Like Night and Day

The Principles of Byun Baekhyun

The brunet went about exiting the large building with his arms folded, feeling a slight chill running though his body. As he passed by clocks on the walls, he found that it was nearly six-fifty in the evening.

With the entire school feeling as though it was an isolated desert, Baekhyun found himself becoming accustomed to the eeriness and hollow feeling of his environment after a while. Perhaps it was because he had retreated to the new norm that his entire being practically clawed for death when a large hand touched him on the shoulder just as he reached the front of the school gates.

While the world was covered in darkness, anyone and everything seemed to pose as a threat. The street lights along the road and the ones perched above the gates only gave everything a creepy, skin tingling effect that Baekhyun wasn't necessarily fond of. When he felt the hand, he had jumped off to the side out of reflex, his heart ready to jump straight through his skin and leave the rest of his body for dead.

Under the dim, yellow lights, Baekhyun had issues overcoming an obstacle of getting his eyes to focus and recognize the figure that had snuck up on him. It wasn't until he heard the deep voice through his tuned out ears that Baekhyun faintly remembered who the voice belonged to. When it came onto him that it was the basketball player from weeks ago, he felt his shoulders release tension before he let out a quick breath then turning on his heel and resume walking off school grounds.

It didn't take long, however, for the long legged player to catch up to him despite the large duffle bag that he was carrying on his shoulder. Baekhyun hated the fact that his cellphone was dead since it disabled him from genuinely being too busy to care. Just as he felt the giant approaching, he reached into his pocket and took out his headphones, slipping the buds in his ears while keeping the plug in his pants, preparing to pretend as though he couldn't hear.

As the jock finally caught up, Baekhyun hugged himself even tighter to protect himself from the night air, but to also make it clear that all he needed was himself, not a school athlete following him all the way to the bus stop two blocks down. But when the two of them began to fall into step together, Baekhyun closed his eyes for more than a second and a fraction of a second as he felt a foreboding life error about to happen: a conversation.

"I tried calling out to you a few times, but I don't think you heard me."

Opening his eyes, Baekhyun kept his goal at hand, intent on focusing on getting to the bus stop. He didn't respond or make a comment to what the giant had said. Instead, he tried to speed up his pace, but decided he didn't like how the subtle wind was hitting him harder than he would've liked, making him slightly colder than before. In the end, he kept at the same pace, deciding he could endure the latter's company for a while.

"What're you doing here so late? I was surprised to see you still at school. Practice kind of ended a little later than usual so that explains why I'm still here," the tall male said, laughing awkwardly as if he couldn't sense the fact that Baekhyun didn't want to talk to him. "I don't recall any other after school activities going on besides basketball. Were you being a creeper lurking around school at night?"

The joke ran dry and Baekhyun didn't find the male to be amusing. Sparing the tall giant a blank look, Baekhyun hoped that his cold face would've gotten the message through. With all the people that he had ever encountered, he found that if he stared at them with a blank look, his eyeliner thick eyes would be interpreted in a negative way, often letting people know to fuck off, henceforth leaving Baekhyun off to himself.

The basketball player was a different story. Although sensing Baekhyun's unwillingness to converse with him, Park Chanyeol continued on with the one sided conversation he was having. "Alright. I get that you don't want to talk to me," the giant said, inserting his hands in the front pockets of his basketball shorts.

Turning his head to the left and giving the male another look once again, Baekhyun met the giant's eyes, barely seeing them underneath the street lights. His face softened, receding from the coldness of the previous expression.

"To be honest," Chanyeol said, looking up at the gradually darkening sky, "I don't know what I'm doing here walking with you. My house is in the opposite direction."

Baekhyun withheld the desire to scoff in the male's face, but he succeeded in retaining himself.

"I guess I just wanted...I don't know, actually." The brunet watched as the player flipped his damp hair (probably from showering in the locker room) and looked back at him. "I just saw you and felt compelled to come over?"

Drawing his eyes down, Baekhyun turned his eyes away.

"I don't know if you remember, but I'm Park Chanyeol," the giant said, reintroducing himself. "You kind of rejected me a few weeks ago. Um, I don't exactly know what else to say."

Silently, Baekhyun made up a mental response that involved telling the male to say nothing else and walk the other way. Just as he was about to cross the street, he felt Park Chanyeol touch his shoulder and turning him around.

"Maybe—I'm not sure—but I think you were under the impression that I might've been joking around when I came up to you that day," he said very seriously. "I don't know what I did to make myself come off that way, but I didn't mean it. I was being completely serious. I do like you."

Baekhyun's lips slightly hung open. Picking up his composure, he quickly shut it. He tried to turn back forward towards the bus stop on the other side, but Chanyeol seemed persistent to say what he felt like he needed to be out in the open.

"I know you're not listening to anything. I saw your phone in your back pocket," he said, giving Baekhyun a look that reminded the brunet of an adult who was subtly lecturing a child. "I don't know what you were doing so late at school, but I'm kind of glad because here we are. Again, in case you didn't get it the first or second time around, I'm Park Chanyeol. I know that you're Byun Baekhyun, just to let you know that I'm not mistaking you for someone else."

The shorter male remained platonic although it was clear that he was giving the giant his attention. After taking a pause, Chanyeol continued, letting go of Baekhyun's shoulder when he was sure that the latter wouldn't run off in the middle of his words once again.

"When I asked you out, I wasn't joking around. No one's forcing me to do it," Chanyeol adamantly insisted, which Baekhyun was still very doubtful on. "I should've just asked you out verbally rather than write it out on a piece of paper," he muttered. "Maybe that's why you left. I don't know. If that is the reason, then I'm sorry, but like I said, I'm serious."

After a while and still no response, Chanyeol furrowed his brows as he lifted his arm to his nose. "Do I still stink?" he asked, thinking that Baekhyun's lack of interaction with him had something to do with his body's smell.

He doesn't know why, but Baekhyun squeaked out a sound. It would have been a short laugh if he hadn't caught himself a fraction of a second too late, ending with a cut-off "heh". His face twitched and Chanyeol accidentally saw the curve of his mouth twist upwards before the brunet forced his face to stay down.

Before Chanyeol could take his new grasp of hope and play on the crack of Baekhyun's introverted armor, the bus arrived on the other side of the street. Both of them looked at the lit up vehicle and after a second, Baekhyun looked back at the giant and blinked.

"The bus is here."

Chanyeol felt himself subtly smiling, thinking about how of all the things that the brunet could've said on their short walk together, he had to say something obvious just before going their separate ways. Baekhyun started walking across the street after signalling to the driver that he was planning on getting on and Chanyeol watched as Baekhyun's black figure enlarge the distance between them. But as the brunet was reaching the middle of the road, he took off his head phones and looked back at the basketball jock.

"I'm not really your type," he said in the most casual tone of voice that Chanyeol had ever heard, making it as though the smaller male was completely brushing him off.

However, as the athlete watched the punk kid who everyone had socially outcasted for being too indifferent and introverted, he grinned, thinking about how ridiculous it was for the brunet to say that he wasn't the basketball player's type.