Baekhyun was peacefully watching television in the living room when the doorbell rang.
It was almost time of Jian's arrival from school but it wasn't her. She wouldn't ring the door bell. So Baekhyun curiously went to see who was at the door.
Apparently a courier came from America. Baekhyun checked correctly to see if it who it was from. Seems like it was from Jian's parents. So Baekhyun signed the delivery man's paper and brought the huge box inside of the house.
"Who was it, Baekhyun?"Grandma asked coming out of her room and saw Baekhyun dragging the huge box in,"What is that?"
"Grandma, seems like Jian's parents sent these,"Baekhyun said and looked to see grandma and saw her face turn visibly turn pale. Baekhyun got concerned,"Are you okay? Do you feel sick?"
Grandma shook her head,"Let's open this up before Jian comes."
Baekhyun really didn't know what would mean if Jian saw it but he obliged and brought scissors from the kitchen to cut the tape. A letter fell out from the box and inside the brown wrapping paper, there was a huge box of the latest play station aka play station 5.
Baekhyun smiled,"Grandma, this is the station Jian wanted. She's gonna be really happy when she sees this."
Grandma didn't reply to that. She still looked pale,"Baekhyun-ah, can you read me the letter?"
Baekhyun picked up the letter, it said 'To Jian' in bold writing,"It's for Jian, she wouldn't be too happy to know that we read her letter.."
"It's gonna be okay, so please read it. Sorry for asking, I wish my vision was a bit better.."
"Oh no, grandma it's completely fine. I will read it," Baekhyun said and opened the letter and read the letter word by word.
Dear Jian,
We are sending you a gift for your amazing mid term results. I am so sorry that it took so long, but you do know how busy I am, right? And it's nice to see the complaints have stopped coming from your school. It's amazing that you are slowly getting back to your senses. Keep that up. It's your life, there's no point of living in the past and ruining your life. Remember your goals and start trying your best to achieve them. Give mom my best regards.
Your dad.
After Baekhyun finished reading grandma cursed under her breath,"That heartless jerk. It's getting harder for me to believe that I gave birth to him."
Baekhyun didn't say anything. Grandma looked at the clock and panicked,"Oh my God, Jian is going to be back any second now. Baekhyun-ah, can you help me hide these in my roo..?"
Before they could finish they heard the pin of the door being pressed, indicating Jian was back from school.
"Quick, quick!"Grandma panicked.
Baekhyun didn't think twice before grabbing the huge and heavy box of ps5 and ran into grandma's room and then kept it on the floor and the letter on top of it. He was able to come out and lock the door behind him just before Jian came in.
After Jian got in she saw her grandma and Baekhyun standing in front of her room suspiciously.
"Is something wrong?"Jian asked while untying her shoe.
"No, nothing is up,"Grandma gave the fakest smile Baekhyun had ever seen,"So how was school?"
"Annoying,"Jian replied and got in the living room and glanced at the two of them,"Y'all are hiding something from me, aren't you?"
"Of course not,"Baekhyun said convincingly.
"Why are you blocking grandma's room like that then?"Jian asked, crossing her arms.
Even I don't know, you brat.
Baekhyun came up with the best response he could come up with,"We are cleaning grandma's room and it's quite dusty in there. We don't want dust to fly to living room. Anyway do you want food?"
"Oh,"Jian nodded understandingly.
Yes, she bought it.
Even grandma seemed impressed by Baekhyun's quick thinking skills. She nodded and said,"Jian-ah, I will prepare some snacks for you."
"Okay. I will go wash up first then,"Jian said and headed towards the bathroom.
Baekhyun and grandma smiled in victory at each other thinking how they averted a crisis.
"Thank you,"Grandma mouthed.
Little did they know that the crisis was not averted at all as Jian had only pretended to go to the bathroom to distract them. She turned one eighty from the bathroom and dashed towards grandma's room pushing them out of her way.
Everything happened so quickly grandma and Baekhyun couldn't even process what happened until she was already inside and had seen the ps5 and had picked up the letter and started reading it.
"Oh no,"Grandma said.
Baekhyun saw how Jian's emotionless face slowly twisted in anger as she read the letter written by her father. After she had done reading the letter she crinkled it up in her fist while gritting her teeth. Then she suddenly scoffed,"Getting back to my senses he says."
Baekhyun had never seen Jian like that. And it honestly scared him a bit.
Grandma slowly got inside the room and touched Jian's shoulder.
Jian scoffed again looking at the crinkled paper in her hand. Then she looked at the play station box and said,"Get it out of my face please. Throw it, burn it, donate it, I don't care."
And then she stomped her way to her room and slammed the door shut behind her. Baekhyun wanted to follow her but grandma stopped him,"It's better to leave her alone until she calms down."
Baekhyun nodded.
"Baekhyun-ah?Can you look up donation centers nearby so we can donate that? The sooner the best."
"Sure, I will,"Baekhyun said and looked at the closed door of Jian's room. He doesn't know why but he feels really concerned about her but there is really nothing he can do to help her unless he knows her whole story.
All he could do for now is look up donation centers to donate the ps5 she wanted for so long.
The next day Baekhyun in the afternoon Baekhyun was in his room, trying to come up with a plan for his new mission. But he just can't stop thinking about Jian. She has been awfully quiet since she read the letter yesterday. There is a certain aura about her that Baekhyun cannot help but notice. She looks sad, angry and as if she's up to something. And that 'something' isn't very good.
Baekhyun's train of thoughts was broken by a phone call from grandma. He picked the phone up and heard grandma's panicked voice. Currently she was in Seoul to take care of some bank issues. She was supposed to return by evening. By her panicked voice Baekhyun thought some problem occurred in the back.
"Baekhyun-ah?"
"Yes, Grandma? Did something happen?" Baekhyun was scared of the fact that if the problem was actually in Seoul, he wouldn't be able to go there and help her. He would have to think about something else.
"Yes. I'm so sorry Baekhyun. I have a difficult favor to ask. I'm currently at the bank and this may take awhile so I won't be able to come back right away and take care of things there.."
Phew, it's not at Seoul.
"No worries, grandma, what happened?"
"It's..it's Jian."
I knew I was right to worry.
"Did something happen to her?"
"She..oh no it's embarrassing..she caused some trouble at school and they need her guardian to come immediately. I won't be able to come so..can you go in my stead? You won't have to go much just sign a paper and bring Jian back home. Could you please? If you're not too busy.."
"Grandma, grandma..calm down. I'm not busy. I would go. Don't worry. Just focus on what you're doing there and I will take care of things."
"Yeah, Thank you so much. Jian..that little rascal...I should've known she would do something like this today. Gosh!"
Baekhyun chuckled,"It's okay Grandma. I will go to school now."
"Okay, then I will let her homeroom teacher know that you're coming!"
"Sure."
Baekhyun reached to Jian's school soon, the school guard had helped him with the directions to the teacher's room. The classes were still going on, all the students were in their classes. The hallways were empty.
Oh how long has it been since I came to a school?
Glad that chapter of my life is over.
Once Baekhyun entered the teacher's room in the second floor, he saw that not many teachers were there, most of them were taking classes. Jian was sitting at a chair in front of her homeroom teacher's desk while blowing a bubble with her hands in her hoodie pockets and tapping her feet. She had a huge bandage on her forehead. Her homeroom teacher was checking some documents so he missed Baekhyun approaching them.
Baekhyun slowly walked to the desk and bowed,"Hello, I came as Jung Jian's guardian."
The homeroom teacher looked at him and got up, showing a slight smile,"Hello, I'm Min Seokhyung. Jian's homeroom teacher. You must be the tenant?"
Baekhyun nodded respectfully.
Jian had stopped shaking her feet, she was confused seeing him here,"Why're you here?" Then she looked at her teacher and whined,"Teach, come on. I told you to only inform my parents. Why do you need to involve my grandma as well? And him too?"
"You expect me to do as you say after all the shenanigans you pulled today without any reason?"Seokhyung asked,"Now get out while I talk to him. Wait in the hallway."
Jian sighed and got up,"Just saying, you didn't need to complicate things by involving my grandma as well. I mean I'm sure now that my dad knows he would donate a hefty amount to school anyway to keep you from writing this on my report.."
"Out,"Seokhyung said as he had had enough of her already, that's when he saw Jaemin slowly peaking into the teacher's room to check up on Jian. Seokhyung turned to him,"Na Jaemin, do you not have class? Get back to class this instant if you don't wanna get suspended too!"
That was enough for Jaemin to leave. Jian also went out of the room soon after and Baekhyun sat across Seokhyung.
Seokhyung sighed before started,"So Yeah..Jian has done a lot today. I already told her grandma but I will summarize what she did to you. So.."He took a deep breath,"First thing in the morning, she picked a fight with one group of guys in the other class. They are known to be bullies but today they weren't bullying anyone. That's how she got that bruise on her forehead. Because they are bullies...that part is kind of excusable but...then.."He sighed again,"She decided to bunk two of her classes and roam around the school..just to be noticed by the teachers intentionally to show that she was bunking classes. And then..the grand finale.."
Baekhyun was even scared to listen to the grand finale.
"During lunch break she intentionally decided to ring the fire alarm, scaring the whole school. Many of the teachers and students even got hurt while trying to get out of the school. So much food was wasted,"Seokhyung said,"And our fire alarm is just in front of a cctv. She did that intentionally so we could see who did that."
He again took a deep breath,"I had to call her three times to the office. For the first two times I was going to let go off her easy cause I know what she wants and I thought not giving her what she wanted would discourage her. But see what she did next? But this is enough. So she would be suspended for three days."
Baekhyun was about to say something but Seokhyung cut him off,"I wanted to suspend her for more but principle sir told me to be easy with the punishment cause her father promised to pay for a new piano for school. That's why I did the only thing I could to get her back to her senses. Tell her grandma."
Seokhyung sighed again,"This girl has been giving me nightmares since I came here. Every time I think she's getting better, she does stuff like this. She was such a bright student with good behavior and high IQ in USA, now all she uses her high IQ is to do stuff like this!"
Baekhyun listened to him rant the whole time without saying anything. Understandable. Anyone with a student like Jian who is brilliant but uses their brilliancy to pull stuff like this has the right to be this frustrated.
"And nowadays she's saying stuff like how she wants to be a streamer if she actually has to do something for a living. Like what?"
Seokhyung finally stopped and said,"I'm so sorry for ranting like this. I'm just worried about her."
"I completely understand."
Seokhyung then handed him a document about Jian's suspension for three days.
"Can you please sign it for now? I will prepare another application for her grandma so she can come tomorrow and sign."
"Sure,"Baekhyun said and signed the document.
"Thank you, now you can take Jian home."
Baekhyun got up and bowed,"I'm so sorry for the trouble she caused."
"You don't need to be. And also..can you do me a favor?"
"Yes?"
"Can you please do something to excite her about her life and future? I have been trying but wasn't able to succeed."
Baekhyun smiled,"I will try my best."
After bowing again he finally left the teacher's room. Jian was leaning against the railing of the hallway and looking at the big field of their school while continuing to blow her bubblegum. Her hair was flowing with the breeze. She turned her head to the side when she felt Baekhyun's presence,"You shouldn't have come."
Baekhyun also stood by her side and rested his hands against the railing,"Grandma asked me too. And I definitely couldn't miss the Jung Jian fucking it up."
Jian shook her head,"I totally did it intentionally."
"Yeah, I know. Your teacher told me. He's a pretty nice guy actually."
"Didn't he fry your ears by saying how I'm ruining my amazing future just to be rebellious against my parents? You still think he's nice?"
"He's worried about you, Jung Jian."
"Yeah that's the problem. Who asked him to be worried about me? Why worry about my future when no one knows if there's a future or not? Who asked anyone to be worried about me? That's just so bothersome."
"What? Worrying about someone?"
Jian nodded.
"That's just humane, Jian. And you are someone that should be worried about. Even I'm worried about you."
Baekhyun let that slip without thinking much. He immediately mentally cursed himself for saying that. Jian turned to him when he said that.
He tried to redeem himself,"I mean..wouldn't you be worried about the person you are living with over two months? And also I agree with your teacher. You are really smart. Why are you wasting your time like this anyway? What are you gonna get from doing all these anyway? What do you actually want, Jung Jian?"
"You're also pretty smart, Baekhyun, why don't you guess why I do all these?"
Baekhyun paused,"To piss off your parents?"
"Correct!"
"But why? I really don't.."
Jian smirked bitterly,"They took away my only source of happiness and this is only way I can repay them."
"But they're your parents and.."
"Baekhyun.."Jian turned to him once again, something in her eyes had changed and she sternly said,"I despise them."
The sternness in her voice sent a shiver down Baekhyun's spine.
"And also..now that we are on the topic, I also despise when someone worries for me. I know what I'm doing and why I'm doing. So you and anyone else have no reason to worry about me. I don't need anyone's help or care. I'm completely fine on my own. So leave me alone. I would really appreciate if you don't come to my school or meddle in my personal business ever again,"She then got away from the railing and turned around,"Let's go now. It's gonna be a long night of scolding when grandma comes back so I need rest."
With that she started walking down the hallway without turning to see whether or not Baekhyun was following her.
Baekhyun stood there for a few seconds watching her walk away with goosebumps on his whole body. When she said 'I'm completely fine on my own so leave me alone', there was something different in her voice. It seemed so different and out of character. So lonely. So sad.
It seemed like...an actual cry for help?
That was the moment that Baekhyun had decided with all his other missions he's gonna add one more.
Helping this troubled and lonely teenager.
He doesn't know why he wants to do that but he's surely gonna do it.
___________________________
A/N:
Oh my God guys 'Butter' released today. It's a bop. How do y'all like it??
Smooth like butter~~
Like a criminal undercover~,~