purple [1/?]
Title: Being Blue Is Not Okay [1/?]
Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Word count: ~2K
Rated: PG-13
Summary: The weird kid who sits at the back of the class picking paint out from underneath his fingernails changes his hair colour from purple to blue to firetruck red. But although he sticks out from a crowd, maybe he's made of clouds and floats away when Chanyeol's not around.
Author's note: This is going to be a chaptered story, updated (hopefully) weekly - happy Valentine's, 2k16.
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,(purple)
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Chanyeol doesn’t give a fuck about maths. The hours pass too slowly senior year, or maybe it’s just the calculus, or the dusty classroom. Shorthand of numbers strung together equal brainache. When Mr Yeun asks, “You don’t think you can tell us how to differentiate this function, do you, Chanyeol?”, he’s tempted to be a dipshit and just say that problems should just solve themselves. Mostly because he doesn’t know, and he’s already exhausted his list of excuses to make a dash for the bathroom.
He hears some unsupportive snickering from the back of the room.
“That’s…well. Separate the two first and then, probably. Let’s see…shit-“
“Language, please.”
“-shit, sorry. I mean-“He scrabbles the room for helpful hints but nothing comes to his aid.
If Chanyeol squints hard enough, he can make out little milky ways of asbestos and trace stardust in the cracks between roof panelling and fluorescent light bulbs, a voyage away from scratching hyperbolas and cuss words into the desk under his exercise book. It’s still October. Three more months of this and they’re all out.
“Use the product rule. Differentiate x3 and tan(x) separately.”
With a huff somebody slides into the seat next to him, half an hour late to class. But at least they get the answer right. Mr Yeun nods in approval, glowers at Chanyeol, and turns back to the blackboard.
The kid smirks, “You’re welcome. Now let me borrow your cap.”
Chanyeol turns to see a bed head of newly dyed purple hair, and scoffs. “Wow. You join a boy band or something?”
The kid with the purple hair just shrugs. “Somewhere in my own head, yeah, maybe.”
His name is Byun Baekhyun, and Chanyeol usually sits behind him in English class. His hair has made a drastic change from black to really-fucking-purple. But Chanyeol thinks little of it. Baekhyun’s always been weird, in the no-friends, talks-to-himself, talks-to-nobody-else kind of way. He was something of a classmate until the last year of primary school and onwards from there he simply evaporates from Chanyeol’s memory. Maybe he moved away, maybe he just sunk into the walls. So they’re friendly, but not friends. Other than that he doesn’t know much about Baekhyun.
He lets him grab the cap and tuck his flyaway hairs under its rim.
Baekhyun’s held back after class. Chanyeol lingers around the door to get his cap back, but he doesn’t receive it.
“So, I still got told off for the hair, even under the cap. But I told them it was yours. And now it’s confiscated.” Baekhyun doesn’t hide his lack of concern. “Apparently no extraneous accessories are allowed, as if that was ever a rule. We have detention together on Thursday after school, also.”
Chanyeol just stares at him, wide-eyed. “That was my favourite cap, just so you know.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. You’ll get it back.” Baekhyun shrugs, “Don’t be late. Thursday.”
As the purple-haired kid runs down the hallway to his next class, Chanyeol mutters to himself.
“Asshat.”.
.
.
It’s weird to think that in three weeks, all Chanyeol’s ever come to know will be gone, a four year movie letting the credits roll. Hansol High School up in lights is pulling the curtain down on this cast, like it has for an infinite amount of people before them. Apparently their public school was a mecca of entertainers in its heyday, a couple of low-key comedians and screenwriters pedestalled as recognisable alumni. But beneath the polished exterior lies patchworks of chalk and oil pastel, frescoes growing stale on the brick walls that enclose them within four corners.
His favourite place in the entire school is the library, sad as it sounds. For some reason it's as pure a haven that can be found in this rustic institution. It’s a miniscule space for the amount of books crammed into it, outfitted with crisp white fluorescents and sandalwood shelves. Chanyeol never spent much time there in his younger years, which he regrets now. It’s just a nice place to sit, where time sits still with him, nestled in the pages of novella.
“Excuse me, Chanyeol-it’s closing time now.” The librarian’s assistant Minseok is in the middle of shelving when he notices Chanyeol settled on the ground with Dracula in his lap. He pushes his round-rimmed glasses further up to rest on the perch of his nose, “I’m sorry to interrupt, it looks like a really engrossing book.”
Chanyeol gives him a smile, “No, it’s alright. I’m nearly done.”
“Minseok, don’t be so nice.” The other assistant is Jongdae, a loudmouthed mathlete and Minseok’s polar opposite, who pushes the returns trolley gently against Chanyeol’s folded legs. “Chanyeol, get your ass out of here, we’ll make you sleep between the shelves.”
The librarian recruits two seniors for community service each year, and this year’s pair couldn’t be more different. Minseok wears pressed cotton shirts with chinos neatly folded at the ankles, hair combed in one direction with distinctive metal-rimmed glasses. Jongdae lives in his grey sweatpants and a black hoodie, laced up chucks and perpetual bed hair. Minseok attends all his classes, Jongdae barely attends any. Minseok is a teacher’s pet, a mathlete and a literary circle member. Jongdae single-handedly has earned the most pink detention slips in senior year. But what Chanyeol admires is that when books rise as the topic of conversation, their aesthetics melt away, the disparities fall flat, and they engage in wide-eyed, passionate literary talk without borders.
"Sorry, I'm leaving now, guys."
"Yeah?" Minseok looks saddened, "Come and visit us tomorrow, if you like."
"Or never come back and leave us in peace." Jongdae interjects brashly.
Chanyeol smiles awkwardly because he can never be sure whether that's a euphemism for sex against the back of the non-fiction shelves. Though it's unlikely because somehow the fact that Jongdae is head over heels in lust for Minseok and all his neatly ironed, pressed starch bass, slips right over the latter's head.
"Jong, that's mean."
Jongdae claps Chanyeol on the back, "You know I'm joking. Come see us whenever. The library does start to seem like a ghost town after a while. Probably because nobody studies down here."
Chanyeol stands up and gently leans his head against the back of the metal trolley. Dracula falls against the carpet with a soundless thud. "It's final year though. This is the time to go hardcore."
"You're a good role model, Chanyeol." Minseok remarks earnestly, crossing his arms over his chest. "No other kid seems to recognize the importance of school. We've got three months left, sure, so it makes more sense not to waste it than to waste it."
Jongdae scoffs. "You're both such sooks. Grow up. Last year, last few weeks. Just go fucking bat-shit insane, how about it?"
"Nah, Jongdae." Chanyeol shakes his head, "There's too much at stake."
"What, your university course? What is it?"
"Well, I haven't quite decided yet--"
"You see? Fuck it, fuck this, fuck everything. It doesn't matter anymore, because three months versus a lifetime is pretty much--" Jongdae motions to a flame going out on the end of a matchstick, "--pfft. Nothing at all. There's too much time wasted on that kind of introspection at this age. You'll never be this young again."
"But this three month period determines a major part of your life, Chanyeol." The expression on Minseok's face has curled into a disgruntled expression. "Don't you let devil's advocate let you think otherwise. You only waste your time if your activities never amount to happiness or success, I think."
Chanyeol gingerly stands up, glancing at his watch ever now and then. He's wasting time now, then, since all his brain is doing is going around in circles and getting nowhere.
"Time is such a subjective idea, Minseok, didn't Woolf in literature teach you anything? Those leaden circles dissolving are your logic."
The grandfather clock sitting at the desk chimes for 5:00. The open trial session has ended, and Chanyeol leaves the library more confused about time than ever before, a guardian angel and devil perched on each shoulder..
.
.
Detention is a place for tattooed delinquents, and burnouts that see the world in red and green specks of whatever they snort behind bathroom stalls, not really for wilting wallflowers like Chanyeol. Maybe it’s a place for Baekhyun, not that he would know.
Chanyeol shows up on that Thursday afternoon, fifteen minutes early and there’s nobody there, not even the teacher with the lazy eye who runs detention. Chanyeol waits for a while and is about to leave when Baekhyun comes in, half an hour late.
Baekhyun slumps down into the seat opposite him. His music is playing so loud that Chanyeol can hear the hollow echo of guitar riffs, stentorian and pulsing through his earphones into the empty air. “Sorry about this. I don’t know if you have better things to do.”
(He really doesn’t.)
Baekhyun adds, lax, “Thanks for the hat, even if it just got us into detention.”
“Am I going to get that back, by the way?” Chanyeol asks, already expecting the answer.
“I dunno. Maybe. Check lost property.”
“Do you always care this little about…everything?”
“Is this what you call caring little? I showed up to detention, didn’t I?” And Baekhyun is the one who has the nerve to look irritated.
The teacher shows up, finally and falls asleep into his chair after a short while. Chanyeol can’t think of a lot of talk about on his end, but luckily Baekhyun is sociable in an apathetic, disinterested kind of way. Maybe he’s just tired. He responds to everything with a slow nod of the head, as if his muscles are at a disconnect to his thoughts. Chanyeol’s never sure if it’s in response to questions or keeping beats to his music. Maybe he doesn’t even care, and his questions are hollow on the inside.
When the conversation drops, Chanyeol subconsciously begins scratching his most creative profanity into the desk and Baekhyun finds it funny.
“What the fuck is a ‘spherical bastard’?”
“It means they’re stupid whichever angle you look at them from.”
Baekhyun inspects his face. “You’re pretty weird.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
Eventually, Chanyeol finally garners enough curiosity to ask him about the unconventional mauvish colour of his hair.
“Is it a statement, the purple hair?”
“Not really. I just like it.”
“Oh,” Chanyeol just replies shortly.
He hadn’t imagined it to be any more than testosterone-fuelled angst, a kick of male bravado. Most of his classmates think they’re the invincible, rebellious youth, like superheroes. Maybe Baekhyun is one of them. Maybe he has a matching suit stashed away in his locker.
As they’re nearing the end of the hour, suddenly Baekhyun says, “You haven’t changed much since primary school. You’re still the same kind of strange.”
“I’m not the odd-one-out here.” Chanyeol pauses, “And, you didn’t know me in primary school.”
(Ferrets and round frames like Harry Potter isn’t something worth bringing to limelight again, Chanyeol gathers to himself.)
Baekhyun frowns. “Sure I did. It’s just escaped my memory a bit. Were we friends back then?”
Chanyeol hesitates before answering, his mind drifts off somewhere into the fuzzy past and doesn’t come back.
“No.”
“Well, we should be friends now. Don’t you think so? I think it’s a good idea.”
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blue [2/?]
Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Word count: ~2K
Rated: PG-13
Summary: The weird kid who sits at the back of the class picking paint out from underneath his fingernails changes his hair colour from purple to blue to firetruck red. But although he sticks out from a crowd, maybe he's made of clouds and floats away when Chanyeol's not around.
Author's note: This is going to be a chaptered story, updated (hopefully) weekly - happy Valentine's, 2k16.
.
.
.
,(purple)
.
.
.
Chanyeol doesn’t give a fuck about maths. The hours pass too slowly senior year, or maybe it’s just the calculus, or the dusty classroom. Shorthand of numbers strung together equal brainache. When Mr Yeun asks, “You don’t think you can tell us how to differentiate this function, do you, Chanyeol?”, he’s tempted to be a dipshit and just say that problems should just solve themselves. Mostly because he doesn’t know, and he’s already exhausted his list of excuses to make a dash for the bathroom.
He hears some unsupportive snickering from the back of the room.
“That’s…well. Separate the two first and then, probably. Let’s see…shit-“
“Language, please.”
“-shit, sorry. I mean-“He scrabbles the room for helpful hints but nothing comes to his aid.
If Chanyeol squints hard enough, he can make out little milky ways of asbestos and trace stardust in the cracks between roof panelling and fluorescent light bulbs, a voyage away from scratching hyperbolas and cuss words into the desk under his exercise book. It’s still October. Three more months of this and they’re all out.
“Use the product rule. Differentiate x3 and tan(x) separately.”
With a huff somebody slides into the seat next to him, half an hour late to class. But at least they get the answer right. Mr Yeun nods in approval, glowers at Chanyeol, and turns back to the blackboard.
The kid smirks, “You’re welcome. Now let me borrow your cap.”
Chanyeol turns to see a bed head of newly dyed purple hair, and scoffs. “Wow. You join a boy band or something?”
The kid with the purple hair just shrugs. “Somewhere in my own head, yeah, maybe.”
His name is Byun Baekhyun, and Chanyeol usually sits behind him in English class. His hair has made a drastic change from black to really-fucking-purple. But Chanyeol thinks little of it. Baekhyun’s always been weird, in the no-friends, talks-to-himself, talks-to-nobody-else kind of way. He was something of a classmate until the last year of primary school and onwards from there he simply evaporates from Chanyeol’s memory. Maybe he moved away, maybe he just sunk into the walls. So they’re friendly, but not friends. Other than that he doesn’t know much about Baekhyun.
He lets him grab the cap and tuck his flyaway hairs under its rim.
Baekhyun’s held back after class. Chanyeol lingers around the door to get his cap back, but he doesn’t receive it.
“So, I still got told off for the hair, even under the cap. But I told them it was yours. And now it’s confiscated.” Baekhyun doesn’t hide his lack of concern. “Apparently no extraneous accessories are allowed, as if that was ever a rule. We have detention together on Thursday after school, also.”
Chanyeol just stares at him, wide-eyed. “That was my favourite cap, just so you know.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. You’ll get it back.” Baekhyun shrugs, “Don’t be late. Thursday.”
As the purple-haired kid runs down the hallway to his next class, Chanyeol mutters to himself.
“Asshat.”.
.
.
It’s weird to think that in three weeks, all Chanyeol’s ever come to know will be gone, a four year movie letting the credits roll. Hansol High School up in lights is pulling the curtain down on this cast, like it has for an infinite amount of people before them. Apparently their public school was a mecca of entertainers in its heyday, a couple of low-key comedians and screenwriters pedestalled as recognisable alumni. But beneath the polished exterior lies patchworks of chalk and oil pastel, frescoes growing stale on the brick walls that enclose them within four corners.
His favourite place in the entire school is the library, sad as it sounds. For some reason it's as pure a haven that can be found in this rustic institution. It’s a miniscule space for the amount of books crammed into it, outfitted with crisp white fluorescents and sandalwood shelves. Chanyeol never spent much time there in his younger years, which he regrets now. It’s just a nice place to sit, where time sits still with him, nestled in the pages of novella.
“Excuse me, Chanyeol-it’s closing time now.” The librarian’s assistant Minseok is in the middle of shelving when he notices Chanyeol settled on the ground with Dracula in his lap. He pushes his round-rimmed glasses further up to rest on the perch of his nose, “I’m sorry to interrupt, it looks like a really engrossing book.”
Chanyeol gives him a smile, “No, it’s alright. I’m nearly done.”
“Minseok, don’t be so nice.” The other assistant is Jongdae, a loudmouthed mathlete and Minseok’s polar opposite, who pushes the returns trolley gently against Chanyeol’s folded legs. “Chanyeol, get your ass out of here, we’ll make you sleep between the shelves.”
The librarian recruits two seniors for community service each year, and this year’s pair couldn’t be more different. Minseok wears pressed cotton shirts with chinos neatly folded at the ankles, hair combed in one direction with distinctive metal-rimmed glasses. Jongdae lives in his grey sweatpants and a black hoodie, laced up chucks and perpetual bed hair. Minseok attends all his classes, Jongdae barely attends any. Minseok is a teacher’s pet, a mathlete and a literary circle member. Jongdae single-handedly has earned the most pink detention slips in senior year. But what Chanyeol admires is that when books rise as the topic of conversation, their aesthetics melt away, the disparities fall flat, and they engage in wide-eyed, passionate literary talk without borders.
"Sorry, I'm leaving now, guys."
"Yeah?" Minseok looks saddened, "Come and visit us tomorrow, if you like."
"Or never come back and leave us in peace." Jongdae interjects brashly.
Chanyeol smiles awkwardly because he can never be sure whether that's a euphemism for sex against the back of the non-fiction shelves. Though it's unlikely because somehow the fact that Jongdae is head over heels in lust for Minseok and all his neatly ironed, pressed starch bass, slips right over the latter's head.
"Jong, that's mean."
Jongdae claps Chanyeol on the back, "You know I'm joking. Come see us whenever. The library does start to seem like a ghost town after a while. Probably because nobody studies down here."
Chanyeol stands up and gently leans his head against the back of the metal trolley. Dracula falls against the carpet with a soundless thud. "It's final year though. This is the time to go hardcore."
"You're a good role model, Chanyeol." Minseok remarks earnestly, crossing his arms over his chest. "No other kid seems to recognize the importance of school. We've got three months left, sure, so it makes more sense not to waste it than to waste it."
Jongdae scoffs. "You're both such sooks. Grow up. Last year, last few weeks. Just go fucking bat-shit insane, how about it?"
"Nah, Jongdae." Chanyeol shakes his head, "There's too much at stake."
"What, your university course? What is it?"
"Well, I haven't quite decided yet--"
"You see? Fuck it, fuck this, fuck everything. It doesn't matter anymore, because three months versus a lifetime is pretty much--" Jongdae motions to a flame going out on the end of a matchstick, "--pfft. Nothing at all. There's too much time wasted on that kind of introspection at this age. You'll never be this young again."
"But this three month period determines a major part of your life, Chanyeol." The expression on Minseok's face has curled into a disgruntled expression. "Don't you let devil's advocate let you think otherwise. You only waste your time if your activities never amount to happiness or success, I think."
Chanyeol gingerly stands up, glancing at his watch ever now and then. He's wasting time now, then, since all his brain is doing is going around in circles and getting nowhere.
"Time is such a subjective idea, Minseok, didn't Woolf in literature teach you anything? Those leaden circles dissolving are your logic."
The grandfather clock sitting at the desk chimes for 5:00. The open trial session has ended, and Chanyeol leaves the library more confused about time than ever before, a guardian angel and devil perched on each shoulder..
.
.
Detention is a place for tattooed delinquents, and burnouts that see the world in red and green specks of whatever they snort behind bathroom stalls, not really for wilting wallflowers like Chanyeol. Maybe it’s a place for Baekhyun, not that he would know.
Chanyeol shows up on that Thursday afternoon, fifteen minutes early and there’s nobody there, not even the teacher with the lazy eye who runs detention. Chanyeol waits for a while and is about to leave when Baekhyun comes in, half an hour late.
Baekhyun slumps down into the seat opposite him. His music is playing so loud that Chanyeol can hear the hollow echo of guitar riffs, stentorian and pulsing through his earphones into the empty air. “Sorry about this. I don’t know if you have better things to do.”
(He really doesn’t.)
Baekhyun adds, lax, “Thanks for the hat, even if it just got us into detention.”
“Am I going to get that back, by the way?” Chanyeol asks, already expecting the answer.
“I dunno. Maybe. Check lost property.”
“Do you always care this little about…everything?”
“Is this what you call caring little? I showed up to detention, didn’t I?” And Baekhyun is the one who has the nerve to look irritated.
The teacher shows up, finally and falls asleep into his chair after a short while. Chanyeol can’t think of a lot of talk about on his end, but luckily Baekhyun is sociable in an apathetic, disinterested kind of way. Maybe he’s just tired. He responds to everything with a slow nod of the head, as if his muscles are at a disconnect to his thoughts. Chanyeol’s never sure if it’s in response to questions or keeping beats to his music. Maybe he doesn’t even care, and his questions are hollow on the inside.
When the conversation drops, Chanyeol subconsciously begins scratching his most creative profanity into the desk and Baekhyun finds it funny.
“What the fuck is a ‘spherical bastard’?”
“It means they’re stupid whichever angle you look at them from.”
Baekhyun inspects his face. “You’re pretty weird.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
Eventually, Chanyeol finally garners enough curiosity to ask him about the unconventional mauvish colour of his hair.
“Is it a statement, the purple hair?”
“Not really. I just like it.”
“Oh,” Chanyeol just replies shortly.
He hadn’t imagined it to be any more than testosterone-fuelled angst, a kick of male bravado. Most of his classmates think they’re the invincible, rebellious youth, like superheroes. Maybe Baekhyun is one of them. Maybe he has a matching suit stashed away in his locker.
As they’re nearing the end of the hour, suddenly Baekhyun says, “You haven’t changed much since primary school. You’re still the same kind of strange.”
“I’m not the odd-one-out here.” Chanyeol pauses, “And, you didn’t know me in primary school.”
(Ferrets and round frames like Harry Potter isn’t something worth bringing to limelight again, Chanyeol gathers to himself.)
Baekhyun frowns. “Sure I did. It’s just escaped my memory a bit. Were we friends back then?”
Chanyeol hesitates before answering, his mind drifts off somewhere into the fuzzy past and doesn’t come back.
“No.”
“Well, we should be friends now. Don’t you think so? I think it’s a good idea.”
.
.
.
blue [2/?]