Ferret Prince for strwberydaifuku
For: strwberydaifuku
Title: Ferret Prince
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Baekhyun, Luhan/Sehun, Kai/Sehun.
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): gender bending
Length: 4533w
Summary: Because unicorns and horses were overrated, and Chanyeon had to wake up eventually.
When she was a little girl, Park Chanyeon discovered her Prince Charming. He was tall and handsome, and he had really nice hair. He had kind eyes, and he did everything he could to make her smile. Her beloved prince rode a giant ferret because unicorns and horses were overrated, and he obviously loved the furry little creatures as much as she did. Yes, Park Chanyeon knew from a young age exactly what her Prince Charming would look and act like, and she was so very in love him. She was sure her Prince Charming was just as in love with her as she was with him. He was perfect in almost every way.
The only problem with Chanyeon’s Prince Charming was… well, Chanyeon had never met him in real life.
Her Prince Charming existed only in the dream land she lived in every night, in which ferrets roamed free and she was the princess of the land forevermore. It was a lovely existence that Chanyeon wished she could replicate in her real life, but alas, Chanyeon was the farthest thing from a princess in real life.
“Chanyeon!” a loud voice yelled. “Wake up this instant!”
“Uwahh!” Chanyeon’s head shot up with a start, groggy and disoriented from the sudden entrance into reality. Musing her curly hair lightly, she looked around in confusion before realizing that she was not in her fairy tale land, but in her Pre-AP Calculus class. She was not frolicking in fields with ferrets, instead sitting among juniors and seniors who wanted nothing to do with component form and magnitudes. All eyes were on her, and some students were snickering slightly her actions, finding glee in the model student being caught sleeping in class. Chanyeon’s eyes soon semi-focused on the teacher in the front of the room, glaring darkly at her. The girl pushed her glasses up and grinned sheepishly before addressing the man, “Uh, did you ask me something, Mr. Kim?”
“What is the direction angle for vector u, Miss Park?” the question was stated bluntly, no emotion attached, and Chanyeon grimaced slightly. Mr. Kim was known for not caring about his students, but Chanyeon was usually the exception. She liked to think that it was because she actually cared about her grades, but others might say that it was because she, like Mr. Kim, was Korean, and he had some racial bias inside of him. However, Mr. Kim, like all teachers, did not appreciate people falling asleep in his class. The usual culprit was Jongmi, a sophomore math prodigy who couldn’t be bothered to stay awake during school hours even if her life depended on it, but even then, Mr. Kim usually delivered a lighter sentence to the girl. Chanyeon found herself drifting off every once in a while because to be perfectly honest, there was nothing Mr. Kim could teach her that she didn’t already know.
Chanyeon searched the board for the vector briefly before she came upon the u = <-3,-4> written in black dry erase marker ink against the white board, as boring a color scheme as the class. It took a mere moment for her sleep-yearning mind to come with an answer, “Two hundred thirty-three point one-three degrees,” sliding out of her mouth with a curious grace, followed by a small yawn, reminding her teacher of her prior activities. Chanyeon didn’t really care, she just wanted Mr. Kim to take his attention away from herself so she could get some extra sleep time and flirt with her Prince Charming a little bit more.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kim had no plans to take her answer easily. He fixed her with a pointed stare, “May I remind you, Miss Park, that you should be using a calculator for this problem? While you may have some memorized, there is no way you know the inverse tangent of negative four over negative three.” He frowned, “I don’t appreciate guesses, especially when the student is perfectly capable of coming to an answer by doing the proper work.”
“Uh… It’s not a guess?” Chanyeon tried. She nodded her head slightly, “It’s the right answer, isn’t it?”
“There is no way you can solve that without a calculator,” Mr. Kim pressed.
A yawn signaled another voice joining the conversation, “I’m pretty sure she’s right, just saying.” The voice belonged to Jongmi, the tanned sophomore addressing the teacher with a single, sleep-filled eye open. Her chin was propped up by one hand, and she used the other to hold up a piece of scratch paper. “I got the same thing she did.” A sleepy smirk began to curl onto her face, “I even used my calculator.”
“And how did you solve the problem so quickly, Miss Kim?” the teacher challenged.
“… How didn’t I?” Jongmi asked in return, raising a brow. “I know how to work both a calculator and a unit circle.”
The entire class erupted into snickers at the smart reply that was given, forgetting about Chanyeon’s existence. As Mr. Kim tried to keep Jongmi awake long enough to draw the explanation he wanted out of the girl, Chanyeon turned back to her notes, filled with doodles of ferrets and faraway lands. She was drawing an elaborate crown in the corner of one of the pages when she felt a soft poke from her left. She turned to see at her best friend, Sehun, looking at her with suspicious eyes. She blinked at him owlishly behind her lenses, “What?”
“You do need a calculator do the problem though,” the boy said in a slightly nasally voice. “How’d you do it so fast in your head?”
Chanyeon rolled her eyes, “The problem was on our homework last night, and I remembered the answer.” She grinned proudly though, “I do know that inverse tangent though. I’ve got a lot of common side lengths memorized. Three, four, five triangles were the first ones I memorized.”
“Oh…” Sehun muttered with a frown. “I was sick yesterday,” he pouted slightly before looking up at Chanyeon with puppy eyes, “Teach me what I missed, Noona?”
Chanyeon sighed, being swayed by the endearing title, “Why are you a junior again? How can you skip a grade and not be able to keep up when you missed?”
“I started early,” Sehun stuck his tongue out. “I just want to secure my salutatorian spot for next year, okay? My mom’s already pissed that I’m losing valedictorian to you and your stupid GPA that’s more perfect than Gary and Natu’s romance.”
“Ugh, fine,” Chanyeon beckoned for him to scoot closer to her. “You’re trading me your Dialga for something wimpy though when school’s over because I am not and never will be a free tutoring service,” she said pointedly. “And it’s your own fault you’re not joint valedictorian with me; you took Computer Tech instead of AP Psychology freshman year, you idiot.”
“Ugh, he’s so perfect,” Sehun groaned as he stared across the lunch room. He sighed, pouting lightly as he picked at his lunch disinterestedly, “Why is he so perfect, Noona?”
“I don’t know why LuHan’s so perfect,” Chanyeon rolled her eyes, knowing that there was no way Sehun was actually listening to her. Whenever the Chinese teen was within a certain distance, Sehun almost always ignored everything else in favor of his longtime crush that he had never actually spoken to. Sure, Sehun could sing the older boy’s praises day in and day out, but if you got Sehun close enough to truly bask in LuHan’s beauty that rivaled even the prettiest girl’s, Sehun’s speech impediment would come out full force, and he would turn into a lisping mess. Chanyeon smiled lightly in amusement, it had taken years of speech therapy for Sehun to lose his lisp, but all was lost the instant Sehun had met LuHan as a freshman.
“Wait, who’s he with?” The pout in the younger’s voice was obvious as he gave up on his lunch altogether, instead focusing on his crush on the other side of the lunch room. “He’s only ever with Yixing, Kris or Minseok. Who’s that guy?” Sehun poked Chanyeon with his fork gently, “Noona, who is he?”
“Who?” Chanyeon looked up to see LuHan walking with someone she had never seen before. He was a rather short male with neat black hair and puppy-like eyes that were wide and curious. He looked around the cafeteria as LuHan spoke to him quietly, and Chanyeon quirked a brow in confusion because even though she couldn’t hear a word of what the senior was saying, she wasn’t the worst at reading lips, and she was almost one hundred percent positive that it was not English. “… We have a new student?”
“But it’s April,” Sehun replied purposefully. “Who transfers in April?”
“Beats me,” Chanyeon shrugged. “It’s not like it’s that important anyway.”
“It’s definitely important, Noona,” Sehun disagreed. A scandalized countenance took over his face, “What if LuHan falls in love with him? I’ve been trying for almost three years!”
“You’ve been fumbling and tripping over your own two feet for the past three years,” Chanyeon corrected with a pointed look. She pushed up her slipping glasses, grinning widely in amusement, “You would think someone who’s been dancing since they were four would know to put one foot in front of the other.”
Sehun stuck his tongue out at her childishly, “You would think the girl who passed AP Physics 1 last year with a perfect one hundred would be able to avoid tripping over at least two desks a day.”
The tips of Chanyeon’s ears turned red in embarrassment. “… I’ll ask Jongdae who he is for you during Bio.” If anyone in their grade would know about LuHan and the new kid, it would be Jongdae. He was the younger half of the infamous Kim siblings, and his older brother Minseok was sure to know why LuHan was showing a supposed foreigner around when there was barely a month and a of school left.
“His name is Baekhyun Byun, he’s from Korea-South, not North-and he moved here because his dad got a new job at some technology firm. Since they finish school earlier there than we do here, he’s technically done with his year, but he wants to get used to classes entirely in English. He’s going to be a senior with us next year, so he’s shadowing Lu a few days a week.”
Sehun hadn’t been pleased with the information. Shadowing LuHan as in following him wherever he went? Nuh uh, not today, not ever. Sehun himself only had one class with LuHan, and he didn’t think it was fair that just because this Baekhyun guy was coming from another country, he got to spend more time with LuHan. That shit just wasn’t kosher, and Sehun didn’t know if he would be able to survive the rest of the year knowing what could be going on between the two. LuHan was his damnit, he’d worked too hard to get to where he was now-Chanyeon wouldn’t consider that very far, but still.
Chanyeon couldn’t say that she cared that Baekhyun was in some limbo between being a transfer student and a shadow. She had a month and a half of school left, and all that mattered at this point was making sure her GPA stayed as high as it usually did. She walked down the hall, books snuggly in hand as she headed to her next class, Personal Finance. She couldn’t say she necessarily liked her teacher, a middle-aged woman with an over appreciation for Dave Ramsey that was bordering on cult-like, but Chanyeon did like the idea of living a debt free life, so she dealt with it. It didn’t hurt that it was a class she was required to take if she wanted to get her degree next spring.
“Hey, Chanyeon?”
“Huh?” She turned at the voice, surprised to hear it calling her name. Chanyeon’s suspicions were confirmed as she looked down at Jongmi, the sophomore barely even awake as she stared back. While the fact that the younger girl was coherent enough to communicate with others caused Chanyeon to quirk a brow, Chanyeon was even more confused by the fact that the attempt at communication was being made towards her. While Jongmi’s intellectual ability was seen as something cool, Chanyeon’s wasn’t, and the two girls were in two entirely different social circles. Sure, Chanyeon was kind of friends with Jongdae, and Jongdae was a part of the most popular sibling paring in the school, but at the same time, Jongdae seemed to be friends with everybody, so that sent Chanyeon back to square one.
Jongmi, on the other hand, usually had a posse of her own that seemed to hail her as their bronzed goddess whether or not she was awake enough to hear them say it. She had been dancing as long as Sehun had, yet it somehow it did more for her than it ever did for him. To see her all alone in the hallway was a spectacle in and of itself. She gave a small yawn, “That is your name, right?”
“Oh-uh, yeah…” Chanyeon trailed off, still not understanding why she was being spoken to. “Did you want something from me?”
Instead of replying, Jongmi turned and gestured down the hall. Standing there awkwardly was the almost-transfer student, Baekhyun. Chanyeon didn’t see the connection she was supposed to, and she looked back to the younger girl silently, ear twitching in question. Jongmi sighed, “Baekhyun lost LuHan, and his next class is Personal Finance with you.”
“… How do you know my schedule?” Chanyeon quirked a brow in surprise. She had barely said ten words to the younger girl in her entire lifetime, and a majority of them were in their current conversation.
“You and Sehun are in all the same classes, and there are only two that you don’t have with each other,” Jongmi shrugged. “If we’ve got Rec Sports, then you’ve got Personal Finance.”
“How do you know Sehun’s schedule?” Sure, Chanyeon didn’t have all of her classes with Sehun, but she was pretty sure she would know if Sehun was even somewhat friends with Jongmi. She was pretty sure they were so far off of each other’s radars. Where did the interest come from?
Jongmi’s eyes flashed downwards, no longer willing to meet Chanyeon’s. Her eyes then trailed up the lockers as she thought, “… We dance at the same studio, so we talk sometimes.” She looked like she wanted to say more on the matter, but she didn’t. Shaking her head slightly, she returned to her original point, “So, will you take Baekhyun to class with you? You’re already going to be late, and he’s your only excuse.”
Chanyeon looked up at the digital clock on the wall, frowning when she realized that the younger was right. Not that she wouldn’t have taken Baekhyun to class with her anyway, Chanyeon just didn’t want to see her report card be disgraced with a singular tardy, even if it was excused. She sighed, “Sure.”
“Great,” Jongmi flashed her a grin. She turned to where Baekhyun was still standing there, awkwardly waiting, switching over to Korean seamlessly, “Chanyeon-unnie said she’ll take you, Oppa.” Chanyeon found listening to the words a foreign experience. She spoke Korean at home because neither of her parents spoke good enough English, but to hear it within the school walls, aside from Sehun’s nasally Noona, was a rare occurrence.
Baekhyun’s face brightened instantly, and he scurried over to the two. When he was close enough, Chanyeon realized that he was small. She was 5’10 herself, which she admitted was rather tall for a girl, but Baekhyun was like a little puppy, barely passing her chin in height.
Jongmi gave the introductions in a mixture of the two languages, “Oppa, Chanyeon. Chanyeon, this is Baekhyun-oppa. I’m sure you’ll get along just swell,” she nodded more to herself than to the two of them. “I’m gonna go to the gym now, bye!” With that, she left the two behind as she headed the staircase.
With another sigh, Chanyon readjusted her books, “Well, we should go. The bell’s going to ring in like, a minute, and we’re on the wrong floor. And the wrong side of the building.” When Baekhyun didn’t move, merely blinking up at her owlishly, Chanyeon made a face. The other boy’s face then contorted into concern as he tried to decipher why she was displeased. Chanyeon held up a hand to stop him, switching languages, “Wait. How much English do you know?”
“… Enough...” was the other’s slow reply.
“Okay, how much can you speak?” Chanyeon asked next, gesturing for him to walk with her. “Those are two very different things, just saying, ‘cause my parents understand a lot of what they watch on TV, but they can’t speak a lick of it themselves.”
Baekhyun looked sheepish, “Not much.”
“Mmhmm, I figured,” Chanyeon nodded. “Verbalizing is a lot harder than processing is, in my opinion. If you have any questions about stuff, you can ask me... or Sehun,” she added as an afterthought.
“Sehun… is he the really tall guy you’re always with?” Baekhyun asked. He nodded to himself, “LuHan-hyung said he was nice.”
Chanyeon snorted, “Well, he’ll be glad to hear that.”
“Prom? Nah, I’m good, thanks,” Sehun said, glancing at the flyer advertising the dance as he walked into the cafeteria. “I’m not too keen on sweaty teens in a condensed group trying to hold a twerkshop. It’s not really my thing. I’m the type of coordinator that makes Pokémon dance.” He looked to Chanyeon, “Noona, are you going to go?”
“Mmm… don’t think so,” Chanyeon shook her head as she sat down at their lunch table. “No one’s going to ask me, and I’m pretty sure I can find something for myself to do,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not like anyone’s going to miss me there.”
“Noona, you only have one Junior Prom, you should go,” Sehun nudged her. “You’re gonna regret not going.” He grinned conspiratorially, “Plus, I’ve never seen you dressed up before, Noona. I bet you’ll look really pretty.”
“Not on your life,” Chanyeon side-eyed him. “There’s a reason why you’ve never seen me in makeup, son. It’s for your own good.” She pushed up her glasses, “It’s not much of an improvement, I promise.”
Before Sehun could say anything in reply, Jongmi came up to their table. She looked around, biting her lip as she did so. Eventually, she looked down, focusing on Sehun, “Look, I need a favor.”
“What?” Sehun quirked a brow.
“Go to prom with me.”
Sehun was surprisingly unfazed by the request. Chanyeon guessed that it had something to do with his infatuation with a certain Chinese male that was prettier than a majority of the girls at the school. He merely blinked at the girl, “Why would I take you to prom?”
Jongmi made a face, not wanting to give a reason as to why. “Well… I want to meet an upperclassmen at prom who promised to take his friend, but no one’s going to ask me. So, since you’re a junior who’s supposed to be a sophomore-”
“Hey, I deserve to be a junior-!”
“I was thinking that you should do me a favor as your same-age friend and take me to the prom,” Jongmi finished smoothly.
“That same-age shit doesn’t fly in this country,” Sehun said with a yawn.
“You only have one Junior Prom, Sehun,” Chanyeon said with a chime. “You should go.”
Sehun gave her a dark stare, but Chanyeon only grinned deviously in reply. He sighed heavily, “Fine. I’ll take you to Prom, Jongmi.” He then realized something, “Wait. Are you going to make me do one of those stupid prom-posal things?”
Jongmi grinned, “Nope, this is good enough for me. I’ll talk to you about it in dance later, okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Sehun waved her off. Jongmi turned on her heel, and walked back to her friends with a decisive sway to her hips. Chanyeon squinted in suspicion, looking between the two sixteen year olds before she decided to stay silent on the matter. Sehun then looked over at her imploringly, “If I’m going to prom, will you go to prom with me?”
“Didn’t you just get a date to prom?”
“Nothing says I can’t take two girls to prom with me,” Sehun shrugged. “Besides, Jongmi won’t care.” He leaned into Chanyeon, pouting purposefully, “Please, Noona?”
“So, now I’m stuck going to prom,” Chanyeon said with a sigh. “I really need to learn how to say no to Sehun.”
“Ah… I just wanted to ask you where LuHan is,” Baekhyun replied awkwardly. "If you don't know, I can ask Jongdae or someone else."
“Oh, sorry,” the tips of Chanyeon’s ears turned red as she flushed from embarrassment. “Uh, I think Jongdae said he got sick.”
“Oh,” Baekhyun frowned. “How sick did he get?”
“It’s just a cold,” Chanyeon said dismissively. “He’ll be back eventually. I guess he just forgot to let you know.”
“I guess,” Baekhyun nodded in understanding. He posed his question tentatively, “Uh, do you mind if I shadow you today?”
Now, Chanyeon was having a moral dilemma. She didn’t want to say yes, but she knew that she had to say yes. She had more important things to be doing than running a baby-sitting service, like keeping her GPA nice and high above the laity's, but Baekhyun seemed to have this innocent look her eyes that made her want to give him everything he asked her to. It was kind of like the look Sehun gave her when he wanted something, but Baekhyun’s look was genuine and Sehun’s look was devious as hell.
“Sure.”
Why did I agree to this? Chanyeon thought with a groan. Prom wasn’t spectacular by any means the way she saw it. The twerkshop Sehun had described was taking place in the corner, and Chanyeon planned on steering clear of that situation. Speaking of her nasally partner in crime, Sehun had been dragged away by Jongmi once they crossed the threshold. Chanyeon on the other hand had been swept up by a senior that she couldn’t remember the name of because apparently when you straighten your hair and put in a pair of contacts, you were suddenly attractive enough.
As she was dancing with another senior whose name she couldn’t put to a face even if her life depended on it, she idly wondered where Baekhyun was. As LuHan was no stranger to dances, she was sure that he would bring Baekhyun along with him. Even though she had seen the Chinese senior dancing with a variety of students, both female and male, she had yet to see the almost-transfer student. Chanyeon then felt a pair of hands travel down her waist to an area they never should have been, bringing her out of her thoughts. “Hey, can you not…” She was silenced with a kiss to the edge of her mouth, and she caught the scent of alcohol. Swallowing thickly, Chanyeon removed the hands firmly. “Don’t touch me,” she said icily and stalked away to the drinks, intent on finding one that wasn’t alcoholic.
Initially, Chanyeon had had high hopes for prom. She admitted that with her wanting to let Sehun be the only person in their grade with a GPA close to hers, she had... neglected her social life just a tad. Maybe that was the reason why she had yet to meet her Prince Charming. He was probably right under her nose, living his life in a valley of ferrets and blissfully unaware of her existence. To be perfectly honest, that was the reason why Chanyeon decided to go to prom. However, in light of recent events, she was beginning to think that her Prince Charming would be taking up a permanent residency inside her mind.
"People... suck sometimes," a voice said. Chanyeon turned to see the almost-transfer student, Baekhyun, picking up a drink of his own. His eyes were lined with black, and Chanyeon would bet that he could join LuHan on the executive board of the Prettier than Your Girlfriend Club. He was... cute, she had to admit, and the way his eyes filled with concern as he looked at Chanyeon made her feel warm.
“Yeah, they do,” Chanyeon agreed with a sigh.
“You’re okay, right?” Baekhyun asked carefully. “I saw you with that guy, and I was going to stop him…”
Chanyeon waved him off, “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine, just a little peeved that I wore contacts only to get groped in the ass.” She shrugged, “And besides, I don’t know how much you could have done to help.”
“Hey,” Baekhyun puffed out his chest. “I’ll have you know that I have a black belt in hapkido. I used to teach classes at my dojo.”
Chanyeon grinned teasingly and nudged him playfully, “Yeah, sure.”
Baekhyun smiled back at her, all kind eyes. “And if it helps, I think you look better with glasses and curly hair. They suit you,” he nodded, completely sure of himself.
Chanyeon blushed despite herself, “Thanks, Baekhyun.”
At that time, the music slowed down, and people began to pair off like their lives depended on it. Chanyeon rolled her eyes at the display.
“… Do you want to dance with me?”
Chanyeon’s eyes widened at the question, scrambling for an answer. “Uh… Sehun promised he would dance a slow song with me.”
“He’s sucking face with Jongmi right now,” Baekhyun replied bluntly in Korean, pointing to the two teens making out in a corner. They looked entirely occupied with each other, and even though Chanyeon was having doubts on her best friend’s supposed homosexuality, she didn’t think this was the right time to broach the topic.
“Oh,” Chanyeon blinked owlishly. “Well, in that case, sure?”
Baekhyun grinned at her, laughing slightly, and Chanyeon took notice of how his smile seemed to square off into a more rectangular shape. He took her hand and led her over to the dance floor smoothly. “Have you ever-?”
“Never,” Chanyeon shook her head, flushing slightly. “Sorry in advance if I step on you.”
Baekhyun grinned again, and Chanyeon’s heart skipped a beat, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll guide you.”
Baekhyun kept his word, and with every step they took, he spoke softly to Chanyeon, singing her praises with every right step and merely grinning cutely every time she accidentally stepped on him. As Chanyeon danced with Baekhyun, the smaller male beamed up at her, right under her nose, just as he had always been since she met him. She then thought back to her Prince Charming in her ferret-filled wonderland. He had kind eyes, and he did everything he could to make her smile. Her Prince Charming was just as in love with her as she was with him, and he had a genuine heart. Chanyeon had to admit that aside from the height issue, her Prince Charming was everything she had imagined him to be.
She just had to see how he felt about ferrets.
Title: Ferret Prince
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Baekhyun, Luhan/Sehun, Kai/Sehun.
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): gender bending
Length: 4533w
Summary: Because unicorns and horses were overrated, and Chanyeon had to wake up eventually.
When she was a little girl, Park Chanyeon discovered her Prince Charming. He was tall and handsome, and he had really nice hair. He had kind eyes, and he did everything he could to make her smile. Her beloved prince rode a giant ferret because unicorns and horses were overrated, and he obviously loved the furry little creatures as much as she did. Yes, Park Chanyeon knew from a young age exactly what her Prince Charming would look and act like, and she was so very in love him. She was sure her Prince Charming was just as in love with her as she was with him. He was perfect in almost every way.
The only problem with Chanyeon’s Prince Charming was… well, Chanyeon had never met him in real life.
Her Prince Charming existed only in the dream land she lived in every night, in which ferrets roamed free and she was the princess of the land forevermore. It was a lovely existence that Chanyeon wished she could replicate in her real life, but alas, Chanyeon was the farthest thing from a princess in real life.
“Chanyeon!” a loud voice yelled. “Wake up this instant!”
“Uwahh!” Chanyeon’s head shot up with a start, groggy and disoriented from the sudden entrance into reality. Musing her curly hair lightly, she looked around in confusion before realizing that she was not in her fairy tale land, but in her Pre-AP Calculus class. She was not frolicking in fields with ferrets, instead sitting among juniors and seniors who wanted nothing to do with component form and magnitudes. All eyes were on her, and some students were snickering slightly her actions, finding glee in the model student being caught sleeping in class. Chanyeon’s eyes soon semi-focused on the teacher in the front of the room, glaring darkly at her. The girl pushed her glasses up and grinned sheepishly before addressing the man, “Uh, did you ask me something, Mr. Kim?”
“What is the direction angle for vector u, Miss Park?” the question was stated bluntly, no emotion attached, and Chanyeon grimaced slightly. Mr. Kim was known for not caring about his students, but Chanyeon was usually the exception. She liked to think that it was because she actually cared about her grades, but others might say that it was because she, like Mr. Kim, was Korean, and he had some racial bias inside of him. However, Mr. Kim, like all teachers, did not appreciate people falling asleep in his class. The usual culprit was Jongmi, a sophomore math prodigy who couldn’t be bothered to stay awake during school hours even if her life depended on it, but even then, Mr. Kim usually delivered a lighter sentence to the girl. Chanyeon found herself drifting off every once in a while because to be perfectly honest, there was nothing Mr. Kim could teach her that she didn’t already know.
Chanyeon searched the board for the vector briefly before she came upon the u = <-3,-4> written in black dry erase marker ink against the white board, as boring a color scheme as the class. It took a mere moment for her sleep-yearning mind to come with an answer, “Two hundred thirty-three point one-three degrees,” sliding out of her mouth with a curious grace, followed by a small yawn, reminding her teacher of her prior activities. Chanyeon didn’t really care, she just wanted Mr. Kim to take his attention away from herself so she could get some extra sleep time and flirt with her Prince Charming a little bit more.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kim had no plans to take her answer easily. He fixed her with a pointed stare, “May I remind you, Miss Park, that you should be using a calculator for this problem? While you may have some memorized, there is no way you know the inverse tangent of negative four over negative three.” He frowned, “I don’t appreciate guesses, especially when the student is perfectly capable of coming to an answer by doing the proper work.”
“Uh… It’s not a guess?” Chanyeon tried. She nodded her head slightly, “It’s the right answer, isn’t it?”
“There is no way you can solve that without a calculator,” Mr. Kim pressed.
A yawn signaled another voice joining the conversation, “I’m pretty sure she’s right, just saying.” The voice belonged to Jongmi, the tanned sophomore addressing the teacher with a single, sleep-filled eye open. Her chin was propped up by one hand, and she used the other to hold up a piece of scratch paper. “I got the same thing she did.” A sleepy smirk began to curl onto her face, “I even used my calculator.”
“And how did you solve the problem so quickly, Miss Kim?” the teacher challenged.
“… How didn’t I?” Jongmi asked in return, raising a brow. “I know how to work both a calculator and a unit circle.”
The entire class erupted into snickers at the smart reply that was given, forgetting about Chanyeon’s existence. As Mr. Kim tried to keep Jongmi awake long enough to draw the explanation he wanted out of the girl, Chanyeon turned back to her notes, filled with doodles of ferrets and faraway lands. She was drawing an elaborate crown in the corner of one of the pages when she felt a soft poke from her left. She turned to see at her best friend, Sehun, looking at her with suspicious eyes. She blinked at him owlishly behind her lenses, “What?”
“You do need a calculator do the problem though,” the boy said in a slightly nasally voice. “How’d you do it so fast in your head?”
Chanyeon rolled her eyes, “The problem was on our homework last night, and I remembered the answer.” She grinned proudly though, “I do know that inverse tangent though. I’ve got a lot of common side lengths memorized. Three, four, five triangles were the first ones I memorized.”
“Oh…” Sehun muttered with a frown. “I was sick yesterday,” he pouted slightly before looking up at Chanyeon with puppy eyes, “Teach me what I missed, Noona?”
Chanyeon sighed, being swayed by the endearing title, “Why are you a junior again? How can you skip a grade and not be able to keep up when you missed?”
“I started early,” Sehun stuck his tongue out. “I just want to secure my salutatorian spot for next year, okay? My mom’s already pissed that I’m losing valedictorian to you and your stupid GPA that’s more perfect than Gary and Natu’s romance.”
“Ugh, fine,” Chanyeon beckoned for him to scoot closer to her. “You’re trading me your Dialga for something wimpy though when school’s over because I am not and never will be a free tutoring service,” she said pointedly. “And it’s your own fault you’re not joint valedictorian with me; you took Computer Tech instead of AP Psychology freshman year, you idiot.”
“Ugh, he’s so perfect,” Sehun groaned as he stared across the lunch room. He sighed, pouting lightly as he picked at his lunch disinterestedly, “Why is he so perfect, Noona?”
“I don’t know why LuHan’s so perfect,” Chanyeon rolled her eyes, knowing that there was no way Sehun was actually listening to her. Whenever the Chinese teen was within a certain distance, Sehun almost always ignored everything else in favor of his longtime crush that he had never actually spoken to. Sure, Sehun could sing the older boy’s praises day in and day out, but if you got Sehun close enough to truly bask in LuHan’s beauty that rivaled even the prettiest girl’s, Sehun’s speech impediment would come out full force, and he would turn into a lisping mess. Chanyeon smiled lightly in amusement, it had taken years of speech therapy for Sehun to lose his lisp, but all was lost the instant Sehun had met LuHan as a freshman.
“Wait, who’s he with?” The pout in the younger’s voice was obvious as he gave up on his lunch altogether, instead focusing on his crush on the other side of the lunch room. “He’s only ever with Yixing, Kris or Minseok. Who’s that guy?” Sehun poked Chanyeon with his fork gently, “Noona, who is he?”
“Who?” Chanyeon looked up to see LuHan walking with someone she had never seen before. He was a rather short male with neat black hair and puppy-like eyes that were wide and curious. He looked around the cafeteria as LuHan spoke to him quietly, and Chanyeon quirked a brow in confusion because even though she couldn’t hear a word of what the senior was saying, she wasn’t the worst at reading lips, and she was almost one hundred percent positive that it was not English. “… We have a new student?”
“But it’s April,” Sehun replied purposefully. “Who transfers in April?”
“Beats me,” Chanyeon shrugged. “It’s not like it’s that important anyway.”
“It’s definitely important, Noona,” Sehun disagreed. A scandalized countenance took over his face, “What if LuHan falls in love with him? I’ve been trying for almost three years!”
“You’ve been fumbling and tripping over your own two feet for the past three years,” Chanyeon corrected with a pointed look. She pushed up her slipping glasses, grinning widely in amusement, “You would think someone who’s been dancing since they were four would know to put one foot in front of the other.”
Sehun stuck his tongue out at her childishly, “You would think the girl who passed AP Physics 1 last year with a perfect one hundred would be able to avoid tripping over at least two desks a day.”
The tips of Chanyeon’s ears turned red in embarrassment. “… I’ll ask Jongdae who he is for you during Bio.” If anyone in their grade would know about LuHan and the new kid, it would be Jongdae. He was the younger half of the infamous Kim siblings, and his older brother Minseok was sure to know why LuHan was showing a supposed foreigner around when there was barely a month and a of school left.
“His name is Baekhyun Byun, he’s from Korea-South, not North-and he moved here because his dad got a new job at some technology firm. Since they finish school earlier there than we do here, he’s technically done with his year, but he wants to get used to classes entirely in English. He’s going to be a senior with us next year, so he’s shadowing Lu a few days a week.”
Sehun hadn’t been pleased with the information. Shadowing LuHan as in following him wherever he went? Nuh uh, not today, not ever. Sehun himself only had one class with LuHan, and he didn’t think it was fair that just because this Baekhyun guy was coming from another country, he got to spend more time with LuHan. That shit just wasn’t kosher, and Sehun didn’t know if he would be able to survive the rest of the year knowing what could be going on between the two. LuHan was his damnit, he’d worked too hard to get to where he was now-Chanyeon wouldn’t consider that very far, but still.
Chanyeon couldn’t say that she cared that Baekhyun was in some limbo between being a transfer student and a shadow. She had a month and a half of school left, and all that mattered at this point was making sure her GPA stayed as high as it usually did. She walked down the hall, books snuggly in hand as she headed to her next class, Personal Finance. She couldn’t say she necessarily liked her teacher, a middle-aged woman with an over appreciation for Dave Ramsey that was bordering on cult-like, but Chanyeon did like the idea of living a debt free life, so she dealt with it. It didn’t hurt that it was a class she was required to take if she wanted to get her degree next spring.
“Hey, Chanyeon?”
“Huh?” She turned at the voice, surprised to hear it calling her name. Chanyeon’s suspicions were confirmed as she looked down at Jongmi, the sophomore barely even awake as she stared back. While the fact that the younger girl was coherent enough to communicate with others caused Chanyeon to quirk a brow, Chanyeon was even more confused by the fact that the attempt at communication was being made towards her. While Jongmi’s intellectual ability was seen as something cool, Chanyeon’s wasn’t, and the two girls were in two entirely different social circles. Sure, Chanyeon was kind of friends with Jongdae, and Jongdae was a part of the most popular sibling paring in the school, but at the same time, Jongdae seemed to be friends with everybody, so that sent Chanyeon back to square one.
Jongmi, on the other hand, usually had a posse of her own that seemed to hail her as their bronzed goddess whether or not she was awake enough to hear them say it. She had been dancing as long as Sehun had, yet it somehow it did more for her than it ever did for him. To see her all alone in the hallway was a spectacle in and of itself. She gave a small yawn, “That is your name, right?”
“Oh-uh, yeah…” Chanyeon trailed off, still not understanding why she was being spoken to. “Did you want something from me?”
Instead of replying, Jongmi turned and gestured down the hall. Standing there awkwardly was the almost-transfer student, Baekhyun. Chanyeon didn’t see the connection she was supposed to, and she looked back to the younger girl silently, ear twitching in question. Jongmi sighed, “Baekhyun lost LuHan, and his next class is Personal Finance with you.”
“… How do you know my schedule?” Chanyeon quirked a brow in surprise. She had barely said ten words to the younger girl in her entire lifetime, and a majority of them were in their current conversation.
“You and Sehun are in all the same classes, and there are only two that you don’t have with each other,” Jongmi shrugged. “If we’ve got Rec Sports, then you’ve got Personal Finance.”
“How do you know Sehun’s schedule?” Sure, Chanyeon didn’t have all of her classes with Sehun, but she was pretty sure she would know if Sehun was even somewhat friends with Jongmi. She was pretty sure they were so far off of each other’s radars. Where did the interest come from?
Jongmi’s eyes flashed downwards, no longer willing to meet Chanyeon’s. Her eyes then trailed up the lockers as she thought, “… We dance at the same studio, so we talk sometimes.” She looked like she wanted to say more on the matter, but she didn’t. Shaking her head slightly, she returned to her original point, “So, will you take Baekhyun to class with you? You’re already going to be late, and he’s your only excuse.”
Chanyeon looked up at the digital clock on the wall, frowning when she realized that the younger was right. Not that she wouldn’t have taken Baekhyun to class with her anyway, Chanyeon just didn’t want to see her report card be disgraced with a singular tardy, even if it was excused. She sighed, “Sure.”
“Great,” Jongmi flashed her a grin. She turned to where Baekhyun was still standing there, awkwardly waiting, switching over to Korean seamlessly, “Chanyeon-unnie said she’ll take you, Oppa.” Chanyeon found listening to the words a foreign experience. She spoke Korean at home because neither of her parents spoke good enough English, but to hear it within the school walls, aside from Sehun’s nasally Noona, was a rare occurrence.
Baekhyun’s face brightened instantly, and he scurried over to the two. When he was close enough, Chanyeon realized that he was small. She was 5’10 herself, which she admitted was rather tall for a girl, but Baekhyun was like a little puppy, barely passing her chin in height.
Jongmi gave the introductions in a mixture of the two languages, “Oppa, Chanyeon. Chanyeon, this is Baekhyun-oppa. I’m sure you’ll get along just swell,” she nodded more to herself than to the two of them. “I’m gonna go to the gym now, bye!” With that, she left the two behind as she headed the staircase.
With another sigh, Chanyon readjusted her books, “Well, we should go. The bell’s going to ring in like, a minute, and we’re on the wrong floor. And the wrong side of the building.” When Baekhyun didn’t move, merely blinking up at her owlishly, Chanyeon made a face. The other boy’s face then contorted into concern as he tried to decipher why she was displeased. Chanyeon held up a hand to stop him, switching languages, “Wait. How much English do you know?”
“… Enough...” was the other’s slow reply.
“Okay, how much can you speak?” Chanyeon asked next, gesturing for him to walk with her. “Those are two very different things, just saying, ‘cause my parents understand a lot of what they watch on TV, but they can’t speak a lick of it themselves.”
Baekhyun looked sheepish, “Not much.”
“Mmhmm, I figured,” Chanyeon nodded. “Verbalizing is a lot harder than processing is, in my opinion. If you have any questions about stuff, you can ask me... or Sehun,” she added as an afterthought.
“Sehun… is he the really tall guy you’re always with?” Baekhyun asked. He nodded to himself, “LuHan-hyung said he was nice.”
Chanyeon snorted, “Well, he’ll be glad to hear that.”
“Prom? Nah, I’m good, thanks,” Sehun said, glancing at the flyer advertising the dance as he walked into the cafeteria. “I’m not too keen on sweaty teens in a condensed group trying to hold a twerkshop. It’s not really my thing. I’m the type of coordinator that makes Pokémon dance.” He looked to Chanyeon, “Noona, are you going to go?”
“Mmm… don’t think so,” Chanyeon shook her head as she sat down at their lunch table. “No one’s going to ask me, and I’m pretty sure I can find something for myself to do,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not like anyone’s going to miss me there.”
“Noona, you only have one Junior Prom, you should go,” Sehun nudged her. “You’re gonna regret not going.” He grinned conspiratorially, “Plus, I’ve never seen you dressed up before, Noona. I bet you’ll look really pretty.”
“Not on your life,” Chanyeon side-eyed him. “There’s a reason why you’ve never seen me in makeup, son. It’s for your own good.” She pushed up her glasses, “It’s not much of an improvement, I promise.”
Before Sehun could say anything in reply, Jongmi came up to their table. She looked around, biting her lip as she did so. Eventually, she looked down, focusing on Sehun, “Look, I need a favor.”
“What?” Sehun quirked a brow.
“Go to prom with me.”
Sehun was surprisingly unfazed by the request. Chanyeon guessed that it had something to do with his infatuation with a certain Chinese male that was prettier than a majority of the girls at the school. He merely blinked at the girl, “Why would I take you to prom?”
Jongmi made a face, not wanting to give a reason as to why. “Well… I want to meet an upperclassmen at prom who promised to take his friend, but no one’s going to ask me. So, since you’re a junior who’s supposed to be a sophomore-”
“Hey, I deserve to be a junior-!”
“I was thinking that you should do me a favor as your same-age friend and take me to the prom,” Jongmi finished smoothly.
“That same-age shit doesn’t fly in this country,” Sehun said with a yawn.
“You only have one Junior Prom, Sehun,” Chanyeon said with a chime. “You should go.”
Sehun gave her a dark stare, but Chanyeon only grinned deviously in reply. He sighed heavily, “Fine. I’ll take you to Prom, Jongmi.” He then realized something, “Wait. Are you going to make me do one of those stupid prom-posal things?”
Jongmi grinned, “Nope, this is good enough for me. I’ll talk to you about it in dance later, okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Sehun waved her off. Jongmi turned on her heel, and walked back to her friends with a decisive sway to her hips. Chanyeon squinted in suspicion, looking between the two sixteen year olds before she decided to stay silent on the matter. Sehun then looked over at her imploringly, “If I’m going to prom, will you go to prom with me?”
“Didn’t you just get a date to prom?”
“Nothing says I can’t take two girls to prom with me,” Sehun shrugged. “Besides, Jongmi won’t care.” He leaned into Chanyeon, pouting purposefully, “Please, Noona?”
“So, now I’m stuck going to prom,” Chanyeon said with a sigh. “I really need to learn how to say no to Sehun.”
“Ah… I just wanted to ask you where LuHan is,” Baekhyun replied awkwardly. "If you don't know, I can ask Jongdae or someone else."
“Oh, sorry,” the tips of Chanyeon’s ears turned red as she flushed from embarrassment. “Uh, I think Jongdae said he got sick.”
“Oh,” Baekhyun frowned. “How sick did he get?”
“It’s just a cold,” Chanyeon said dismissively. “He’ll be back eventually. I guess he just forgot to let you know.”
“I guess,” Baekhyun nodded in understanding. He posed his question tentatively, “Uh, do you mind if I shadow you today?”
Now, Chanyeon was having a moral dilemma. She didn’t want to say yes, but she knew that she had to say yes. She had more important things to be doing than running a baby-sitting service, like keeping her GPA nice and high above the laity's, but Baekhyun seemed to have this innocent look her eyes that made her want to give him everything he asked her to. It was kind of like the look Sehun gave her when he wanted something, but Baekhyun’s look was genuine and Sehun’s look was devious as hell.
“Sure.”
Why did I agree to this? Chanyeon thought with a groan. Prom wasn’t spectacular by any means the way she saw it. The twerkshop Sehun had described was taking place in the corner, and Chanyeon planned on steering clear of that situation. Speaking of her nasally partner in crime, Sehun had been dragged away by Jongmi once they crossed the threshold. Chanyeon on the other hand had been swept up by a senior that she couldn’t remember the name of because apparently when you straighten your hair and put in a pair of contacts, you were suddenly attractive enough.
As she was dancing with another senior whose name she couldn’t put to a face even if her life depended on it, she idly wondered where Baekhyun was. As LuHan was no stranger to dances, she was sure that he would bring Baekhyun along with him. Even though she had seen the Chinese senior dancing with a variety of students, both female and male, she had yet to see the almost-transfer student. Chanyeon then felt a pair of hands travel down her waist to an area they never should have been, bringing her out of her thoughts. “Hey, can you not…” She was silenced with a kiss to the edge of her mouth, and she caught the scent of alcohol. Swallowing thickly, Chanyeon removed the hands firmly. “Don’t touch me,” she said icily and stalked away to the drinks, intent on finding one that wasn’t alcoholic.
Initially, Chanyeon had had high hopes for prom. She admitted that with her wanting to let Sehun be the only person in their grade with a GPA close to hers, she had... neglected her social life just a tad. Maybe that was the reason why she had yet to meet her Prince Charming. He was probably right under her nose, living his life in a valley of ferrets and blissfully unaware of her existence. To be perfectly honest, that was the reason why Chanyeon decided to go to prom. However, in light of recent events, she was beginning to think that her Prince Charming would be taking up a permanent residency inside her mind.
"People... suck sometimes," a voice said. Chanyeon turned to see the almost-transfer student, Baekhyun, picking up a drink of his own. His eyes were lined with black, and Chanyeon would bet that he could join LuHan on the executive board of the Prettier than Your Girlfriend Club. He was... cute, she had to admit, and the way his eyes filled with concern as he looked at Chanyeon made her feel warm.
“Yeah, they do,” Chanyeon agreed with a sigh.
“You’re okay, right?” Baekhyun asked carefully. “I saw you with that guy, and I was going to stop him…”
Chanyeon waved him off, “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine, just a little peeved that I wore contacts only to get groped in the ass.” She shrugged, “And besides, I don’t know how much you could have done to help.”
“Hey,” Baekhyun puffed out his chest. “I’ll have you know that I have a black belt in hapkido. I used to teach classes at my dojo.”
Chanyeon grinned teasingly and nudged him playfully, “Yeah, sure.”
Baekhyun smiled back at her, all kind eyes. “And if it helps, I think you look better with glasses and curly hair. They suit you,” he nodded, completely sure of himself.
Chanyeon blushed despite herself, “Thanks, Baekhyun.”
At that time, the music slowed down, and people began to pair off like their lives depended on it. Chanyeon rolled her eyes at the display.
“… Do you want to dance with me?”
Chanyeon’s eyes widened at the question, scrambling for an answer. “Uh… Sehun promised he would dance a slow song with me.”
“He’s sucking face with Jongmi right now,” Baekhyun replied bluntly in Korean, pointing to the two teens making out in a corner. They looked entirely occupied with each other, and even though Chanyeon was having doubts on her best friend’s supposed homosexuality, she didn’t think this was the right time to broach the topic.
“Oh,” Chanyeon blinked owlishly. “Well, in that case, sure?”
Baekhyun grinned at her, laughing slightly, and Chanyeon took notice of how his smile seemed to square off into a more rectangular shape. He took her hand and led her over to the dance floor smoothly. “Have you ever-?”
“Never,” Chanyeon shook her head, flushing slightly. “Sorry in advance if I step on you.”
Baekhyun grinned again, and Chanyeon’s heart skipped a beat, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll guide you.”
Baekhyun kept his word, and with every step they took, he spoke softly to Chanyeon, singing her praises with every right step and merely grinning cutely every time she accidentally stepped on him. As Chanyeon danced with Baekhyun, the smaller male beamed up at her, right under her nose, just as he had always been since she met him. She then thought back to her Prince Charming in her ferret-filled wonderland. He had kind eyes, and he did everything he could to make her smile. Her Prince Charming was just as in love with her as she was with him, and he had a genuine heart. Chanyeon had to admit that aside from the height issue, her Prince Charming was everything she had imagined him to be.
She just had to see how he felt about ferrets.