click-track heart, chapter 2
(ii)
Junmyeon’s office is on the second floor in the computer science wing. The window looks west and is unbearably hot in the afternoon, but the view is a quiet back pathway that no one uses, complete with bushes and chirping birds. This would be an upgrade from the parking lot that the IT office looks out to. Chanyeol does a quick take-in of the interior: darkwood shelves decorated with award certificates and photos here and there, and stacked neatly with books. Mostly programming and psychology.
“Interesting combination,” Chanyeol notes.
Junmyeon nods and turns on a projector. Rorschach tests. Chanyeol doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Butterflies and hurricanes. Dead leaves in a wood. A splatter of strawberry jam. A car exploding after it falls off a cliff. Two moons.”
“You're very imaginative, or, quite possibly, crazy.”
“Quite possibly.”
“Or really good at bluffing.”
“My bluffs are also me.”
“True.” Junmyeon turns the projector off. “That was just a mock-test to see how much you were going to cooperate. Chanyeol, what do you think you’re here for?”
No response comes, so Junmyeon turns around and sees Chanyeol wiggling his eyebrows at him.
“You were talking to me? Usually people look at each other when they speak. Your projector could have been named Chanyeol for all I know.”
“Just answer the question.”
“I’m here for you to help me.”
“That’s… not true. We’re going to do this together. As equals.”
“Alright.” Chanyeol stands up abruptly and walks over to the shelves. “Mock-test. Family photos, family photos, scenery, awards. Ah. Black and white photo of someone walking away from the camera on what seems to be a grassy recline. Daddy issues, Junmyeon? Did the drunken sailor leave your family?”
Chanyeol turns around and Junmyeon is standing barely a meter away from him. He only comes up to Chanyeol’s nose, but off his pale skin and icy expression rolled waves of anger, and they froze Chanyeol to the bone.
“Were you talking to me? People should be looking at each other when they speak.” Junmyeon says in a low voice. “Don’t talk about things you know nothing of.”
Chanyeol backs up against the shelves and things clink together hollowly.
“You’re dismissed. Come back Wednesday.” Junmyeon stares up at him with forceful command.
Chanyeol flees.
-
The next meeting, Junmyeon assigns Chanyeol a dozen programming, math and miscellaneous questions in a booklet, and appears calm and collected, as if nothing had happened. Chanyeol breezes through the questions.
“Do you have any family?” Junmyeon asks while Chanyeol is scribbling down answers.
“Sister. I expect you’ve done the obligatory background check.”
“What about your mother, then?”
“Left. No idea. I don’t know her.”
Chanyeol promptly hands back the booklet and taps a beat on the ground with his right foot while Junmyeon looks it over.
“Impressive. I’ve been here for seven years, and some of these things still throw me off.” Junmyeon clears his throat. “I’m going to be frank with you this time. I want to talk to you, I want to learn about you. You have an unparalleled ability, a monument - the things you are able to do would be groundbreaking, if you did them. This is about you, and about me, and about a lot of other people, too.”
And why set other people’s expectations on my shoulders, or so Chanyeol wants to reply.
“Please, if you would cooperate with me, we could go far.”
Chanyeol leans back against his seat.
“I would love to,” he says at last, “but I can’t be off playing house when Minseok just told me I am resigned from my job, and there are bills to pay.”
“About that,” Junmyeon claps his hands together, “that is the other thing I wanted to discuss today. Like I said, you’re going to work with one of our students for a government-funded project, and you’ll receive a considerable stipend for your work.”
“Oh,” Chanyeol deflates.
“Your meeting with me is finished for today. From now, you’re going to meet me every Monday and Wednesday, and go work on the project every Tuesday and Thursday. Right now, we can go check the project.”
“You’re being awfully nice today.”
“It’s an important project.” Junmyeon says it in an even voice, but Chanyeol doesn’t miss the undertone of an order in it.
-
They walk to a room at the end of the hall; the plate on the door reads Computer Science Dept. Resource Room. Junmyeon walks in without knocking, and a boy sitting at the large desk in the middle of the room stands up to greet them.
“Hey, Junmyeon.”
“Hey. Chanyeol, this is going to be your partner…”
“Byun Baekhyun,” Baekhyun offers.
“Park Chanyeol.”
“Whoa, your voice.” Baekhyun makes a surprised face and laughs at himself. Chanyeol raises his an eyebrow at him.
“Your job is,” Junmyeon continues, “to work together on this project that Baekhyun has been assigned for his senior requirement.” He checks his watch. “Sorry, Baekhyun, would you mind briefing him on it? I have a meeting.”
Junmyeon leaves and Baekhyun gestures Chanyeol to sit on the chair across him and his laptop at the table. He slides a few stapled sheets of paper over to Chanyeol, who skims over the text in a matter of minutes.
“So. New program for recording and calculating tax returns for the gov? Pretty big project for an undergrad.”
“I’m pretty good for an undergrad.” Baekhyun flashes a smile at Chanyeol and Chanyeol represses the urge to raise his eyebrow again. “Sorry, I’m actually really happy there’s someone to work with me. It’s a huge deal, and I was worried sick when they chose me at first. You must be crazy good if Junmyeon asked you to join. Please treat me well,” Baekhyun bows.
“I’m alright,” Chanyeol dips his head back. He’s going to play along, if it meant making money.
“Here,” Baekhyun turns the laptop towards Chanyeol. “I’ve set up the framework, listed all variables, non-variables and mandatory commands, and compiled sources of data. We can start working on devising the formulas and writing source codes as soon as possible.”
The organized presentation on the screen is strangely comforting to Chanyeol, like an unexpected challenge, a promise uncovered, a sliver of hope shining through a door he’d never paid attention to before. A future that wasn’t static. Chanyeol feels the resistance and anger from earlier lift from his heart and turn into a fine, barely noticeable mist. At the very least, he thought, this would be more fun than working for IT and teaching old professors how to right click.
The boy wasn’t half bad either, a little voice says in Chanyeol’s head before he can shut it out, and he has to force his eyebrow to go down for the third time that day.
For such a monumental brain, it couldn’t even control a pair of eyebrows without Chanyeol having to consciously think about it, and he seriously considered reprogramming it first before he doing anything else for a moment.
-
For three weeks, Chanyeol obediently comes to the meetings and to work. He lets Junmyeon perform psychoanalyses on him (although he can’t say he’s been entirely honest on some of the tests), give him quizzes and assignments on every discipline imaginable, talk to him (he doesn’t talk back) and practically making a detailed profile of the Park Chanyeol that Chanyeol shows.
Once or twice, a mention of Junmyeon’s father comes up, but Chanyeol doesn’t push it. He makes mental note to ask Baekhyun instead.
Chanyeol grows quite fond of working with Baekhyun. The workload is light and he gets to spend the rest of the time reading and watching Baekhyun’s pretty, slim fingers dance over the keyboard. Baekhyun is easy-going and humorous and extremely smart, but never haughty about it. He’s also thoroughly impressed with what Chanyeol can do, in the intelligent way where he understands everything Chanyeol says and gives his own input but doesn’t feel threatened or act condescending about it, and all of this gives Chanyeol a good ego boost. If academia was wholly composed of people like this, Chanyeol could probably work with it (but it isn’t, so Chanyeol entertains the idea like an afterthought and nothing more).
Chanyeol asks Baekhyun about Junmyeon’s father on a slow day and Baekhyun is working at his own pace.
“Junmyeon’s father? He used to be a professor here. Brilliant man. He worked up here right up until… until his health didn’t allow him anymore.” Baekhyun closes his eyes. “I had a class with him, freshman year, it was his last, after that he was hospitalized. He passed away two years ago. Brilliant, kind, tenacious, loved; so many things I admire in a person. Everyone was devastated, but imagine what Junmyeon felt. I mean, he wants to be a professor - a man - like his father was. Don’t be too hard on the guy, yeah?”
Chanyeol takes in the bout of information, everything lighting up in his mind. He feels a tiny twinge of guilt. He had viewed Junmyeon like a mirror of himself: his mother, Junmyeon’s father; he thought they were the same thing, but they couldn’t be more different. He wonders if Junmyeon knew he had been thinking this way, and his heart sinks when he realizes that Junmyeon probably had known, and that was why Junmyeon had made no show of anger since that first day.
In any other circumstance, he would have felt like he had just lost, but personal tragedy was no competition.
“I won’t. Thanks.” He smiles, and Baekhyun smiles back and goes back to working.
With the mystery of Junmyeon somewhat solved, Chanyeol slides back into work focus. He thinks he’s doing great, but Baekhyun slaves away like a steam engine and Chanyeol doesn’t understand how someone can work for three hours straight, because he can’t sit still for that long of a time doing anything.
“I need a smoking break. Take five?”
“Yeah.”
Chanyeol walks to the backdoor on the first floor on the first floor and lights up a thin. The sky is impeccably high and blue; wisps of smoke lift into the cloudless sphere. To Chanyeol’s surprise, Baekhyun walks out of the door and stands beside him just as he started on his second drag.
“May I?” Baekhyun nods towards the cigarette, smiling what Chanyeol found to be a secretive and disarmingly charming smile.
“Didn’t think you smoked.” Chanyeol hands him the half-smoked stick and reaches for a new one, but Baekhyun only takes one puff before handing it back.
“I don’t really. But this is the tamest compared to the stuff everyone else does around here,” he replies after exhaling.
The smoke curls in front of Chanyeol’s eyes. He watches it dissipate; Baekhyun watches some point far off in the sky. They don’t say anything, but it’s the most comfortable silence Chanyeol’s shared with anyone who wasn’t part of the gang.
Chanyeol blows a smoke ring and Baekhyun jumps to pop it. Don’t let it die a virgin, he says. Chanyeol snorts.
“Today was really good, we got so much done. Thanks for helping me study for economics too,” Baekhyun smiles.
“It’s nothing.”
“You really know a lot about everything, it’s quite amazing. Do you think maybe… you have some kind of photographic memory?” Baekhyun asks suddenly, with a serious and thoughtful tone.
“Maybe. I’ve never looked into it. I do remember things easily, and they come to me naturally. Analyzes, solutions. It’s like my mind has a mind of its own. Or knowledge from all my past lives accumulated into me, for some reason.” Chanyeol wonders for a brief moment whether he’s given anyone such a personal explanation before; was it the sincerity of Baekhyun’s voice or the cigarette loosening him up, he wasn’t sure.
“Wow. Junmyeon must be having one hell of a time with you.”
“He is, but so am I,” Chanyeol smirks.
“Is that why… you’re here, of all places, and not hidden in some high-tech, confidential research base? I can imagine the hordes of greedy, bald scientists that would step on each other to poke around in your brain, like you’re some kind of lab rat.” There’s a hint of disgust in Baekhyun’s voice.
Before Chanyeol realizes it, his finished cigarette burns his fingers and he jerks back from the pain, the butt falling to the ground. He wants to shout, Yes, yes, thank you for noticing, why doesn’t anyone ever, thank you, a million times, but he shuts his mouth down and doesn’t let a word escape.
“I mean, I’m fascinated by your brain - you - too, can’t deny that. You must think other people so dull sometimes. I’m totally boring,” Baekhyun sighs dramatically.
“You’re not too bad.”
Chanyeol tries to maintain a disinterested look at the sky, but Baekhyun sends a genuine laugh into the depths of the blue, and Chanyeol can’t help but stare at the boy.
-
(tbc)