Paper Planes (1/4)
Title: Paper Planes (1/4)
Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol, Kris/Baekhyun, side!Luhan/Kris
Genre: Romance, Drama, University!AU
Word Count: 5k+
Summary: Not everyone can dismiss curiosity easily, is what Chanyeol wants to tell Yixing, because the whole morning, he couldn’t stop thinking about the man who lives behind the mysterious door.
PAPER PLANES
“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.”
- Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
Moving to a different school, in a different city, is probably the best choice Chanyeol has ever made in his life. For once there’s this word change that would most likely follow him like a blind shadow for the next months starting from this day. Change is a good thing. This is a good thing. Because he can see that he’s moving forward and that he doesn’t have to be stuck in his hometown and end up an early father of two sons who works for a minimum wage. And the best part of all of this is that this is just the start, he’ll have more days to make decisions and changes, and through those days, he can feel himself walking off the Earth, getting closer and closer to his dreams, to satisfaction, to happiness.
His year kicks off with loads of boxes trapped in his arms while squeezing himself in between bodies of a crowded hallway trying to find his room number. It’s a week before class and a week before class is called moving-in or moving-back-in week which can be summed up to students all going back in the dorms at the same time, carrying things that are heavier than their weights multiplied. It’s all bathed breaths and sticky sweats colliding against each other but that’s what college is and this is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But as much as he wants to belong, like what students normally aim for, Chanyeol prefers to lie low and avoid too much uncalled attention as much as possible because things like that leads to invitations to parties and alcohol, cocaine, wet kisses and a mistake. The reason he moved is because he’s sick of all these things and for once he actually wants to feel like an important figure to society and he just wants to fucking study. Surely, it wouldn’t be too hard right?
He drops the boxes down as he sighs in exhaustion. He stands and idles in front of his room, not really certain of his next move. He has the keys but somehow despite the constant blocking of the people’s heads, his eyes remains fixed at the room in front of his’, the reason being the sight of bundles of flowers and gifts displayed by the door. It’s curiosity-something that nearly killed him in fifth grade-and he couldn’t not get interested because they’re flowers and gifts, on someone’s door, in the dormitory of an all-boys school.
His room door behind him opens and he instantly gets pulled by a hand inside, followed by a slam on the door. Chanyeol nearly stumbled and fell but managed to get back on his feet with the box still safe on his hands. He turns to the person standing before him. “Uh.”
“You must be my new roommate.”
Chanyeol scans the guy. He’s okay. Average height, spock-inspired hair, with very visible cheekbones and dimple. “Yeah.” He breathes and realizes he’s still holding a box so he drops it on the floor so he can hold out his hand for the sake of courtesy. “I’m Park Chanyeol.”
“Yixing,” Yixing says simply as he walks to the closet, completely ignoring the little bit of effort from Chanyeol. Obviously, courtesy is something this guy has never heard of. Chanyeol follows him with his eyes and sees the closet, fully opened, almost fully occupied by clothes and books alike except for the other side being completely empty. He notices the name tag on Yixing’s guitar (something that excites him for a good ‘ol second given that he’s a music enthusiast too) and reads out Zhang Yixing in his head.
“You’re Chinese?” Chanyeol asks, hoping to sound less racist, but Yixing obviously did not take it easily.
“Probably,” Yixing deadpans as he resumes cleaning out his luggage and putting his things back in place inside the closet. Great. Chanyeol thinks. First day and you’ve already offended someone.
It’s just a mere question and he’s just probably being too hard on himself but he decides that dragging the conversation further could lead to some unresolved issues so he’ll just do what normal people do, ignore and walk away. He gets back out of the room to drag the remaining boxes inside, and though completely occupied with the weight of the number he’s dragging in, he still glances at the room in front before the door completely shuts in.
--
It’s been three hours since he came in and Chanyeol finds himself still unable to continue further from organizing his bedside table and decorating it with picture frames, calendar, and some of his sticky-notes. It’s actually hard to admit but he’s not fairly accustomed to anything that has to do with organizing and thus his boxes remain unopened and idled around the room. Yixing was done an hour ago, his side of the room completely clean it can even pass as a dormitory ad. His side, however, looked like a mix of a garage and a dumpsite, which is an understatement.
He sighs for the fifteenth time, hands on hips, as he scans the area while trying to decide which box to unload first but then again none of the boxes are segregated properly. He just randomly put in stuffs from his room and taped it close.
Chanyeol hears Yixing turn his computer seat but didn’t bother to look until Yixing spoke. “Need help?”
Chanyeol wanted to ask ‘You’re not mad or anything?’ but then again he’s always asked useless questions before so he just nods. “I wasn’t really educated with this moving in stuff.”
“I can tell. You are rich. It must be really hard to do work.” Yixing says in all honesty while walking towards the boxes.
Chanyeol blinks at him in confusion. “How did you know…?”
Yixing shrugs. “Lucky guess. Dyed hair, electric guitar, a Macbook and the inability to organize your own things kind of says it all. I figured you weren’t just useless and lazy.” He squats down in front of a box loaded with CDs and mixtapes. “Though that could come from my research too.”
Chanyeol raises an eyebrow and turns to look again at Yixing’s side of the room where he completely missed his study table. It’s full of gadgets, not something that’s commercialized but self-invented and judging by the stresses on Yixing’s hands, it’s not much to say that he’s on his way to being the second Steve Jobs, or probably third. “You research about your roommates?” For some reason, there is a complete need not to drop this subject. “Is that what drove your previous roommate out?”
Yixing pauses from putting the CDs out and turns to him. “He died. Literally died. He had cancer. Don’t remember what kind of cancer it was. And he was out before the second semester, giving me the room all by myself.”
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry.”
“No need. Everybody dies anyway. It’s just that he died first. And that you just had to know about it without knowing him. It was kind of fun pre-tragic death though. I was getting accustomed to the hospital peeps coming in and out of the room to clean and search for samples.” Yixing continues as he carefully places the CDs on the rack he found by himself somewhere inside Chanyeol’s boxes. “Turns out the cause were from his girlfriend’s. I told him not to visit too much. He didn’t listen. He died. Therefore you,” He turns to him with a sly grin. “Better listen to me.”
Chanyeol chuckles incredulously. “Real smooth. Though I’m relieved to know you don’t drive out your roommates by researching about them,” He says before starting to get his stuff done by pulling out some of his favorite books.
Yixing smirks and slowly walks to his computer desk, swiftly pulling out his iPad. “Park Chanyeol. Born November 27, 1992. Oh, Sagittarius.”
Chanyeol drops his hands. “Jesus.”
“Height, approximately 184 cm. Blood Type A. Went to Seoul Gangnam-gu High School.” Yixing looks up from the screen with a sly smile. “There’s more.”
“For God’s sakes. So you did research.” Chanyeol shakes his head, completely feeling stupefied in this new set of unfamiliar behavior presented to him, but he could care less about strangers knowing about his height, blood type even. “Is this some kind of a…tradition or something?”
“I wonder.” Yixing feigns interest. “You’re still here. Your theory’s incorrect. And no, this is not a tradition. You just happen to sound interesting enough to claim a spot on my iPad. Congratulations.”
Chanyeol shakes his head again, still trying to cope with the thought that his roommate is probably going to do more research about him in the future. It’s a nice change. At least people are interested in him or going to be. Yixing looks cool enough to have cool friends and although he did swear to stay out of the social bubble to be able to concentrate on his studies, the need to get involved is still there. Besides, no one wants to go through college alone at even how fucked up everything is.
Yixing resumes organizing his CDs, albeit he’s doing it a little bit slower this time since he’s started to scan each one for the sake of getting curious about his roommate’s interests. “Damn. Don’t mention these bands in front of other people. You’re going to be thrown to the loser side. It’s ugly there. They don’t have a Macbook.”
Chanyeol snorts. “They will have.”
Yixing crooks his eyebrows as he scans the next CD, immediately softening at the sight of a genre he actually likes. “Maybe only some.” He nods, approving the fact that Chanyeol has a wide variety of music CDs and thus probably doesn’t stick to only one genre. “What instrument do you play?” He asks. When he didn’t get an answer within fifteen seconds, he turns around and finds Chanyeol out in the hallway, dragging another box he probably missed earlier. He decides not to repeat the question.
“Hey, um, whose room is that?” Chanyeol asks immediately when he comes back.
“What room?” Yixing asks while walking slowly back to his computer desk.
“That room in front of ours. There are…flowers and gifts in front of the door.”
“Yeah, too much hassle.” Yixing deadpans, obviously not taking interest in the subject. “And you don’t wanna know.”
“Why? Is the owner…dead?”
“Jesus, is everyone dead to you?” Yixing exclaims, his eyes immediately pulled to the clock to check the time. “And not why. Okay. Okay, I don’t need to know. Practice that. For the meantime, we have to go.”
Chanyeol nearly stumbles outside when Yixing pulls him and yells, “I’m not done fixing my stuff yet!”
“That’s what students do. Procrastinate. Don’t try to be so unique.” Is what Yixing tells him. Chanyeol continues being dragged outside the dormitory, even nearly tripping in the stairs thanks to Yixing’s refusal to let him go in fear of him running away, which Chanyeol is most unlikely to do given that he probably doesn’t want to upset Yixing more than he already did with only his basic existence.
--
Chanyeol didn’t even have the chance to wonder whatever he’s supposed to be wondering about after seeing a large sign made up of crappy handwritings and recycled white cloth that read ‘Activity Fair’. Well, this is new. He doesn’t remember having this sort of event in his old school a week before the start of class. There are various stalls around, each with their own signs of clubs and organizations hung up, trying to invite people to join and register before classes start. Yixing drags him further into the crowd, his tall height giving him the advantage of being able to see the way despite the masses of people. It’s crowded, almost suffocating, and the chatters mixed with the loud music coming from each corner of the area aren’t really friendly to the ears.
Surprisingly, being too occupied with the activities around him, he didn’t realize he reached the end of the crowd and the people just disappeared, leaving only ten of them around him. He’s sure there’s more but he wouldn’t count.
“Hey, I’m letting you meet my friends. If you want to be cool, hang out with us.” Yixing tells him while leading him to a group of people hanging around isolated from the others. “And try not to be an asshole.”
Chanyeol gasps. “I’m an asshole?” His question, unfortunately, was ignored along with an argument he already prepared with Yixing already waving to his friends who have acknowledged his presence. They stop in front of them and Chanyeol, this time, counted, and he got three.
“Asshole!” Chanyeol blinks. For a second there, he thought the guy was referring to him, until he saw the guy slinging an arm around Yixing’s shoulders. He really needs to get his shit together. “You were supposed to be here an hour ago!” The other guys, Chanyeol noticed, nod in agreement.
Yixing turns to him, looking at him expectedly like he’s supposed to know how to read minds but he doesn’t and judging by how the other guys are looking at him as well, he ended up connecting his words to their previous topic, because, yeah, it just seem to fit. “Sorry. I kept him…he kind of helped me with my stuff.” He got a few confused looks in return and a Yixing snickering beside him.
Yixing pushes the guy clinging to him away and tugs Chanyeol’s shirt to whisper. “I need you to introduce yourself. Nobody cares about me being late.”
“Oh, uh, I’m Park Chanyeol.” He says. He was going to hold out his hand but he remembered how Yixing ignored his effort so he didn’t bother. “Nice to meet you,”
Yixing grins at him and turns to his friends. “So, this is Sehun, Jongin and Junmyeon,” Chanyeol follows where Yixing is pointing. Sehun was the one who slung his arm around Yixing earlier. Jongin is the tan one who kind of looks like he’s s hangover slash sleep deprived. Junmyeon is the fairest one, leaning on the stall, couldn’t be the slightest bothered by his presence judging from how fixed he is on his phone. However, he is bothered by the tan one.
“Is he…okay?” He asks.
“Don’t mind him. He just lacks sleep. Apparently, he thinks practicing dance in the middle of the night is a good idea.” Yixing replies flatly.
“Guys, please don’t hang around my stall. I’m not going to get any students to sign up!”
A small voice chirps in, startling Chanyeol. He hears the other guys laugh and as Sehun moves away from his spot, he sees another guy sitting behind the stall.
“You’re never going to get students to sign up especially with what happened to one of your members,” Yixing tells him. This is the part where Chanyeol notices the wall. He doesn’t know any of these guys so he should probably leave. He was going to until the guy behind the stall noticed him.
“Who are you?”
“Chanyeol. My new roommate.” Yixing announces. “Don’t worry. I researched about him. He’s completely healthy!”
“Good for you.”
“His name’s Kyungsoo.” Yixing tells Chanyeol. “He’s in-charge of the school’s performing arts club. I brought you here not just so you can hang out with the cool kids but also to join. You play guitar right?”
Chanyeol opens his mouth to say something but Kyungsoo beats him to it. “Great, Yixing. Another guitarist. We can just make a guitar band, you know what I mean?”
“I usually play the drums. Guitar is just a hobby.” Chanyeol says immediately, redeeming himself.
“Goodness! You’re a blessing.” Yixing pats him on the back before turning to Kyungsoo and leaning on the stall. “Write his name down. Come on! Park Chanyeol.”
“At least you’re happy,” Chanyeol hears Kyungsoo mumble while writing down.
Chanyeol takes this opportunity to look around. The school is big. The pictures on their website don’t do justice at all. SMA is one of the most prestigious schools in Seoul. Every year they produce promising graduates who excel in their own areas. Chanyeol’s not exactly sure what area he excels in but he reminds himself that the reason why he chose to transfer to this school is because he wants pressure to get to him, to push him to try harder. Unlike in his previous school where he completely fucked up.
“Another thing,” Chanyeol almost jumps when Yixing suddenly appears beside him. “If you want to keep hanging out with us, don’t get involved with them.”
Chanyeol follows Yixing’s line of sight. A few stalls away from them are three guys hanging around someone’s pick-up truck. One of them, a blondie, is reading a book. Beside him is someone taller, sporting a bright red hair with piercings that could not be unseen. Finally, leaning coolly on the truck with a phone stuck in his ears is a blond guy who’s intimidating enough even at the distance. He’s tall, a lot taller than the other two, but Chanyeol thinks not that taller than him.
“Why?” He asks Yixing. He really does wanna know why.
“Just because.”
--
It took two more days before Chanyeol finally understood why the school is fucking big, and that is thanks to Yixing for constantly dragging him to his friends’ escapade. They think driving around the school is the coolest thing ever. The school is divided into two areas respectively, the East and the West sides. The West is where they are, the Koreans, the local people, while the East stands to cater the needs of foreign exchange students because apparently, it’s hard to live around natives without getting offended by one simple racist joke. They don’t take it easy. Chanyeol has asked Yixing why he’s in the West given that he’s born Chinese, but Yixing answers simply with ‘because I want to’. The whole justification being the reason why he moved to Korea is to mingle with non-Chinese people and not to get isolated with more of them. That would defeat the whole purpose of being a foreign student in the first place. Chanyeol admits though, he’s got to give Yixing a penny for that.
It takes the end of the moving-in week for him to finally realize that Yixing is a bigger asshole than what he makes him out to be because now he’s running late in the corridors on the first day of class thanks to Yixing mercilessly murdering his alarm clock before it even woke him up. And the said asshole didn’t even take the liberty to wake him up before leaving. He thought his life would start to make more progress by transferring schools. Guess his bad luck just let him get stuck with an asshole for a roommate for the rest of the school year.
He makes a careless turn on the right to where the lockers are located and a few more turns he’s sure he’ll get to his assigned room for Literature Class, eventually. He didn’t expect to bump into someone as tall as him as he turns though, actually, he didn’t expect anyone would be on the corridors at this time at all. He stumbles but doesn’t fall. He looks up when he notices the sound of footsteps around him. There are still a lot of students hanging around the lockers.
“Hey, you.”
Chanyeol feels pressure on his collar. He didn’t even have time to wonder when he was violently shoved onto the locker, the metal sticking onto his shirt.
“Where do you think you’re looking?”
Chanyeol can feel himself choking with his last breath, given the amount of pressure Kris is pushing on to his throat. “S-sorry.” He tells him anyway even though he’s a hundred percent sure he’s not going to make it to his class without a large bruise somewhere on his face because man, Kris looks so fucking angry.
“Kris.”
Chanyeol hears a voice beside them and sees the blondie-Luhan-touching Kris’ arm. “A teacher’s coming.”
Kris tsk’s before letting go of Chanyeol, causing him to fall on the floor with his butt, choking for a breath of air. “If I ever see you again, I’m going to beat you up.” Kris says before tilting his head to the other two, indicating their leave. The other students who were swarmed up around them also started dispersing slowly.
He hears footsteps and looks up when the shadow covers his own. “Boy, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in class?” The female teacher asks. Chanyeol immediately stumbles up, fixing his shirt and grabbing his bag.
“Sorry, Miss. I’ll be on my way.” Chanyeol bows before turning around to run.
It’s bad enough that it’s his first day and he’s late but getting involved in trouble is even worse. He would really want to stay out of the spot light so he can concentrate on his studies and hopes that he doesn’t run into Kris and his minions again because he’s sure he’s not going to be able to get away with his luck the second time around. He finally reaches his room. He enters and everyone’s eyes are immediately on him. He gulps and turns to the teacher. “Uh, Park Chanyeol.”
The male teacher, a bit old, smiles at him. “Ah! The transferee.” He gestures for Chanyeol to come to the platform as he faces back to the class. “Everyone, this is your new classmate.”
Chanyeol observes the class; at least all of them are whispering while looking at him, making him feel a little bit anxious. Besides, what could they be whispering about when he’s only just transferred?
“His name is Park Chanyeol and is a transferee from SM High. Be nice to him, alright, everyone?” The teacher receives a lazy response wherein he only laughs it out. “Go find your seat.”
Chanyeol steps down from the platform to find a vacant seat. Easier said than done. The whispers kept on growing louder as he walks further into the back that he couldn’t even look around to find a good seat, his head just kept on hanging low out of embarrassment. He hears someone tattling and looks up to find Yixing pointing to the seat beside his’. Chanyeol immediately approaches, silently feeling thankful.
When the teacher resumes the lecture, he leans close enough to be able to whisper to Yixing. “Why’s everyone shunning me or some sort?”
Yixing snorts and throws his phone at him. Chanyeol catches it carefully and looks at the screen. He gasps slightly when he sees a picture of him getting owned by Kris in the lockers which happened only a few minutes ago and how the hell-
“How the hell…?”
“It’s the school’s underground website. Like, where students posts about the latest events.”
“So everybody can see this?”
“Of course.” Yixing answers simply.
Well, so much for staying out of the spotlight. Now everybody’s going to refer to him as ‘the giant who got owned by Kris’ for the rest of the school year and really, the idea of having to transfer schools again because of this doesn’t sound so reasonable. He’ll just have to avoid troubles. If he could.
The next morning, he woke up earlier than expected. He concludes though that Yixing really does wake up early. It’s half an hour before class and Yixing is already groomed, sitting on his computer seat and doing God-knows-what on his computer. Chanyeol immediately grabs change of clothes.
When he’s done, it’s only 5 minutes before the time. He turns back to Yixing who’s still comfortably sitting in front of his computer, completely oblivious to the time. What’s the point of waking up early when you’re going to end up late anyway?
“Yixing, it’s almost time.” Chanyeol says while walking to the door.
“I’ll be right there.” Yixing answers, not even sparing a glance to Chanyeol for being too busy with whatever he’s doing on his computer.
Chanyeol sighs and opens the door, surprised at the sight that greeted him. He’s already used to the flowers on the room in front of their so seeing them gone is a bit surprising, not just that, the fact that the flowers, all of them, are now dumped inside the garbage bag that’s also left in front of the door.
“Christ.” Yixing hisses in surprise beside him. “He’s back.”
Chanyeol walks out of the room as Yixing locks the door. “You mean Byun Baekhyun?”
“Who else would throw all those flowers away? Man, imagine how much they all cost.” Yixing shakes his head. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait, so he’s really back?”
“Oh, get over it, Chanyeol.”
Not everyone can dismiss curiosity easily, is what Chanyeol wants to tell Yixing because the whole morning, he couldn’t stop thinking about the man who lives behind the mysterious door. He wants to know what it feels like to receive expensive flowers every day and then throwing them all away in the end. It’s curiosity. Is he nice? Is he handsome? Why does he get flowers every day? Are they from his admirers? There are a lot of inquiries in his head and slowly, he starts to question if it’s proper. He knows he shouldn’t think too much of it but there was no helping it at all.
Chanyeol sighs and Yixing kicks him again. “Aw!”
“Seriously, you’re annoying.”
Chanyeol looks around him; everybody’s busy doing their own thing while waiting on the line for the food so he guesses it’s fine to argue with Yixing. He doesn’t even know when he got so paranoid but who cares.
“What did I do to you?”
“You keep on sighing and I know what you’re sighing about. Byun Baekhyun.”
“I wasn’t-“
“Don’t even try.”
Chanyeol sighs. “Fine. But who wouldn’t? Suddenly the flowers are gone. Of course I’m going to be curious.”
“Is that really the reason?”
“Don’t you think that trying to keep me uninterested also contributes to why I’m too curious?” Chanyeol inquires as the line moves. “You know, like parents and their children. The more parents keep their children from discovering about sex, the more the children would want to discover about sex.”
“Please, you’re not a child. You’re a college student. You don’t need a mom to remind you of dos and don’ts.”
Chanyeol snorts. “But you are.”
“Because you are being a child. There are more important things that should take a space in your brain. You don’t need to worry about someone you don’t even know.”
“Who said anything about worrying? I said I was curious.” Chanyeol notices it’s his turn and he smiles immediately to the counter lady. “And what are you, my mom?” He says before stating his meal orders quickly. He moves his stray as he does so.
“I’m just saying don’t get involved with something that doesn’t involve you. You know what I mean? Really, suck it up. You wouldn’t want me staring outside your room and wondering who lives there. That’s creepy.” Yixing sounds so grossed out which is understandable even for Chanyeol when the mental image really is puke-inducing.
“That’s creepy for you and me. Not so creepy with some mysterious flower magnet pretty boy.”
Yixing snorts and shakes his head. He takes his tray and walks first to their table wherein Chanyeol follows immediately. One thing Yixing hates the most aside from peanuts in chocolates is how the cafeteria could pass up as a jungle provided the number of students running and jumping around, shoving each other on tables and floors, playing around like they never passed childhood and puberty and of course, who would miss the women chatting about their super awesome summer and kegel exercises to loosen up their vaginas. Fortunately, being exposed to this jungle of a student body, Yixing has learned the ways of survival. Unfortunately for Chanyeol, who was born a fist-magnet, he slipped after some arm hit his chest and he stumbled on one of the tables wherein his food tray got thrown off somewhere across him when he tried to save his ass by grabbing the edge to avoid falling. It really wasn’t much of a scene, he thinks, that is until the whole cafeteria fell into a very deafening and threatening silence. He immediately stands up, observing the eyes on him in the process or rather, after seconds of wondering, behind him. He gulps as he turns around slowly.
He can feel his heart jumping off his chest when Kris’ face-angry face-comes in view. It only takes him a minute to realize that the food tray he accidentally threw off earlier landed on Kris’ expensive shirt, resulting to a mess of colors that are the sauce.
“You had guts,” Kris tells him while advancing towards him. Chanyeol is pretty sure the subtext to that phrase is ‘you’re going to die’. He takes a step back but then his back hit the table and Kris has pretty much has his fist around his collar now.
“I’m sorry it’s not my fault-“ Bam.
And that is the first punch of the school year.
Chanyeol stumbles down the floor with his feet in tangle. He snaps his head to get the world to stop spinning after Kris’ punch messed up his visuals. He probably looks pathetic now. Who would want to get beaten up by someone the same size as you? It’s not that he’s a coward. It’s just that he still stands on his principles of change that he tries to avoid this trouble get any worse than it already is. He still hasn’t recollected his dignity when Kris’ grabs his collar again, violently pulling him up to his face. Chanyeol’s quite ready for the second punch now when-
“What are you doing?”
-a voice interrupted the scene.
In a second, the whole cafeteria desolated into silence, all because of one question from the guy sitting on the table beside them, back turned, face hidden under his hoodie.
“Let him go Kris.”
Chanyeol thinks this guy is begging for death by being such a martyr because obviously there is no way Kris would-oh, oh wait. Chanyeol blinks when he feels Kris’ grip on his collar loosen. Kris isn’t even paying attention to him, but to the mysterious guy. It’s like he knows who he is but isn’t so sure.
Suddenly, Yixing jumps into the picture by not-so-carefully pulling the guy’s hoodie back, revealing his hair. “Fuck!” The guy curses when the sunlight hits his face and he turns to Yixing with a glare. “Yixing!”
Chanyeol can see his side profile now but his messy hair is blocking almost half of his face.
“You don’t come on the first day and when you finally show up today, you’re hungover?!”
Chanyeol takes notice on the growing noise around him. All he was able to pick up, and probably the most obvious one, is that mysterious guy is Byun Baekhyun. And everyone seems to be alarmed that he’s back. Chanyeol wonders why, and more importantly who this person is. Yixing always refuses to tell him anything other than the name. Randomly asking about him would mean the end of his college life. Yet what Chanyeol sees now is a normal guy in hangover.
Baekhyun ignores Yixing (he has always ignored him anyway) and turns around to see Chanyeol and Kris. Kris freezes in his presence. “Baek-“
“You,” Baekhyun walks to Chanyeol and drags him away. “Come with me.”
“What? Wait? What’s happening?” Chanyeol glances to the crowd they’re passing and then behind him where Yixing and Kris are watching. But they all look as surprised as he is. When they were finally outside the cafeteria, Baekhyun releases his grip as the door slowly closes behind them.
Chanyeol expected an explanation, introduction even, but all Baekhyun did was pull his hoodie back up on his head and walked away, as if he didn’t just drag someone with him out of the cafeteria. Chanyeol followed him, keeping his tracks unnoticed but after a few steps, Baekhyun turned to him so he stopped.
“Why are you following me?”
“Why did you drag me with you?” Chanyeol shoots back.
“Geez. Transfer students used to be fun.” Baekhyun mumbles. “You would be dead by now if I didn’t. I won’t always be there to save your sorry ass but as much as possible, stay away from Kris.”
Chanyeol already knew that.
“And from me too.”
He should’ve taken that warning more seriously. But as he watches Baekhyun’s back disappear, there’s a sudden urge of wanting to pull him back. Maybe it’s his voice, or his eyes but he’s not entirely sure why he’s interested in someone he’s not supposed to be interested in.
>>
a/n:
dedicated to steph, my twin, cos she's a huge chanbaek shipper (so huge). lmao
and birthday girl michelle (@owmichi) haha happy late birthday! i had to finish this for you. sorry this isnt a drabble lmao. <3
this was supposed to be a one shot but it became so long I had to upload by parts. ;A;
anyway, next one is tomorrow.
- gelie
Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol, Kris/Baekhyun, side!Luhan/Kris
Genre: Romance, Drama, University!AU
Word Count: 5k+
Summary: Not everyone can dismiss curiosity easily, is what Chanyeol wants to tell Yixing, because the whole morning, he couldn’t stop thinking about the man who lives behind the mysterious door.
PAPER PLANES
“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.”
- Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
Moving to a different school, in a different city, is probably the best choice Chanyeol has ever made in his life. For once there’s this word change that would most likely follow him like a blind shadow for the next months starting from this day. Change is a good thing. This is a good thing. Because he can see that he’s moving forward and that he doesn’t have to be stuck in his hometown and end up an early father of two sons who works for a minimum wage. And the best part of all of this is that this is just the start, he’ll have more days to make decisions and changes, and through those days, he can feel himself walking off the Earth, getting closer and closer to his dreams, to satisfaction, to happiness.
His year kicks off with loads of boxes trapped in his arms while squeezing himself in between bodies of a crowded hallway trying to find his room number. It’s a week before class and a week before class is called moving-in or moving-back-in week which can be summed up to students all going back in the dorms at the same time, carrying things that are heavier than their weights multiplied. It’s all bathed breaths and sticky sweats colliding against each other but that’s what college is and this is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But as much as he wants to belong, like what students normally aim for, Chanyeol prefers to lie low and avoid too much uncalled attention as much as possible because things like that leads to invitations to parties and alcohol, cocaine, wet kisses and a mistake. The reason he moved is because he’s sick of all these things and for once he actually wants to feel like an important figure to society and he just wants to fucking study. Surely, it wouldn’t be too hard right?
He drops the boxes down as he sighs in exhaustion. He stands and idles in front of his room, not really certain of his next move. He has the keys but somehow despite the constant blocking of the people’s heads, his eyes remains fixed at the room in front of his’, the reason being the sight of bundles of flowers and gifts displayed by the door. It’s curiosity-something that nearly killed him in fifth grade-and he couldn’t not get interested because they’re flowers and gifts, on someone’s door, in the dormitory of an all-boys school.
His room door behind him opens and he instantly gets pulled by a hand inside, followed by a slam on the door. Chanyeol nearly stumbled and fell but managed to get back on his feet with the box still safe on his hands. He turns to the person standing before him. “Uh.”
“You must be my new roommate.”
Chanyeol scans the guy. He’s okay. Average height, spock-inspired hair, with very visible cheekbones and dimple. “Yeah.” He breathes and realizes he’s still holding a box so he drops it on the floor so he can hold out his hand for the sake of courtesy. “I’m Park Chanyeol.”
“Yixing,” Yixing says simply as he walks to the closet, completely ignoring the little bit of effort from Chanyeol. Obviously, courtesy is something this guy has never heard of. Chanyeol follows him with his eyes and sees the closet, fully opened, almost fully occupied by clothes and books alike except for the other side being completely empty. He notices the name tag on Yixing’s guitar (something that excites him for a good ‘ol second given that he’s a music enthusiast too) and reads out Zhang Yixing in his head.
“You’re Chinese?” Chanyeol asks, hoping to sound less racist, but Yixing obviously did not take it easily.
“Probably,” Yixing deadpans as he resumes cleaning out his luggage and putting his things back in place inside the closet. Great. Chanyeol thinks. First day and you’ve already offended someone.
It’s just a mere question and he’s just probably being too hard on himself but he decides that dragging the conversation further could lead to some unresolved issues so he’ll just do what normal people do, ignore and walk away. He gets back out of the room to drag the remaining boxes inside, and though completely occupied with the weight of the number he’s dragging in, he still glances at the room in front before the door completely shuts in.
--
It’s been three hours since he came in and Chanyeol finds himself still unable to continue further from organizing his bedside table and decorating it with picture frames, calendar, and some of his sticky-notes. It’s actually hard to admit but he’s not fairly accustomed to anything that has to do with organizing and thus his boxes remain unopened and idled around the room. Yixing was done an hour ago, his side of the room completely clean it can even pass as a dormitory ad. His side, however, looked like a mix of a garage and a dumpsite, which is an understatement.
He sighs for the fifteenth time, hands on hips, as he scans the area while trying to decide which box to unload first but then again none of the boxes are segregated properly. He just randomly put in stuffs from his room and taped it close.
Chanyeol hears Yixing turn his computer seat but didn’t bother to look until Yixing spoke. “Need help?”
Chanyeol wanted to ask ‘You’re not mad or anything?’ but then again he’s always asked useless questions before so he just nods. “I wasn’t really educated with this moving in stuff.”
“I can tell. You are rich. It must be really hard to do work.” Yixing says in all honesty while walking towards the boxes.
Chanyeol blinks at him in confusion. “How did you know…?”
Yixing shrugs. “Lucky guess. Dyed hair, electric guitar, a Macbook and the inability to organize your own things kind of says it all. I figured you weren’t just useless and lazy.” He squats down in front of a box loaded with CDs and mixtapes. “Though that could come from my research too.”
Chanyeol raises an eyebrow and turns to look again at Yixing’s side of the room where he completely missed his study table. It’s full of gadgets, not something that’s commercialized but self-invented and judging by the stresses on Yixing’s hands, it’s not much to say that he’s on his way to being the second Steve Jobs, or probably third. “You research about your roommates?” For some reason, there is a complete need not to drop this subject. “Is that what drove your previous roommate out?”
Yixing pauses from putting the CDs out and turns to him. “He died. Literally died. He had cancer. Don’t remember what kind of cancer it was. And he was out before the second semester, giving me the room all by myself.”
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry.”
“No need. Everybody dies anyway. It’s just that he died first. And that you just had to know about it without knowing him. It was kind of fun pre-tragic death though. I was getting accustomed to the hospital peeps coming in and out of the room to clean and search for samples.” Yixing continues as he carefully places the CDs on the rack he found by himself somewhere inside Chanyeol’s boxes. “Turns out the cause were from his girlfriend’s. I told him not to visit too much. He didn’t listen. He died. Therefore you,” He turns to him with a sly grin. “Better listen to me.”
Chanyeol chuckles incredulously. “Real smooth. Though I’m relieved to know you don’t drive out your roommates by researching about them,” He says before starting to get his stuff done by pulling out some of his favorite books.
Yixing smirks and slowly walks to his computer desk, swiftly pulling out his iPad. “Park Chanyeol. Born November 27, 1992. Oh, Sagittarius.”
Chanyeol drops his hands. “Jesus.”
“Height, approximately 184 cm. Blood Type A. Went to Seoul Gangnam-gu High School.” Yixing looks up from the screen with a sly smile. “There’s more.”
“For God’s sakes. So you did research.” Chanyeol shakes his head, completely feeling stupefied in this new set of unfamiliar behavior presented to him, but he could care less about strangers knowing about his height, blood type even. “Is this some kind of a…tradition or something?”
“I wonder.” Yixing feigns interest. “You’re still here. Your theory’s incorrect. And no, this is not a tradition. You just happen to sound interesting enough to claim a spot on my iPad. Congratulations.”
Chanyeol shakes his head again, still trying to cope with the thought that his roommate is probably going to do more research about him in the future. It’s a nice change. At least people are interested in him or going to be. Yixing looks cool enough to have cool friends and although he did swear to stay out of the social bubble to be able to concentrate on his studies, the need to get involved is still there. Besides, no one wants to go through college alone at even how fucked up everything is.
Yixing resumes organizing his CDs, albeit he’s doing it a little bit slower this time since he’s started to scan each one for the sake of getting curious about his roommate’s interests. “Damn. Don’t mention these bands in front of other people. You’re going to be thrown to the loser side. It’s ugly there. They don’t have a Macbook.”
Chanyeol snorts. “They will have.”
Yixing crooks his eyebrows as he scans the next CD, immediately softening at the sight of a genre he actually likes. “Maybe only some.” He nods, approving the fact that Chanyeol has a wide variety of music CDs and thus probably doesn’t stick to only one genre. “What instrument do you play?” He asks. When he didn’t get an answer within fifteen seconds, he turns around and finds Chanyeol out in the hallway, dragging another box he probably missed earlier. He decides not to repeat the question.
“Hey, um, whose room is that?” Chanyeol asks immediately when he comes back.
“What room?” Yixing asks while walking slowly back to his computer desk.
“That room in front of ours. There are…flowers and gifts in front of the door.”
“Yeah, too much hassle.” Yixing deadpans, obviously not taking interest in the subject. “And you don’t wanna know.”
“Why? Is the owner…dead?”
“Jesus, is everyone dead to you?” Yixing exclaims, his eyes immediately pulled to the clock to check the time. “And not why. Okay. Okay, I don’t need to know. Practice that. For the meantime, we have to go.”
Chanyeol nearly stumbles outside when Yixing pulls him and yells, “I’m not done fixing my stuff yet!”
“That’s what students do. Procrastinate. Don’t try to be so unique.” Is what Yixing tells him. Chanyeol continues being dragged outside the dormitory, even nearly tripping in the stairs thanks to Yixing’s refusal to let him go in fear of him running away, which Chanyeol is most unlikely to do given that he probably doesn’t want to upset Yixing more than he already did with only his basic existence.
--
Chanyeol didn’t even have the chance to wonder whatever he’s supposed to be wondering about after seeing a large sign made up of crappy handwritings and recycled white cloth that read ‘Activity Fair’. Well, this is new. He doesn’t remember having this sort of event in his old school a week before the start of class. There are various stalls around, each with their own signs of clubs and organizations hung up, trying to invite people to join and register before classes start. Yixing drags him further into the crowd, his tall height giving him the advantage of being able to see the way despite the masses of people. It’s crowded, almost suffocating, and the chatters mixed with the loud music coming from each corner of the area aren’t really friendly to the ears.
Surprisingly, being too occupied with the activities around him, he didn’t realize he reached the end of the crowd and the people just disappeared, leaving only ten of them around him. He’s sure there’s more but he wouldn’t count.
“Hey, I’m letting you meet my friends. If you want to be cool, hang out with us.” Yixing tells him while leading him to a group of people hanging around isolated from the others. “And try not to be an asshole.”
Chanyeol gasps. “I’m an asshole?” His question, unfortunately, was ignored along with an argument he already prepared with Yixing already waving to his friends who have acknowledged his presence. They stop in front of them and Chanyeol, this time, counted, and he got three.
“Asshole!” Chanyeol blinks. For a second there, he thought the guy was referring to him, until he saw the guy slinging an arm around Yixing’s shoulders. He really needs to get his shit together. “You were supposed to be here an hour ago!” The other guys, Chanyeol noticed, nod in agreement.
Yixing turns to him, looking at him expectedly like he’s supposed to know how to read minds but he doesn’t and judging by how the other guys are looking at him as well, he ended up connecting his words to their previous topic, because, yeah, it just seem to fit. “Sorry. I kept him…he kind of helped me with my stuff.” He got a few confused looks in return and a Yixing snickering beside him.
Yixing pushes the guy clinging to him away and tugs Chanyeol’s shirt to whisper. “I need you to introduce yourself. Nobody cares about me being late.”
“Oh, uh, I’m Park Chanyeol.” He says. He was going to hold out his hand but he remembered how Yixing ignored his effort so he didn’t bother. “Nice to meet you,”
Yixing grins at him and turns to his friends. “So, this is Sehun, Jongin and Junmyeon,” Chanyeol follows where Yixing is pointing. Sehun was the one who slung his arm around Yixing earlier. Jongin is the tan one who kind of looks like he’s s hangover slash sleep deprived. Junmyeon is the fairest one, leaning on the stall, couldn’t be the slightest bothered by his presence judging from how fixed he is on his phone. However, he is bothered by the tan one.
“Is he…okay?” He asks.
“Don’t mind him. He just lacks sleep. Apparently, he thinks practicing dance in the middle of the night is a good idea.” Yixing replies flatly.
“Guys, please don’t hang around my stall. I’m not going to get any students to sign up!”
A small voice chirps in, startling Chanyeol. He hears the other guys laugh and as Sehun moves away from his spot, he sees another guy sitting behind the stall.
“You’re never going to get students to sign up especially with what happened to one of your members,” Yixing tells him. This is the part where Chanyeol notices the wall. He doesn’t know any of these guys so he should probably leave. He was going to until the guy behind the stall noticed him.
“Who are you?”
“Chanyeol. My new roommate.” Yixing announces. “Don’t worry. I researched about him. He’s completely healthy!”
“Good for you.”
“His name’s Kyungsoo.” Yixing tells Chanyeol. “He’s in-charge of the school’s performing arts club. I brought you here not just so you can hang out with the cool kids but also to join. You play guitar right?”
Chanyeol opens his mouth to say something but Kyungsoo beats him to it. “Great, Yixing. Another guitarist. We can just make a guitar band, you know what I mean?”
“I usually play the drums. Guitar is just a hobby.” Chanyeol says immediately, redeeming himself.
“Goodness! You’re a blessing.” Yixing pats him on the back before turning to Kyungsoo and leaning on the stall. “Write his name down. Come on! Park Chanyeol.”
“At least you’re happy,” Chanyeol hears Kyungsoo mumble while writing down.
Chanyeol takes this opportunity to look around. The school is big. The pictures on their website don’t do justice at all. SMA is one of the most prestigious schools in Seoul. Every year they produce promising graduates who excel in their own areas. Chanyeol’s not exactly sure what area he excels in but he reminds himself that the reason why he chose to transfer to this school is because he wants pressure to get to him, to push him to try harder. Unlike in his previous school where he completely fucked up.
“Another thing,” Chanyeol almost jumps when Yixing suddenly appears beside him. “If you want to keep hanging out with us, don’t get involved with them.”
Chanyeol follows Yixing’s line of sight. A few stalls away from them are three guys hanging around someone’s pick-up truck. One of them, a blondie, is reading a book. Beside him is someone taller, sporting a bright red hair with piercings that could not be unseen. Finally, leaning coolly on the truck with a phone stuck in his ears is a blond guy who’s intimidating enough even at the distance. He’s tall, a lot taller than the other two, but Chanyeol thinks not that taller than him.
“Why?” He asks Yixing. He really does wanna know why.
“Just because.”
--
It took two more days before Chanyeol finally understood why the school is fucking big, and that is thanks to Yixing for constantly dragging him to his friends’ escapade. They think driving around the school is the coolest thing ever. The school is divided into two areas respectively, the East and the West sides. The West is where they are, the Koreans, the local people, while the East stands to cater the needs of foreign exchange students because apparently, it’s hard to live around natives without getting offended by one simple racist joke. They don’t take it easy. Chanyeol has asked Yixing why he’s in the West given that he’s born Chinese, but Yixing answers simply with ‘because I want to’. The whole justification being the reason why he moved to Korea is to mingle with non-Chinese people and not to get isolated with more of them. That would defeat the whole purpose of being a foreign student in the first place. Chanyeol admits though, he’s got to give Yixing a penny for that.
It takes the end of the moving-in week for him to finally realize that Yixing is a bigger asshole than what he makes him out to be because now he’s running late in the corridors on the first day of class thanks to Yixing mercilessly murdering his alarm clock before it even woke him up. And the said asshole didn’t even take the liberty to wake him up before leaving. He thought his life would start to make more progress by transferring schools. Guess his bad luck just let him get stuck with an asshole for a roommate for the rest of the school year.
He makes a careless turn on the right to where the lockers are located and a few more turns he’s sure he’ll get to his assigned room for Literature Class, eventually. He didn’t expect to bump into someone as tall as him as he turns though, actually, he didn’t expect anyone would be on the corridors at this time at all. He stumbles but doesn’t fall. He looks up when he notices the sound of footsteps around him. There are still a lot of students hanging around the lockers.
“Hey, you.”
Chanyeol feels pressure on his collar. He didn’t even have time to wonder when he was violently shoved onto the locker, the metal sticking onto his shirt.
“Where do you think you’re looking?”
Chanyeol can feel himself choking with his last breath, given the amount of pressure Kris is pushing on to his throat. “S-sorry.” He tells him anyway even though he’s a hundred percent sure he’s not going to make it to his class without a large bruise somewhere on his face because man, Kris looks so fucking angry.
“Kris.”
Chanyeol hears a voice beside them and sees the blondie-Luhan-touching Kris’ arm. “A teacher’s coming.”
Kris tsk’s before letting go of Chanyeol, causing him to fall on the floor with his butt, choking for a breath of air. “If I ever see you again, I’m going to beat you up.” Kris says before tilting his head to the other two, indicating their leave. The other students who were swarmed up around them also started dispersing slowly.
He hears footsteps and looks up when the shadow covers his own. “Boy, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in class?” The female teacher asks. Chanyeol immediately stumbles up, fixing his shirt and grabbing his bag.
“Sorry, Miss. I’ll be on my way.” Chanyeol bows before turning around to run.
It’s bad enough that it’s his first day and he’s late but getting involved in trouble is even worse. He would really want to stay out of the spot light so he can concentrate on his studies and hopes that he doesn’t run into Kris and his minions again because he’s sure he’s not going to be able to get away with his luck the second time around. He finally reaches his room. He enters and everyone’s eyes are immediately on him. He gulps and turns to the teacher. “Uh, Park Chanyeol.”
The male teacher, a bit old, smiles at him. “Ah! The transferee.” He gestures for Chanyeol to come to the platform as he faces back to the class. “Everyone, this is your new classmate.”
Chanyeol observes the class; at least all of them are whispering while looking at him, making him feel a little bit anxious. Besides, what could they be whispering about when he’s only just transferred?
“His name is Park Chanyeol and is a transferee from SM High. Be nice to him, alright, everyone?” The teacher receives a lazy response wherein he only laughs it out. “Go find your seat.”
Chanyeol steps down from the platform to find a vacant seat. Easier said than done. The whispers kept on growing louder as he walks further into the back that he couldn’t even look around to find a good seat, his head just kept on hanging low out of embarrassment. He hears someone tattling and looks up to find Yixing pointing to the seat beside his’. Chanyeol immediately approaches, silently feeling thankful.
When the teacher resumes the lecture, he leans close enough to be able to whisper to Yixing. “Why’s everyone shunning me or some sort?”
Yixing snorts and throws his phone at him. Chanyeol catches it carefully and looks at the screen. He gasps slightly when he sees a picture of him getting owned by Kris in the lockers which happened only a few minutes ago and how the hell-
“How the hell…?”
“It’s the school’s underground website. Like, where students posts about the latest events.”
“So everybody can see this?”
“Of course.” Yixing answers simply.
Well, so much for staying out of the spotlight. Now everybody’s going to refer to him as ‘the giant who got owned by Kris’ for the rest of the school year and really, the idea of having to transfer schools again because of this doesn’t sound so reasonable. He’ll just have to avoid troubles. If he could.
The next morning, he woke up earlier than expected. He concludes though that Yixing really does wake up early. It’s half an hour before class and Yixing is already groomed, sitting on his computer seat and doing God-knows-what on his computer. Chanyeol immediately grabs change of clothes.
When he’s done, it’s only 5 minutes before the time. He turns back to Yixing who’s still comfortably sitting in front of his computer, completely oblivious to the time. What’s the point of waking up early when you’re going to end up late anyway?
“Yixing, it’s almost time.” Chanyeol says while walking to the door.
“I’ll be right there.” Yixing answers, not even sparing a glance to Chanyeol for being too busy with whatever he’s doing on his computer.
Chanyeol sighs and opens the door, surprised at the sight that greeted him. He’s already used to the flowers on the room in front of their so seeing them gone is a bit surprising, not just that, the fact that the flowers, all of them, are now dumped inside the garbage bag that’s also left in front of the door.
“Christ.” Yixing hisses in surprise beside him. “He’s back.”
Chanyeol walks out of the room as Yixing locks the door. “You mean Byun Baekhyun?”
“Who else would throw all those flowers away? Man, imagine how much they all cost.” Yixing shakes his head. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait, so he’s really back?”
“Oh, get over it, Chanyeol.”
Not everyone can dismiss curiosity easily, is what Chanyeol wants to tell Yixing because the whole morning, he couldn’t stop thinking about the man who lives behind the mysterious door. He wants to know what it feels like to receive expensive flowers every day and then throwing them all away in the end. It’s curiosity. Is he nice? Is he handsome? Why does he get flowers every day? Are they from his admirers? There are a lot of inquiries in his head and slowly, he starts to question if it’s proper. He knows he shouldn’t think too much of it but there was no helping it at all.
Chanyeol sighs and Yixing kicks him again. “Aw!”
“Seriously, you’re annoying.”
Chanyeol looks around him; everybody’s busy doing their own thing while waiting on the line for the food so he guesses it’s fine to argue with Yixing. He doesn’t even know when he got so paranoid but who cares.
“What did I do to you?”
“You keep on sighing and I know what you’re sighing about. Byun Baekhyun.”
“I wasn’t-“
“Don’t even try.”
Chanyeol sighs. “Fine. But who wouldn’t? Suddenly the flowers are gone. Of course I’m going to be curious.”
“Is that really the reason?”
“Don’t you think that trying to keep me uninterested also contributes to why I’m too curious?” Chanyeol inquires as the line moves. “You know, like parents and their children. The more parents keep their children from discovering about sex, the more the children would want to discover about sex.”
“Please, you’re not a child. You’re a college student. You don’t need a mom to remind you of dos and don’ts.”
Chanyeol snorts. “But you are.”
“Because you are being a child. There are more important things that should take a space in your brain. You don’t need to worry about someone you don’t even know.”
“Who said anything about worrying? I said I was curious.” Chanyeol notices it’s his turn and he smiles immediately to the counter lady. “And what are you, my mom?” He says before stating his meal orders quickly. He moves his stray as he does so.
“I’m just saying don’t get involved with something that doesn’t involve you. You know what I mean? Really, suck it up. You wouldn’t want me staring outside your room and wondering who lives there. That’s creepy.” Yixing sounds so grossed out which is understandable even for Chanyeol when the mental image really is puke-inducing.
“That’s creepy for you and me. Not so creepy with some mysterious flower magnet pretty boy.”
Yixing snorts and shakes his head. He takes his tray and walks first to their table wherein Chanyeol follows immediately. One thing Yixing hates the most aside from peanuts in chocolates is how the cafeteria could pass up as a jungle provided the number of students running and jumping around, shoving each other on tables and floors, playing around like they never passed childhood and puberty and of course, who would miss the women chatting about their super awesome summer and kegel exercises to loosen up their vaginas. Fortunately, being exposed to this jungle of a student body, Yixing has learned the ways of survival. Unfortunately for Chanyeol, who was born a fist-magnet, he slipped after some arm hit his chest and he stumbled on one of the tables wherein his food tray got thrown off somewhere across him when he tried to save his ass by grabbing the edge to avoid falling. It really wasn’t much of a scene, he thinks, that is until the whole cafeteria fell into a very deafening and threatening silence. He immediately stands up, observing the eyes on him in the process or rather, after seconds of wondering, behind him. He gulps as he turns around slowly.
He can feel his heart jumping off his chest when Kris’ face-angry face-comes in view. It only takes him a minute to realize that the food tray he accidentally threw off earlier landed on Kris’ expensive shirt, resulting to a mess of colors that are the sauce.
“You had guts,” Kris tells him while advancing towards him. Chanyeol is pretty sure the subtext to that phrase is ‘you’re going to die’. He takes a step back but then his back hit the table and Kris has pretty much has his fist around his collar now.
“I’m sorry it’s not my fault-“ Bam.
And that is the first punch of the school year.
Chanyeol stumbles down the floor with his feet in tangle. He snaps his head to get the world to stop spinning after Kris’ punch messed up his visuals. He probably looks pathetic now. Who would want to get beaten up by someone the same size as you? It’s not that he’s a coward. It’s just that he still stands on his principles of change that he tries to avoid this trouble get any worse than it already is. He still hasn’t recollected his dignity when Kris’ grabs his collar again, violently pulling him up to his face. Chanyeol’s quite ready for the second punch now when-
“What are you doing?”
-a voice interrupted the scene.
In a second, the whole cafeteria desolated into silence, all because of one question from the guy sitting on the table beside them, back turned, face hidden under his hoodie.
“Let him go Kris.”
Chanyeol thinks this guy is begging for death by being such a martyr because obviously there is no way Kris would-oh, oh wait. Chanyeol blinks when he feels Kris’ grip on his collar loosen. Kris isn’t even paying attention to him, but to the mysterious guy. It’s like he knows who he is but isn’t so sure.
Suddenly, Yixing jumps into the picture by not-so-carefully pulling the guy’s hoodie back, revealing his hair. “Fuck!” The guy curses when the sunlight hits his face and he turns to Yixing with a glare. “Yixing!”
Chanyeol can see his side profile now but his messy hair is blocking almost half of his face.
“You don’t come on the first day and when you finally show up today, you’re hungover?!”
Chanyeol takes notice on the growing noise around him. All he was able to pick up, and probably the most obvious one, is that mysterious guy is Byun Baekhyun. And everyone seems to be alarmed that he’s back. Chanyeol wonders why, and more importantly who this person is. Yixing always refuses to tell him anything other than the name. Randomly asking about him would mean the end of his college life. Yet what Chanyeol sees now is a normal guy in hangover.
Baekhyun ignores Yixing (he has always ignored him anyway) and turns around to see Chanyeol and Kris. Kris freezes in his presence. “Baek-“
“You,” Baekhyun walks to Chanyeol and drags him away. “Come with me.”
“What? Wait? What’s happening?” Chanyeol glances to the crowd they’re passing and then behind him where Yixing and Kris are watching. But they all look as surprised as he is. When they were finally outside the cafeteria, Baekhyun releases his grip as the door slowly closes behind them.
Chanyeol expected an explanation, introduction even, but all Baekhyun did was pull his hoodie back up on his head and walked away, as if he didn’t just drag someone with him out of the cafeteria. Chanyeol followed him, keeping his tracks unnoticed but after a few steps, Baekhyun turned to him so he stopped.
“Why are you following me?”
“Why did you drag me with you?” Chanyeol shoots back.
“Geez. Transfer students used to be fun.” Baekhyun mumbles. “You would be dead by now if I didn’t. I won’t always be there to save your sorry ass but as much as possible, stay away from Kris.”
Chanyeol already knew that.
“And from me too.”
He should’ve taken that warning more seriously. But as he watches Baekhyun’s back disappear, there’s a sudden urge of wanting to pull him back. Maybe it’s his voice, or his eyes but he’s not entirely sure why he’s interested in someone he’s not supposed to be interested in.
>>
a/n:
dedicated to steph, my twin, cos she's a huge chanbaek shipper (so huge). lmao
and birthday girl michelle (@owmichi) haha happy late birthday! i had to finish this for you. sorry this isnt a drabble lmao. <3
this was supposed to be a one shot but it became so long I had to upload by parts. ;A;
anyway, next one is tomorrow.
- gelie