Indebted To You (A BaekYeol Fanfic)

Part IX

Baekhyun

I didn't know how to feel about the state of my relationship with Chanyeol. It was clear to see that he was making more of an effort to be nice to me and putting his apology into action, but it made me feel strange. Part of me still wanted to hold on to a grudge against him, but I told myself that would be the wrong move. If he was genuinely making an effort, I knew I should too. 

Still, the change seemed to happen so quickly that I became suspicious of his true motives. Had his dad found and was now forcing him to play nice? Or maybe it was some kind of prank him and his friends had planned to make me look stupid. I still didn't trust him fully, but I figured I would just go along with him for now.

We still didn't talk much at school, but his friends no longer really bothered me at all, which made me think that Chanyeol was actually having a change of heart. There would be no reason for him to stop his friends from harassing me if he didn't intend to do better, right? 

Sometimes, all of the possibilities gave me a headache. I knew I was overthinking it because realistically, even if we did end up having to stay longer than I hoped we would, Chanyeol and I would never speak again after graduation. He'd go off and do his thing and I'd do mine. We might run into each other if we were ever visited home at the same time, but we'd most likely never deliberately reach out to one another. 

So why the hell was it bugging me so much?

About two more weeks had gone by before I had reached my breaking point. Even Mr. Park had noticed a change in Chanyeol and that made me even more suspicious. I wouldn't say it quite pissed me off, but I was pretty sure if he invited me to play one more game of Mario Kart with him, I would surely lose my shit. 

That was exactly what ended up happening one night. We were in his room again, just finishing up a race. I had only come in third place, but that was because my mind was too distracted to focus. As soon as the race ended, I set the controller down in my lap and looked at him. In that moment, I wish I could travel inside his mind and see this thoughts. Was he feeling just as confused as me or was his head clear? The latter seemed to be the case at least on the outside, but he was also a difficult person to read.

He caught me staring at him, but I didn't bother to look away. "What?" he said, chuckling as he set his controller down. "Are you stunned that I finally placed higher than you?"

"I was distracted. That win doesn't count," I replied, briefly glancing at the television screen. 

"Oh no, you're not taking this win away from me." He shook his head and laughed some more. "I am going to savor this moment for a very long time, thank you very much." As he laughed a couple more times, I kept looking at him and trying to figure him out.

"You confuse me," I said abruptly, earning his attention again.

"Excuse me?" he said, eyebrows raised in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"Exactly what I said is what it means. You confuse me," I repeated. "I mean, one moment you're telling me to know my place and the next, we're hanging out like a couple of long-lost friends. I'm not sure what game you're playing with me, but whatever it is, I'd appreciate it if you just told me the truth now."

He scoffed and untucked his left leg from under his right. "I'm not sure I follow," he said, his body now facing me. "If you're talking about the reason I decided to apologize to you, I don't really know either."

"You don't even know why you apologized to me? Doesn't that make the apology itself worthless?" I replied, adjusting my sitting position also.

"Maybe, but I was being sincere," Chanyeol said and unfortunately for me, I could tell he was being sincere again.