Title: the only cycle that matters
Author:
kyungsoo_samaFandom/Characters/Pairing: EXO - Baekhyun/Kyungsoo
Rating/Warnings: G
Challenge # & Prompt: #021 - circles
Word Count: 641 words
Baekhyun! Baekhyuuuunn! Baekhyun...... "Baekhyun! Baekhyun!!" Oh shit, he'd drifted off in class again. Not sleeping per se, but drifted off into some kind of reverie where butterflies and unicorns escorted him up the aisle where he waited for him. And Baekhyun had been staring at Kyungsoo throughout the class. Throughout the last semester, actually.
The teacher's loud rapping on the table finally shook him out of his reverie. "Baekhyun, explain why Sisyphus is alluded to in this poem." Baekhyun scrunched his eyes closed. Ah, yes! He got it.
"Sisyphus is the Greek king condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only to see it roll down a cliff just before he reached the top. He is a symbol of unending and futile labour, who the poet, Marge Pierce, does not want to emulate."
"Good. Sit down." The teacher's hurt pride was clearly seen through her short, clipped words. Baekhyun sat, feeling rather smug, and turning his attention right back to Kyungsoo. He admired him from the back bench, eyes slowly running over his silky hair and the soft curve of his jaw, where his full, pink lips sat, tongue running over them in concentration. And over his shoulder, hunched over the English textbook, and down that back, shirt tightly hugging his figure. As the rest of his body disappeared under the bench, it was left to Baekhyun's imagination as to how Kyungsoo's shapely legs and thighs looked. Ahem.
He wasn't very different from Sisyphus, really. Walking all the way up to him, working up his courage and gathering bits and pieces of his confidence, only to jerk and turn away in the last moment, for fear of no, I don't really like you that way. His heart rolled down like the boulder, tumbling and tossing down dramatically, emotions cascading out of him in a silent but turbulent flow.
But, he rather liked to think of himself as the soul of Ram in that rather unknown tale in the Ramayana.
"Kyungsoo, would you like to explain the ending of Ramayana as per Devdutt Patnaik?" The teacher asked slyly, catching yet another snoozing student in her net.
Kyungsoo stood up, and Baekhyun got the view of Kyungsoo's oh-so-fabulous figure. Kyungsoo thought for a few moments, before opening his lips to explain, chocolate voice smoothing out the wrinkles in Baekhyun's soul.....
"Ram drops his ring into the Underworld, and Hanuman ventures into it to get it back. There, he finds the snake-lord Vasuki holding onto Ram's ring, twisting it in his fingers, refusing to give it back. He tells Hanuman that Hanuman doesn't get it, doesn't understand why Ram actually sent him here to learn something, not to get the ring back. Vasuki uncoils his great snake-like form and slithers away, and Hanuman finds a million signet rings, exact replicas of Ram's actual ring. Vasuki tosses it into that heap, losing the ring forever in its midst. Hanuman still doesn't get it. Each ring in the heap, represents one life of the soul of Ram. In every one of his million lives, he lives the same life, wins the same war, and rescues his wife a million times, only to throw his ring into the Underworld for you to catch, for you to come here and learn. Vasuki tells him that we all will live our lives, again and again, a countless times, perfecting it slightly each time, with little hope of getting out of the endless cycle. Unlike the portrayal of Sisyphus, Hindu philosophy shows that unending repetition is not futile as that's just how the soul is, living a million lives, learning and unlearning all its qualities, in hope of finally attainig its One Perfection." Yes, Baekhyun rather loved to think of himself like that, trying and turning away a million times, in hope of attaining his One Perfection.