Like Night and Day

Persistency

Kyungsoo only invested a minimal amount of time in carefully putting his share of the posters up around the large gymnasium before another student came inside and took the student body president out, taking the male away and leaving Baekhyun to do the entire task by himself. When Kyungsoo left, the brunet plugged his headphones in, opting to distract himself from the practice going on behind him.

There were shouts of distraction involving basketball terms that Baekhyun was somewhat familiar with, but didn't necessarily care for. Hiking up the volume, he worked slowly and efficiently with his music tearing his mental and spiritual body out from the boring scenery of his environment. Lost in his own world, he went about Kyungsoo's supposed business while silently mouthing the lyrics to his songs.

He was up on the highest bleachers trying to decorate the north wall with the posters that were meant to encourage the home team and intimidate their enemy when a shadow loomed over him. Baekhyun felt the presence of another near him but tried to ignore it. It was inevitable, however, when the person behind him held him by the waist in order to help the brunet keep stable as he tried to tip-toe his poster as high up as he could. Baekhyun found that he couldn't simply turn the other way or pretend like his music was disabling him from noticing.

Slapping the tape between the poster and the wall, Baekhyun quickly finished the task and wriggled his way from the hands without saying a word of thanks before picking up the poster pile and moving on. He heard something muffled as he walked away and decided he was curious enough to minimize the volume of his audio for a minute to listen.

The voice belonged to Park Chanyeol, but it didn't necessarily surprise him. He knew none of the other basketball players in the gym and, from the look of everything, the team had taken a break from their sweaty practice session. Turning around must have cued the giant to repeat what he said.

With his hair sticking to his forehead and body glistening with sweat, Chanyeol gripped his white towel in his hands as he coolly tried to wipe himself dry to a point where he was at least presentable to the male staring blankly in front of him. After a while of nervously doing so, he stopped and smirked as the brunet looked him over.

"I'm a little...sweaty," were the first words that slipped past his lips.

Baekhyun didn't know if the guy was trying to be funny or if he was trying to be purposely stupid in words. It didn't bother him, but if it did, the brunet would have felt bad at hating the jock's genuine attempt to be nice—for whatever reason that was.

"Do you need help with that?" Chanyeol asked, nodding his head at the posters that Baekhyun carried in his arms. "You've been here for thirty minutes and you only got about a fourth of them up."

Shrugging, Baekhyun turned his back to the athlete again and continued on, carefully walking as to not stumble down a flight of bleachers. He didn't understand Chanyeol's need intrude on him or continue to pursue him for that matter. It was an oddity with a source that the introvert couldn't put his finger on.

With his music completely mute, Baekhyun listened as he was being trailed by the athlete. He would have described the male as a slimy dog, but the brunet hated to admit that the action seemed more of that of a puppy.

"I'm pretty tall. I could help you." When all that could be heard between them was the clinking of the shorter male's hanging suspenders and the thuds of his light weight boots, Chanyeol quirked his lips as he tilted his head. "You look like you're struggling, you know."

"You have no business with me," Baekhyun finally said, turning around to give the tall male a blank, tired expression. "I don't know you."

Jumping on top of the bleacher row, opting to pretend as though he was balancing on them like a beam, the jock was living up to Baekhyun's stereotypical belief that all athletes were dumb in the head and lacking some sort of essential sense that was needed to be a decent, functioning human being. If Chanyeol made one false move, he would have found himself tumbling. Baekhyun, however, would have turned the other way, completely uninterested in the mistakes and accidents of a fool.