughts never stop, never, ever! I can’t just make them go away!” They don’t just disappear! Dumb Chanyeol: Dumb Baekhyu: Dumb me.” I hit my head furiously with my fist, attempting to rid my mind of all these thoughts.

            Rather than clearing my head, all I could think of was this: “Ew. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a whole day. That’s disgusting.” Quick to strip into only boxers, I headed to my room and grabbed a white t-shirt and black athletic shorts, perfect for lounging about and complaining about bad luck in love, and headed for the shower.

            I peeled off my boxers and the paleness of my skin was overwhelming. I turned the shower on and jumped into it all too soon. As the steaming hot water hit my skin, I yelped and fell into the wall bruising my upper arm. The shampoo perched on the shelf fell onto my foot and rolled to the corner of the small shower. “!” I screamed, realizing that shampoo bottle was a lot heavier than it looked.

            My toes were throbbing and the top of my foot, bright red. “Now, I’m surely unlucky.”

            I picked up the bottle and set it back on the shelf, and afterwards I adjusted the temperature of the water. “You’re better than this. Don’t let all of these things get you down. You’re so much better than everyone, and Baekhyun will figure this out and come crawling back to you, and then life will be perfect.” My pep talk worked and finished my shower peacefully, singing loudly and dancing to 2ne1’s I’m the Best.

            Unfortunately, the confidence level did not last long. After an hour, my mood crashed again, bringing me, again, to the couch, sulking. The chips I had opened thirty minutes ago were all gone, as was the liter of coke that I had started around the same time. This was pathetic.

            “I need to get out of here.” I reached my phone and searched through my contacts, looking for someone who would definitely respond to me, no matter what. When my eyes came across one name, I hit the button to send a message and described, to him, my dilemma.

            Hyung…. I need something to clear my mind, to take my mind off of certain things. Do you think you can help?

-Tao

Minutes later, the device buzzed in my hands. Inquiringly, I looked at the screen and found a disappointing response

Try running. It always helps me when I need a break from life. It’s also good for you; it’ll burn off all that junk food you eat.

-Chen

I groaned at his suggestion but pulled on my tennis shoes, anyways. This was at least something to do, although not my first choice. Pulling my iPod out from its place in my dresser, I set my buds in my ears and walked downstairs. In the lobby, one of my neighbors eyed me with a mocking gaze. As if laughing at me, her eyebrows danced in amusement.

She and I didn’t have the best relationship for neighbors, particularly when her boyfriend came over for a romantic night when all I wanted was to get to sleep peacefully. Gross.

Stepping outside, I contemplated whether I was actually going to do this. Half of me wanted to go back inside and pretend that this idea had never popped into my head- thanks to Chen- but the other half wanted to try anything to get Baekhyun out of my mind. Today, that side won the argument in my head.

Cautiously, I took my first steps in a fast walking manor before speeding into a jog. To be honest, the first block wasn’t so bad. The song I was listening was inspirational and the beat was strong enough to follow while running. However, after the first block, the chorus was repeating for the third time and was getting boring. On top of that, my heart was beating faster than normal, annoyingly.

Truthfully, I don’t understand the point of running about, particularly for sport. You keep going, but there’s no goal at the end: you just run, and run, and run, and run. Eventually, though, someone passed out or collapses on a strained muscle, and it’s called a sport.

I didn’t get it.

Frankly, after the fourth block, I didn’t want to do this, but my legs wouldn’t stop. The fixed pattern of pattering below was strangely comforting. Yet, when I began to break into a sweat on my seventh block, I immediately stopped.

Ew: sweating is gross. I’m never going to do this again.

I sighed in annoyance and headed into the nearest coffee shop to sit down and rest, hauling my over-exhausted body into the store and slumping over on the nearest chair.