CHAPTER 8

Park Chanyeol… Present.

Baekhyun scrolls down the online roster and hits the submit button. The first time doing it had been nerve-wracking, but like anything else in his life that becomes routine the more he practices it, fixing Chanyeol’s absences on the attendance sheet has become a daily part of his TA sessions. It’s not even a month into his “secret responsibilities” but he’s already grown used to piling double the homework and adjusting his schedule to get adequate sleep and study time. Thankfully Sehun hasn’t touched him since the day Chanyeol had gotten violent with him, and for the first time in a while, Baekhyun’s life is as close to a normal high school student’s as it can get. He eats dinner by himself comfortably now, fine-tunes his priorities, and attends every class. He’s forced himself to grow used to this new schedule in such a strict fashion that it throws him off course when Mrs. Kwon suddenly taps his shoulder during one of his afternoon sessions to tell him that they “need to talk”.

“Sit down,” she says, waiting for him at her desk. Baekhyun blinks at her tone and settles in the seat in front of her.

“You can relax,” Mrs. Kwon says with a soft voice, pulling herself closer to the desk. “You’re not in big trouble.” 

Baekhyun’s tense shoulders relax at the reassurance, although his eyebrows remain furrowed in an inquisitive glance.

“I just wanted to talk about Chanyeol for a bit,” she continues. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been marking him present on the attendance chart for a while now and wanted to bring it up with you.”

Mrs. Kwon is direct as always. In fact, she’s so strikingly straightforward that Baekhyun has to pause for a moment before her words actually settle in his mind. Mrs. Kwon has always been one to cut to the chase, but it still makes him swallow thickly.

“I…” he starts, hands bunched up in weak fists on his lap. It’s not like he wasn’t expecting her to notice, but…

“I’m sorry Mrs. Kwon.” 

In retrospect, Baekhyun would probably realize that there must be a thousand better responses, but his simple apology is the only one he can mutter at the moment. 

“Did Chanyeol ask you to do it for him?” she asks quietly. 

Baekhyun bites down on his bottom lip and sits with his legs pressed together, but thankfully Mrs. Kwon doesn’t press further. Instead, she lets out a soft sigh and says, “I don’t want you to think you’re at fault, Baekhyun. I mean... yes, of course I'm disappointed, especially because this is you we're talking about. But at the same time, I’m conflicted because I'm thankful you’ve been going out of your way to help Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun lifts his head slowly and looks into Mrs. Kwon’s eyes.

“He needs someone to lean on more than anything else at the moment and I’m very grateful that you’re by his side. All I do is tell him that he needs to grow up and I’m afraid he’s developed a stigma against being told what to do because of it. It’s become so hard for anyone to reach him and I can’t help but think that it’s partially my fault.“

“But that time he got angry… it’s the first time he really let out what he’s been meaning to say since his mother passed away. It might have looked as if he was taking one step back, but I felt at ease knowing that he can express his emotions around you. I don’t know what circumstances have pressed you to break rules you usually swear by, but because I know that you’re aware of what you’ve done wrong, I don't want to report this to the principal. Although… I can't let you go without a punishment, because you do have to take responsibility for your actions — even if you were doing this for Chanyeol. Not to mention, I have to maintain my integrity as a teacher... You understand, right, Baekhyun?”

He nods his head slowly in response.

“Alright,” she says, locking her fingers together in front of her on the desk. “I knew I could trust my star student to be mature about this. That being said, Baekhyun, my mission for you might require a lot of patience. Are you ready to hear what it is?”

Detention. Extra cleaning duty? Community service...? Baekhyun wonders, almost instinctively.

“I want you to bring Chanyeol to class.”

His thoughts skid to an abrupt halt.

“Mrs. Kw– ” Baekhyun starts to say, but Mrs. Kwon simply shakes her head.

“Before you say anything, I want to tell you that Chanyeol has already used up over half of his excused absences for him to graduate. That means at this rate, he won’t be able to walk the stage at the end of the year because of his shabby attendance,” she explains. “If he starts coming to class by the end of the month, maybe, but with the way things look now, it’ll be difficult to convince the administration of his right to graduate. I know it seems like a lot to take on, but I believe in you, Baekhyun. I have to.”

Mrs. Kwon’s words weigh heavily on his shoulders, but despite his lack of confidence, Baekhyun gives his troubled homeroom teacher a quiet nod.

“I… I’ll try,” he says, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it, but…”

When his homeroom teacher gives him a nod of acknowledgement, he stands and gives her a bow before he turns to leave the classroom. Before he can reach the door, however, Mrs. Kwon calls out to him one more time.

“I’m sorry for bringing you into my mistakes, Baekhyun. I’m lacking as the adult in this situation.”

Baekhyun turns to return his teacher's gaze. From this distance, Mrs. Kwon looks somewhat defeated; small, almost. 

“I’m going to try my best for Chanyeol, Mrs. Kwon,” he says, “And… thank you for trusting me.”

It’s probably the first time in a long time that he’s felt so definite in something he’s said. That's why that day, Baekhyun leaves the classroom with a kind of determination he hasn’t felt in years.

The following day, it’s as if nothing had happened. Of course there is a sense of pressure somewhere in his subconscious regarding his newfound obligation, but otherwise, it is surprisingly easy to go about his day without much worry. As usual, Baekhyun heads to the blue hall to carry out his regular mopping duty and as expected, everything is normal. The only strange thing is that there are no milk trails for him to follow today, but Chen and Sehun have classically conditioned him well enough that he doesn’t need the milk to be there for him to think of them. He’s reminded of them every time he walks down these hallways, honestly speaking. He had been mopping these same halls on a particular day one and a half years ago – or he was walking into the hallway to do so anyway when he spotted Chen and Sehun shoveling his belongings out of his locker. One of them had begun to shred the pages of one of his textbooks when Baekhyun ran up to them in alarm to ask what they were doing to his locker.

“Will you off?” Sehun had said, pushing him away. “Mind your own ing business.”

Baekhyun struggles to raise himself up, muttering protests under his breath as the taller of the two throws stray papers into his face, then continues to rummage.

“Since when did Chanyeol take an interest in keeping his things organized? And what’s with this gay shelf-rack?”

Sehun throws the metal onto the floor to emit a clang when Baekhyun finally regains his footage on the ground and raises his voice.

“Those are mine,” he says to Chen, who has his hands full of Baekhyun’s assignment folders. He tries to reach for the bundle, but Chen yanks it out of his reach and raises an eyebrow in amusement as he allows Sehun to step in and throw an unexpected punch to his stomach, hard.

Baekhyun doubles over in pain as Sehun shoves him down with a single hand against the cold floor again, letting out a strained grunt when the older student kicks at his lower back with sharp blows. When Baekhyun starts to roll on his side to protect himself, Sehun forces his legs out of his fetal position by climbing on top of him. Baekhyun shuts his eyes in pain and yells in protest, but Sehun doesn't hesitate to throw another punch to his abdomen, to his ribs, and then his face to shut him up. Before Sehun can sock him in the cheekbone twice, however, Chen stops him to say something about “Not the face – it leaves obvious marks, you ing idiot.” Sehun exhales as if to hold himself back and shoves Baekhyun’s head against the dirty floor. The world spins before the younger’s eyes, and his pulse throbs against the coldness of the ground beneath his cheek. Next to him, the mop bucket lies pathetically on its side just like him, the contents spilled across the hallway.

It’s then that Chanyeol comes, with Sehun back on his feet and looming over his crippled body and Chen gripping a thick textbook in his hands. Baekhyun hears a noise in the distance – something like “What the are you guys doing–” but he can’t hear the exact words. The boy with caramel hair crouches down to fill his vision – to help him, presumably – when the tense air fills with a loud thwack! and then an eerie silence. Chanyeol’s eyes close above him as the guitarist falls beside him, unconscious, as Chen stands over him with that thick textbook raised in the air maliciously. The last thing Baekhyun remembers is a hard kick to the stomach, and then he blacks out.

He awakes in the infirmary, lying rigidly on his side in a bed behind the curtains of the nurse’s office. There are no blankets on him but the heated electric mattress and the sight he sees in front of him is enough to keep him warm. Across from his bed is another, and Chanyeol lies with his back to him, unconscious. Baekhyun feels his face heat up as his eyes linger on the mussed back of the guitarist’s head, the slope of his shoulders, then his sturdy back. He would let himself entertain the thought that he had finally become the subject of Chanyeol’s Robin Hood moment it if weren’t for the stern voices coming from beyond the curtains. By the sound of it, it’s the vice principal speaking to the delinquent duo. Baekhyun hears him mention something about the two being seen exiting the building near the time the others were predicted to have passed out, and Chanyeol shuffles awake in the bed across him at that moment so he quickly turns his body away to hide himself.

“It wasn’t us,” he hears Sehun say, and closes his eyes hurriedly. There are more sounds of  sheets being rumpled on Chanyeol’s side, followed by a sharp whisk of curtains being drawn, effectively interrupting the converstaion.

“Chanyeol, good thing you’re awake,” the vice principal says, “You can tell us if it really was these boys who–”

“Just drop it,” Chanyeol says, and then Baekhyun hears him walk past and slam the door on his way out.

“What did I say? It wasn’t us, see?”

Sometime after then, the vice principal dismisses the two with a few words of discipline and Baekhyun waits until he has left before collecting his belongings and putting on his shoes to leave the infirmary. Before he can sneak away, however, the nurse stops him with gentle words asking if he feels okay.

“May I check just one thing before you leave?”

Baekhyun nods slowly and fixes his gaze on the floor as the nurse walks toward him and slides on a pair of latex gloves before sifting through his locks of hair with careful hands.

“You were on the floor when an administrator found you guys so I wanted to check if you had any bruises on your scalp. You don’t seem to be at risk of another concussion but if you feel even slightly dizzy later today, I want you to come back here, okay?”

“Yes, Mrs. Lee,” Baekhyun replies.

The nurse gives him a smile and pats his shoulder. “Alright then, you may leave,” she says, and Baekhyun stands up with his backpack around his shoulder. He winces at the soreness that rides all the way down his back at the motion, but lowers his head as he walks to the door.

“Baekhyun?” Mrs. Lee says, just before he can slip out. He turns around and faces her, and there is an odd expression about her face – something between pity, concern, and guilt. “Tell me truthfully. Did those boys do anything to you?”

It didn’t occur to him then that not saying anything was protecting Sehun and Chen, not himself. The adults in Uijeongbu High don’t do much to mend the broken wings of the students, but…

“No,” he replies, and he gives her a small smile. He leaves with hunched shoulders.

Even now, after years of dealing with endless antagonization though, Baekhyun still thinks he wouldn’t choose to tell her the truth. Telling her won’t change the fact that it happened after all, and it definitely won’t change the fact that similar things will continue to happen to him. The only way to change this situation is from inside out: to convince Sehun and Chen that their efforts are, and have always been, in vain.

Baekhyun stops mopping for a while to rest his arm, leaning against the lockers to cool his mind. Sometimes he thinks he's been the target of so many peoples' agressions that it’s become a normal part of his life. 

“What are you thinking so hard about?” a voice says, breaking these thoughts. Baekhyun turns to see Chanyeol walking toward him. Thankfully, memories of the past immediately slip away and Baekhyun stands up straight again.

“You’re here!” he pipes.

Chanyeol rubs at his neck as he responds, “To pick up assignments.”

Still, a glint of hope lights Baekhyun’s eyes.

“You’re going to work on them?” Baekhyun asks, but with a small smirk Chanyeol pushes the stack of papers into his arms.

“To give to you,” he answers, and Baekhyun purses his lips as Chanyeol walks ahead.

“Chanyeol, what about class?” Baekhyun runs up to the guitarist, strands of hair flying in the wind. “Will you come?”

Chanyeol looks down at Baekhyun who waits for his answer with eager eyes. Instead of answering though, he just ruffles Baekhyun’s hair and tells him to worry about himself.

Baekhyun stares dumbly at his back as the guitarist walks away, one hand gripping the papers to his chest and the other tracing the place Chanyeol’s hand had been. There’s an odd thumping in his chest that won’t go away and Baekhyun only stops gaping when he feels a vibration in his pocket.

It’s Chanyeol.

“Hello?” Baekhyun answers into the phone.

“Meet me in the auditorium at 7.”

Without another word, Chanyeol hangs up and Baekhyun’s cheeks burn pink.

He can spot him as soon as he walks into the auditorium. The band is practicing the last few songs and Chanyeol can finally stop eying the door as Baekhyun glances around the empty auditorium and finds a seat in the back row. He looks so confused and awed at the same time – it’s such a typical Baekhyun expression.

“Let’s play 'Angel' and wrap it up,” Luhan says once they’ve gone through their performance repertoire, “That’s our final decision on the encore song, right?”

“Yeah,” Kris says.

Chanyeol glances at Baekhyun and wonders what it would be like to see him in an actual crowd in one of their performances, wonders if he’d be this curious then to see what expression Baekhyun has on his face. They finish up their last song and store the instruments and props safely before Chanyeol is able to make his way to the back of the auditorium to sit next to Baekhyun.

“Why did you call me over?” Baekhyun asks. His hair falls neatly over his forehead and his eyes are fixed on him. It must be the first time he has spoken to him without breaking his gaze because it’s the first time Chanyeol gets to notice so much about his face.

Why did you call me over?

The words belatedly sink into Chanyeol's brain and shock him into a dull numbness. It only occurs to him now that he hasn't really thought of a valid reason to call Baekhyun over to the auditorium. “Didn’t you say you wanted to hear me play?” he runs in his head, but for some reason his lips stay clammed up unless to say, "Am I not allowed to?"

He now glances at anywhere but into Baekhyun’s eyes. His homework machine bites down on his lip and shakes his head slowly, hand fidgeting with a pink paper slip. Chanyeol must be crazy because he almost asks what it's for. He seriously needs to stop this conversation thing he sometimes catches himself doing with Baekhyun.

“… What’s that?” a voice asks, breaking his thoughts. Chanyeol looks up and sees Kris standing over them from the row behind theirs. Bless his long-limbed drummer of a friend.

“Oh,” Baekhyun says, holding it up to him. “Hi, Kris. It's a permission slip for a trip. Did you need one? You can have mine.”

“Nah, I got one. What about you Chanyeol?" Kris asks.

Chanyeol eyes the paper.

"Don’t need it. I probably can’t go anyway,” he says. He pauses for a while, then asks Kris, “Are you going?”

"I'll go if Baekhyun goes," Kris jokes.

“It’s a little pricey…," Baekhyun says. "Not to mention there’s the senior trip we have to pay for.”

He pauses and lets out a small sigh that Chanyeol almost misses. “I’m planning on staying here that weekend,” Baekhyun continues.

Chanyeol stays quiet for a while, and then clears this throat as he stands up from his seat to walk out of the auditorium. “I think might be here that weekend too, Kris. Who knows.”

"Is he talking to me or to you?" Kris asks with an eyebrow raised in amusement. Baekhyun looks up at him with wide eyes. He shouldn’t, but he hopes it’s an invitation.

When he visits home that weekend, his parents bombard him with questions about the college tour trip because they’d received a call from the school informing them that students had been sent home with permission slips. Baekhyun shirks off the topic every time by assuring them that he doesn’t want to attend, that no one is going anyway, but they pester him about it so much that he eventually forfeits and leaves the permission slip on the dining table before locking himself in his room where he can still hear his parents mumbling under their breaths about the costs.

Sometimes, Baekhyun resents how thin the walls are in his tiny run-down apartment. Even with the pillow enveloping his entire head, he can hear his mother’s devastated voice saying, “I want Baekhyun to experience what other high school boys experience.” It just doesn’t make sense that she never asks what he wants. When Mrs. Kwon had announced the trip earlier in the day, he knew something like this would happen. It always does.

But the truth of the matter is, Baekhyun could care less whether he gets to go on this trip or not. He doesn’t need a school outing where he’ll have to worry about Sehun cornering him in a strange place and where everyone can see him. He doesn’t need a school trip that will break his father’s back as he makes extra rounds at night driving a taxi that reeks of alcohol. He doesn’t need anything at all, is completely content simply lying in the bed of his room. But his mother’s voice echoes through the walls all throughout the night and haunts Baekhyun so much that he tells his parents that he’ll ask the teachers if he can somehow receive a fee waiver. He hadn’t really meant it when he said it to Chanyeol, but maybe he really will camp out on the school grounds the weekend of the trip. 

He just wonders if it would be too selfish to hope that Chanyeol will be there, too.

  Author's Notes  

Hey everyone! It's been a long, long time. I started college a month ago and it's been so hectic! I want to apologize for how delayed this update is and unfortunately, it seems I'll have to continue to apologize because with college hounding on my back I don't have much free time to sit down as write as much as I used to (3 years ago...). I will try my best, however, and I started updating on my twitter (@elepantstears) again if anyone wants to stay updated on my progress on my fics! Sorry for the somewhat short chapter; I have lots coming up so I'll spill as the time comes~ At this moment I'm wondering who everyone's favorite character is. If I were to choose, I'd have to pick Kris haha! Anyway, I'll sign off here -- until next time!

--- serendipity-- (Heidi)