The Contract (complete)

Baekhyun: Chapter 2

You head over to your next class, choosing to take a seat near the back. You reason that the teacher would never call on you there, but of course she does, because the teachers always wreck your plans. Just when you think you’ve got them all figured out, they do something stupid, and you have to rethink your assessment of them.

You amuse yourself by doodling in the margins of your notebook, paying little attention to the lesson. You draw a house, and then a tree, and then you find yourself drawing a stick figure boy with chocolates, and a stick figure girl giving them to him.

You have to chuckle at yourself for doing this. You write Baekhyun’s name over the male stick figure, drawing arrows and angry faces around it. You ponder why these girls keep going after Baekhyun, when he has rejected every single confession that has come his way. Why don’t they hate him? That would be the natural thing to do. You’d get that. What you don’t get is why they consistently go after him, as if, just by their insistent protests, he’d finally take one girl and whisk her away to be his girlfriend.

And then you wonder why he hasn’t even bothered to accept a single girl. Why not? He’s had even the most popular, the most gorgeous girls come up to him and ask him out, and he always flatly rejects them. Why? It couldn’t be that he likes someone. If that were the case, he’d have told you, and he’d have definitely asked that girl out already. So why does he keep saying no to those poor girls? What does he have to lose?

Then again, he won’t really gain anything except for a petty girlfriend that hangs on his arm every day. He’d be a trophy prize, that’s for sure. Any girl would love to have him as her boyfriend. You must be insane for not even considering it.

Well, okay, you have considered it, but there’s no way you’d date Baekhyun. That’s just weird. He’s too … well, he’s Baekhyun. That’s the simplest and easiest way to put it.

“What are you drawing there?”

Your muscles tense, but you don’t jerk in surprise as you look up at your teacher, who is staring at the silly masterpiece you’ve created. You unconsciously cover it with your hand and give her a sheepish smile, and she just shakes her head and taps her marker on your desk.

“Pay attention, please,” she says, and walks back to the front of the classroom. “As I was saying. We have the test this coming Monday … “

Eventually, the bell for lunch period rings, and you grab your things and stuff them into your backpack. You’re about to dash out of the room, but the teacher calls your name, so you have no excuse to leave. You reluctantly stay behind, waiting for the rest of your classmates to exit, before she shuts the door and heaves a sigh.

“Have you seen your grades lately?”

So straightforward. She doesn’t even bother beating around the bushes.

“I’ve seen them,” you reply, feeling your stomach drop.

“So you know what they are,” she says, her tone becoming stern. “Are you going to change them?”

Probably not, you think, but of course you’re not going to say it. You clear your throat and declare, “I’ve had a lot going on. But I think I can ace this coming test.”

“And when’s the test?”

“Monday.”

See? You had totally been listening.

“You need to get your grades up for this semester,” she admonishes, shaking her head disapprovingly. “You can go on ahead. Thanks for staying back.”

“Sure,” you mutter, slipping past the door. You enter the cafeteria, feeling a little self-conscious as you fall in line. You see Baekhyun sitting at a table, and he waves to you, and of course you wave back, but a part of you doesn’t want to see him today. Every day, during lunch, you can feel the glares of the female body stab your back. It doesn’t make for a very comfortable lunch period.