The rumor turned out true. The result of midterm test was coming out today, this afternoon to be exact. Baekhyun squeezed his palms nervously on his seat. His homeroom teacher, Mr.Lee was out to bring the report card, and will be back in a minute. He was both excited and afraid regarding the result, but more to excited.

“, my hands are cold,” Jongdae, who sat in front of him, turned his head around to face his best friend. His face was pale, and there was a gleam of sweat on his forehead. Baekhyun was sure that his appearance wasn’t too far from his best friend.

“Well, my hands are basically trembling,” Baekhyun replied.

“Oh, shut up, Byun. Your score will be fine. Your scores are always fine,” Jongdae rolled his eyes.

“This is different,” Baekhyun snapped. “This score will determined whether the school will allow us to take the university we want or not.”

Jongdae grunted in despair as he covered his face with both of his hands, “my mom will kill me if I don’t get to Chung-Ang.”

Baekhyun bit his lower lip. Rather than his mother will kill him, Baekhyun thought he might choke his own self if he can’t get to Chung-Ang. If the school won’t allow him to enter that college then Baekhyun honestly didn’t know where to go as Chung-Ang was his only plan. He knew that he should plan B, C, and so on when it came to academic. But no. For this, he only wanted Chung-Ang.

Moreover, the fact that his boyfriend was also going to be there added his determination to enter Chung-Ang. If he passed the passing grade to apply to the college, then he could at least breathe for a moment before he struggled for the real war later.

“Oh god, he’s coming,” Jongdae immediately turned his body to the original position as he saw the teacher came in with bunches of paper in his hand.

Suddenly, Baekhyun’s heartbeat raced in a high rate that he even didn’t remember to take a breath. The last time his heart beat this fast was when Chanyeol and him kissed for the first time. This was an important matter.

“Okay, here in my hand is your report card for the latest test. Please keep your voice down so everyone could hear my voice when I call your names, okay?”

The students murmured a quiet okay after the teacher said the command. They were too nervous to be noisy anyway.

The teacher started calling the students’ name while handing the results. Baekhyun felt like he needed to thank his parents for naming him with the first letters in alphabet. It was convenient in a time like this as he didn’t need to kill himself from the anxiousness for waiting his name to be called.

“Byun Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun’s breath hitched when he heard his name was called. He didn’t really know what he was doing. It felt like his body was in autopilot when he stood from his seat and approached the teacher in front of the class. He took his card and got back to his seat.

“How? How is it?” Jongdae stomped his feet excitedly as Baekhyun himself just put his on his seat.

Baekhyun gulped his nervousness, and with a heavy breathing and a pleading look to Jongdae, as if he was searching for the last second encouragement, he opened the card slowly and squinted his eyes.

The passing grade to be able to apply to Chung-Ang University was at least all the subjects got 7.5 or higher. Baekhyun’s target every test was he needed to at least got 8. But for now, he just wanted to pass the passing grade, that was all.

Realizing if he opened the card slowly could get him a heart attack, Baekhyun decided to just opened and saw it in instant. He scanned the paper deeply until the skin of his forehead wrinkled. After repeatedly checked the card, he looked up to Jongdae whom was looking at him expectantly.

“I’m safe,” he murmured. “I passed the passing grade.”

Jongdae let out a not-so-manly squeak before he pulled Baekhyun into his hug, “I know it, you lucky little .”

Baekhyun could blink with his mouth slightly opened, still not believing that this was happening.

“Now, I’m dying alone,” Jongdae sighed as he let go, and he patted Baekhyun’s shoulder. “Congrats, Byun. Please pray for me.”

Baekhyun smirked a little, “you’re gonna get it, Chen.”

Jongdae slapped Baekhyun’s head lightly, “I’m not Chen anymore.” Just after Jongdae said that, his name was called, “oh, .”

Baekhyun snickered, looking at his best friend stumbled on his way to the front. Baekhyun looked down at his report card and smiled proudly to himself. How’s Chanyeol doing?

“Holy , Byun Baek, I passed!”

Baekhyun snapped his head back to Jongdae whom yelling from in front of the class and now running toward Baekhyun, resulting the teacher glared at him and the other students at the class giggled.

“Language, Kim Jongdae,” Mr. Lee warned him.

Unfortunately, Jongdae didn’t seem to notice all of that and just pulled Baekhyun into another hug, “my luck is on my side today.”

Baekhyun laughed half-heartedly. His mind was preoccupied with Chanyeol. He wanted to just run to Chanyeol’s class and asked how his scores were.

The teacher went on with some names of the students before he finally allowed them to take their break. As if in cue, Baekhyun immediately ran out of his class, going to Chanyeol’s class. He saw that the students from Chanyeol’s class were also beginning to come out. However, the one who Baekhyun was looking for seemed like still in the class, so Baekhyun hesitantly peaked from the door and realized that Chanyeol was standing, holding something which seemed like the repost card, with Kris standing beside him.

Baekhyun grinned and decided to go into the class, and yelled his name, “Chanyeol!” And that moment, Baekhyun regretted that he knew Chanyeol too well that he could easily tell what happened to Chanyeol just by one glance of his face. Because when Chanyeol looked up at him, his face was the most wounded which Baekhyun had ever seen.

Chanyeol didn’t pass.

~

“Yeol, wait.”

Chanyeol dashed out of his class. His jaws locked, and he felt like his heart fell to his stomach.

This wasn’t what he wanted. This wasn’t what he had planned. This wasn’t what he asked for. This wasn’t what supposed to be happened. No. It can’t be.

Chanyeol’s pace was fast that everyone who ran after him couldn’t follow him again. Not that Chanyeol aware that he was being followed either.

After he got his report card and saw two of his scores, math and science, didn’t pass the passing grade for his intended college, Chanyeol felt like his world stopped spinning at that moment. For minutes, he couldn’t move, even when Kris repeatedly called his name and nudged him. Until he heard the last voice he wanted to hear, Baekhyun’s, Chanyeol was being pulled out from his trance.

Baekhyun was the last person he wanted to see right now. No. He was too embarrassed. He felt ashamed. He failed himself. He failed Baekhyun. He failed everyone.

Chanyeol was just about to run down the stairs, but Baekhyun grabbed a fistful of Chanyeol’s uniform, “Chanyeol, please stop.”

“Baek, please, let go,” Chanyeol refused to look at him.

“No, no, no, look at me,” Baekhyun tried to spin Chanyeol around so the latter could face him. He gently put his hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder, “hey, breathe.”

Chanyeol knew that Baekhyun knew. He could tell by the way Baekhyun looked at him, and he didn’t like it one bit. He didn’t want to see Baekhyun looked at him that way, with pitiful eyes darted to him.

“It’s okay, Yeollie. It’s okay,” Baekhyun said in a low voice.

And Chanyeol really wanted to believe him. That everything was okay. Everything will be okay.

But he can’t help himself to think the other way.

~

Baekhyun admitted that he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he was in Chanyeol’s shoes. One thing which Baekhyun was sure that both he and Chanyeol had was their great determination toward their goal. He knew if he wanted something, he was willing to die to get it, and Chanyeol was like that, too.

He knew that Chanyeol wanted to enter that university as much as Baekhyun. They’ve talked about their university life a lot, like a lot, for the past couple of week. Chanyeol was always so bright if they talked about their future, and Baekhyun always loved to see him like that.

After he got his report card, Chanyeol had been pretty much having mental breakdown these days. And honestly Baekhyun didn’t know what to do because Chanyeol himself seemed to shut everyone and everything off, including Baekhyun.

It felt like Chanyeol was avoiding him. Chanyeol never called or texted him, and whenever Baekhyun tried to reach him, Chanyeol never answered. Baekhyun had tried to accompany him during lunch but Chanyeol was nowhere in sight. They also didn’t come home together these two days.

Baekhyun thought that he should give Chanyeol sometimes alone, but he never thought that they couldn’t even talk to each other for the whole two days. And Baekhyun must say that he was frustrated, because he really wanted to be there for Chanyeol but his boyfriend seemed didn’t even want him to get close to him.

This kind of thing was the second times happened between them. The first was when the Namjoo misunderstanding happened. It would be really nice if Chanyeol came to him again like the last time, but Baekhyun guessed it won’t happen.

So when his and Chanyeol’s class were having PE session together, Baekhyun decided to approach and talk to his boyfriend.

“Hey,” Kris tapped Baekhyun’s shoulder, making the latter put his attention to the taller.

Baekhyun smiled, “Hey, Kris.”

Kris replied the smile before he talked, “have you talked to him?”

Kris knew that Chanyeol had been avoiding Baekhyun because Baekhyun himself repeatedly asked Kris how Chanyeol was doing this periode of time. Kris had been helping him so much.

Baekhyun shook his head, “nope. But I’m planning to. Today. Now.”

“Yeah, you should be. Or else, it would be really difficult to even get near him again.”

Baekhyun nodded, “I know. How is he?”

Kris shrugged, “this was the first time I see him like this. He doesn’t even smile, Baekhyun, for two days. And you know what happened when Park Chanyeol doesn’t smile? It’s the end of the world.”

The shorter let out a sigh, “let’s try my luck today.”

“Good luck, Baekhyun,” Kris patted Baekhyun’s back, and he returned it with a smile.

Baekhyun followed his gaze to Kris who was walking toward Chanyeol. He didn’t know that it could literally hurt his heart to see Chanyeol looking so sad like that. Chanyeol was sitting on the floor, his eyes were empty, his hair was a mess, and it tickled Baekhyun so much to approach his boyfriend and just hugged him.

But, he needed to sort things out first before he did that. He needed to talk to the giant, and he needed to do it now.

The whistle from their PE teacher blew, signaling all of the students to gather around him at the center of the gym. Baekhyun also followed his friends, approaching the teacher while his eyes were still trained on Chanyeol, whom now was also walking lifelessly toward the teacher.

“We will have a basket ball game today. Different teams from different classes, and I already chose who is who will represent the class. From class B, Youngwoon, Joonjin, Baekhyun, Kyungchul, and Kibum,” the teacher said.

Baekhyun rolled his eyes and sighed. How could he even get into the team when he was only 174cm high, seriously, the other team mates were at least 178cm. Nevertheless, Baekhyun stepped up, joining his team at the center of the court.

“And from class C, Kris, Yoojin, Jaehyun, Hyunwoo, and Chanyeol. Don’t be grumpy like that, kids. Don’t worry, everyone will play. Let’s play the game for 15 minutes, then we’ll change the players.”

Baekhyun could see that Chanyeol stiffen on his feet when his name was called, but he only let it happen for a mere second before he finally joined his team.

The teacher let both of the teams to discuss their strategy first before he started the game. Baekhyun made a small circle with his team, so did the other’s team.

Baekhyun didn’t listen too much of the talk because his mind was preoccupied by the certain tall boy from the other team. He only caught that he will be the starter, and once again he rolled his eyes because how his friends could put him as the starter while he was so short like that. But Baekhyun was too busy with his mind to complain anyway, so he just shrugged it off.

They shouted and did the thing where they raised their hands to the ceiling before they broke to their own position. Baekhyun walked to the centre of the court again after he took one deep breath to increase his spirit. At the same time, he saw Chanyeol was also walking to the center of the court.

Their eyes met, and dammit Baekhyun almost forgot he was in the middle of the class because he was this close to run into him. Turned out, Chanyeol was also the starter of his team, and now, both of them stood face to face.

Baekhyun could feel the tension between them, but the other seemed didn’t notice it because their friends were shouting and yelling the supports for them. One of his teammates even yelled at him, “don’t go easy on your boyfriend, Baekhyun.” Baekhyun could only smiled, and he saw, for a split second, Chanyeol’s eyes turned soft.

“Ready, everyone?” their teacher was now stood between them, but Baekhyun and Chanyeol weren’t really paying attention to him.

“Hi, Baek.”

The teacher raised the ball with his hand. Baekhyun and Chanyeol put their games mode on.

“Hi, Yeol,” Baekhyun smiled. “I missed you.”

The teacher threw the ball to the ceiling, and blew the whistle. The game officially started.

Baekhyun got the ball.