Like Night and Day

Of Bets and Bids

Education and school were two different entities. Baekhyun liked to learn, but the establishment often distorted any desire to roll out of bed and perfect himself into the image that he liked to portray himself as. Education often required the will of one person's own to pursue the path of learning, whereas school had obligations that weren't necessary, but were required, and Baekhyun didn't like that all too well.

When he checked in on school the Saturday of the festival, he had arrived thirty minutes later than the actual time that everyone was strictly advised to follow. The stares and low glares of his classmates, who were all frustrated by the tasks at hand and the lack of help in preparation for their classroom café, went unacknowledged as he walked in and briefly searched for the mascot costume that Kyungsoo had ordered him to wear.

It wasn't as though he was putting effort in his search, so when he couldn't find it after a minute or two, Baekhyun decided to walk out of the classroom, deeming that his inability to find the stupid dress-up material was a good enough excuse to go home and be legitimately exempted from his duties. However, just as he was about to walk down the stairs to the ground floor, Kyungsoo happened to bump into him. And after a quick fight on the stairwell, which ended with Kyungsoo pushing Baekhyun's back against the railing and over an eminent death—or serious injuries, at the very least—Baekhyun gave up and Kyungsoo ordered him to the auditorium where he had stored in the blasted costume in the storage room.

Begrudgingly, Baekhyun dragged his feet as he walked to the auditorium and ignored the glances he got from the class utilizing the place. He made his way to the storage room and started pushing useless junk aside in search for the wretched costume. Upon hearing muffled voices outside of the room, Baekhyun stopped for a moment as his ears perked in recognition of Chanyeol's deep alto sound.

For a second, he thought about why in the world the giant basketball player was in the same vicinity as him and quickly came to the conclusion that the students he had passed on the way over to the storage room were the giant's classmates, and they were using the auditorium for their bidding event. It was probably why the stage had been decked out in glitter and other types of decorative annoyances.

Figuring that he didn't want to deal with Chanyeol showering attention on him and possibly letting others around them know that they were somewhat connected with one another by some strange friendship agreement, Baekhyun sighed and slipped his costume on.

He took off his pants, which were a pain since they were perfectly tight around his legs and difficult to pull out of, but Baekhyun had no other choice. He didn't want layers and layers of clothing underneath the thick costume, so he resorted to wearing his boxers only. He only left the plain white shirt underneath his leather jacket before completing the Rilakkuma look.

Stepping outside the room while carrying his clothes, Baekhyun shuffled himself out and pushed the door open, accidentally hitting someone standing behind it. When he heard the gruff groan, he knew who he had hit even despite the fact that his vision was very limited underneath the head piece.

Immediately, Chanyeol apologized for standing at such an inconvenient place and Baekhyun couldn't help but roll his eyes. He didn't say anything in return. Like he always did, he carried on and left, leaving Chanyeol and his classmate in slight confusion.

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Kneeling down countless times to take photos with the children that attended wasn't as excruciatingly painful as Baekhyun thought except for the pain from having to repeatedly bend down to get on the ground with the little ones. It was the part where he had to walk around acting cute as he handed out flyers that hurt him the most.