THE GARDEN OF BYUN BAEKHYUN: CHANBAEK

THE GARDEN OF BYUN BAEKHYUN

They started showing up right after the third quarter of the school year had gone by. The delicate, ivory petals hadn’t yet withered and fallen apart from the dirty, uninhabitable school atmosphere peeking from the slits of Park Chanyeol's maroon locker. When he had come across the very first flower that had been secretly slid into his locker, he probably had a small smile on his handsome face, finding yet another way squirmy high school girl would confess their lingering, immature feelings. He had plucked it out, studied the smooth green stem between his fingertips, then tossed it in the trash without a word.

It had all changed after a month had passed, and every single day when Chanyeol stood before his locker in the early hours of the morning with his blond locks still tousled from slumber, another white flower would be staring right back at him in all it's organic glory. He huffed,  wondering why this dame wouldn't just come face to face with him and confess her feelings with pungent pink cheeks like any other teenage girl would do. Park Chanyeol decided that if she wouldn't face him, he would face her and end this eternal Valentine's day once and for all. He quickly thought up a simple, doable plan and decided to put it into action.

The next day, Chanyeol dragged the one and only Kim Jongin up and out of bed at the crack of six in the morning, deposited him into the passenger seat of his car, and made his way to school a painful hour early. He was determined to find out just who this secret admirer was, just not while bored and alone, crouching at the corner of his hallway like some kind of creep. Worst case scenario, he ended up getting himself caught and would have to explain to a potential love interest that he was stalking her with his dumb best friend. Or she was super ugly; either one would be pretty embarrassing.

The halls were completely silent, save for the few teachers shuffling papers and typing obnoxiously in their assigned classrooms who managed to somehow peel their eyelids open at horrific times in the morning to grade papers and watch porn. Chanyeol was sporting his hood over his head as to not be recognized by anyone who may pass by him even though the halls were deserted and dead. Jongin was still tressed in his patterned pajama pants, muttering various insults and curse words toward the blond escorting him to a suitable place to spy on his locker.

They ended up waiting over a half hour; Jongin had long fallen into a snooze against the brick wall with a questionable pair of black sunglasses blocking the blinding florescent lights from interrupting his morning nap as Chanyeol completed what must have been his hundredth game of Bejeweled. He sighed loudly, leaning his head on Jongin's muscled shoulder for hardly a second before being shooed off, barely missing the palm that threatened to swipe at his perfectly sculpted face and patiently styled mop of hair.

"That's gay, bro," Jongin muttered, lifting his shades up just enough so he could peek at his friend's eye roll, "when's your girlfriend showing up anyway?"

The taller scoffed, "whatever, I’m not gay," before resuming to holding his head up on his own, "and as if I’d know." He scooted a few inches away from the teenager in attempt to prove his heterosexual point further.

"Right, you aren’t, unless you have something to tell me," Jongin cackled, earning a deserved beating from the boy next to him, the half-hearted slaps only halting when the prominent sound of footsteps echoed within the hall walls.

As if controlled by the same force, the two whipped their heads around the corner only to see another familiar looking flower mocking them from the door of locker sixty one and the back of a figure, dashing away with auburn hair cut at the nape and a build that was most definitely not female.

Ever since Chanyeol concluded that his hopefully pretty girl admirer was indeed a male, he looked at the flowers differently. He was almost embarrassed of them, always quickly hiding them or throwing the damn plant out before anyone could see that the Park Chanyeol was receiving flowers day after day from some homo boy. The blond was known to be the school's stereotypical playboy, picking up girls like they were feathers and dropping them like rocks just as fast. He was said to hold the record for the most amount of girlfriends, rumored to have fucked the entire female population of the grade below them, whispers circled the hallways of him smashing Mrs. Bac. So, to have the most known lady-killer having some boy lusting after him was unheard of and because of the compromised situation, Chanyeol decided that he would no longer attempt to confront this twerp and would continue to metaphorically decline his love by throwing each and every one of his pretty white flowers into the trash. Maybe, just maybe if it had been a female, he could get a quick fuck out of the clearly desperate girl but it wasn't; it was a boy and Park Chanyeol was most definitely not gay.