Apparently, being the only groom that stayed for more than a night turned Baekhyun into an immediate nation’s sweetheart. Like Kyungsoo had speculated, the nation was in chaos when the news about the Phoenix’s boss didn’t look for a new wife and husband had gone public. The morning news usually filled with a new face of new brides or grooms, but today’s news, from morning to evening, were filled with Baekhyun’s face.

There were so many speculations. Good and bad. But the majority of people were loving the current boss’ husband.

“Did the Phoenix’s boss’ fall in love with his current husband?”

“Who is Byun Baekhyun? What did he do that could make him stay?”

“What will happen to Byun Baekhyun? Will he be sent away on his second day?”

Baekhyun watched the TV with weary eyes. He can’t process what the news anchor said as sleepiness slowly seeped in. After all, he already watched plenty of news about him tonight that it seemed a lot like repetition every time the news about him popped up.

Baekhyun settled his head onto the pillow, letting his bed engulfed him and the sound of the news anchor lulled him to sleep. But he can’t sleep. Because Chanyeol hadn’t come yet.

The mafia boss took longer time to come to Baekhyun’s room this time. It was one hour pass midnight and Baekhyun hadn’t received a single knock since Kyungsoo left him four hours ago.

He’ll come. He said he’ll see me tonight.

But Baekhyun can’t shake the bad feeling in his heart. Maybe Baekhyun had ruined his chance to keep staying. He was being too reckless today, playing with a gun was probably considered as an act of rebel by the boss. Jongin, Kyungsoo, and Sehun had warned him, but Baekhyun was too arrogant, thinking that he was special just because he wasn’t sent off on the first day.

He was just the same as the boss’ other husbands and wives. He was just a brilliant object to be sell out to Italy to do or be something he never knew.

Baekhyun let out a painful sob. While yesterday he mainly felt afraid, now he just felt broken. Just when he thought he could actually survive, actually have a future, it turned out to be a temporary illussion.

His whole body felt numb as his cry turned harder, tears falling messily onto his white pillow and his cheeks. He no longer could hear any sound, even the sound of the news anchor. Tomorrow, his face wouldn’t appear in the screen anymore, replaced with another face. And this room would have a new resident.

Baekhyun thought it would be better if he was shipped out on the first day.

“Baekhyun?”

Fingers crawled up his shoulder as he heard his name being called, making Baekhyun yelped in surprise, but his face was still burried on the pillow.

“Baekhyun, what’s wrong?”

The hold on his shoulder tightened. Baekhyun, had drained all his energy by crying, was being pulled up slowly, gently.

His eyes were blurry because of his tears so Baekhyun couldn’t really see the figure who sat on the edge of his bed, trying to pull him up. His initial instinct was to fight this person, but then the hands touching him were oddly familiar. They were the same hands that held him yesterday night when he felt nauseous and this afternoon when he was almost thrown back by the strong force of a gun.

“Chanyeol...” Baekhyun breathed out. He blinked a few times to get rid of his tears. “You came,” he choked.

“I’m here.” The boss’ hands were warm and comforting against his pajamas. “What happened?”

Chanyeol’s worried and careful voice stopped his tears. Baekhyun only realized that his break down was probably too loud, because Chanyeol looked like he ran here in hurry. And Baekhyun also spotted Jongin and Sehun at his door, and Kyungsoo was hidden behind the two towers. He was drawing commotion.

Baekhyun didn’t answer and just burried his head on Chanyeol’s chest. The Don was sitting on the edge of his bed with a full suit attire. Baekhyun wondered if he ever wore other type of clothes.

Receiving no answer from the petit master, with his body unable to move because Baekhyun was still in his hold, Chanyeol said quietly to his subordinates, “Leave.”

It wasn’t long before Baekhyun’s hearing was filled with silence once more. His sobs from before gradually turned into soft sniffles. The cold air in the room filled his lungs, and Baekhyun felt something drapped over his back. It was his blanket.

“Your voice is very loud for someone whose body is this small.”

Baekhyun heard the deep rich voice of the mafia boss. He still didn’t trust his voice at the moment, but the urge to voice out his worry was unbearable. “Why are you so late tonight?” He lifted up his head and met Chanyeol’s eyes.

Chanyeol blinked a few times. Baekhyun realized that there was no trace of coldness and darkness on his face this time. The boss looked so soft, so unguarded. Baekhyun wondered if this was the real him.

“You were crying because I was late to come to your room?” Disbelief flashed across his face. At some point, his hands had drapped around the smaller boy’s waist.

Baekhyun sniffed once. His eyes were getting hot from crying, and their comfortable position started making him sleepy. “I thought we’ll continue our postponed talk.”

Chanyeol raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Of all thing you can ask from me, you just wanted to talk?”

Baekhyun nodded.

“Why?”

“Do I need a reason?”

Chanyeol chuckled, and it was a suprisingly pleasant sound in Baekhyun’s ear. “You can’t be crying like that just because you want to talk to me,” the boss argued.

Baekhyun hesitated for a moment. Despite shamelessly crying like there was no tomorrow just now, his reasons for crying were more like an accumulative result from all his confined worries from these couple of days. His heart felt heavy, and how could he explain that to the Don?

“I wanted to talk to you because no matter how weird it sounds, I feel you’re the only one I could feel comfortable with,” he reasoned. It was a stupid reason, Baekhyun knew. But somehow, the boss didn’t object it and let him continue. His gentle eyes had the power to urge Baekhyun to continue. “And I cried because I’m sad, and scared.”

“Why?”

“You asked too much why.”

“Fine,” Chanyeol moved a little, picking Baekhyun up so he could sit in a comfortable position. “I’ll change my question. What makes you sad?”

The question was nowhere near judging. Who would’ve thought that the most ruthless person in the country could speak in a such delicate manner. Even if Baekhyun told Kyungsoo tomorrow about this, his personal servant probably wouldn’t believe him. If there was tomorrow.

“I just thought that you won’t come to my room,” Baekhyun said with his eyes absorbed in the Chanyeol’s. “Then I’ll be sent off by the dawn, and I couldn’t see you anymore, and Kyungsoo, Jongin, and Sehun, too.”

There was a split second change in Chanyeol’s expression, so vague that Baekhyun wouldn’t be able to catch it if he didn’t stare hard enough. “And what makes you scared?”

This question threw Baekhyun offguard. He didn’t expect another question since he thought he had explained it clearly enough earlier. What made him scared? He can’t say he was afraid of being here, afraid of his uncertain future. So he chose to change the subject. “There are only a few thing I’m afraid of in this world, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol looked at Baekhyun with soft eyes, making the small master feel like being judged. He knew. Chanyeol knew that Baekhyun didn’t want to talk about it. “And that doesn’t include guns, obviously,” he unexpectedly said.

Baekhyun smiled the first time since his break down, grateful that Chanyeol decided to let it go. “Exactly. Were you still mad at me because of that?”

Chanyeol didn’t immediately answer. He broke his gaze with Baekhyun and looked at the ceiling, trying to seize a suitable answer. “I was mad at you because what you did back there was truly reckless. You didn’t think it through. You could’ve hurt yourself or the others.” Chanyeol put his focus on Baekhyun again. It finally occured to the smaller boy that the mafia boss was always put his 100% attention to the person he talked to. “But I must say that I was proud of you that you could pull it off.”

Baekhyun quickly looked away when he felt his cheeks were getting warmer, trying to put his interest on other things in the room, and desperately finding a new topic to change the subject, again.

“Did you turn off my TV?” he asked, and immediately winced at the way he said my TV. As if it was his own TV. He should really learn to know his place. Everything here wasn’t his. The room, bed, TV, pajamas, even his husband in front of him. None of it was his. He even started to think that he himself might not be his anymore.

“Who else would it be?” the boss answered with a question, suprising Baekhyun at how he thought Chanyeol’s question was related to his thought earlier.

Baekhyun cleared his throat and shrugged. “I don’t know. You don’t seem like the type who would turn off your TV by yourself, let alone other people’s TV.”

“Is that how you see me? A spoiled kid?” the tone of his voice was flat but his face was amused.

Baekhyun can’t help but smile. Chanyeol tonight was really different from yesterday. The phoenix’s leader was so open, unmasked. Yes, he still wore his uptight black suit, with his hair styled up, and sometimes his face turned cold and flat as usual. But, although he still could count it with his fingers, Baekhyun could tell that the boss’ cold expression had melted in front of him for once in a while.

And that certainly didn’t do any good for Baekhyun’s heart.

With Baekhyun didn’t give him any answer, Chanyeol continued, “If I’m a spoiled kid, what are you? A rebel?”

“I didn’t say anything about you being a spoiled kid. You said it yourself, and what do you mean I’m a rebel?” Baekhyun pouted.

“Should I remind you about the gun incident once more? And don’t you think I didn’t notice you not wearing your suit jacket earlier.”

Baekhyun’s eyes widened while Chanyeol’s eyes were playful. He really didn’t think the Don would notice anything about him. “I... just don’t like wearing it.”

Chanyeol remained tight-lipped. It seemed like he was struggling to not smile and laugh in front of his small husband. “That’s the tradition here, Baekhyun,” he explained. “And although you’re my husband, you still need to follow the rule.”

“That rule is actually really funny, because why would we wear a dress shirt, and a jacket, and trousers, and a shining leather shoes, inside the house?”

Baekhyun realized that Chanyeol had a pair of expressive eyes if he allowed them to, like right now, his eyes showed that he was so amused by Baekhyun’s words. Baekhyun never put much attention to it these past two days, but being in a close approximity with his husband for quite some times like this made him notice many things about him, especially his face.

“I remembered I said the same thing to my parents back then,” Chanyeol finally replied. “So what are you gonna do? Being a rebel everyday by not following that funny rule?”

“You make it sound like I was killing someone here. You’re really mad that I called you a spoiled kid, huh? If it’s any consolation, people actually call me weird.”

Chanyeol raised his eyebrows and can’t help to pull his lips upward. “Why are they calling you weird?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “It started in kindergarten. You see, my teacher asked us what we want to be when we grow up. And guess what my answer was.”

“What?”

“A cat. I said I want to be a cat, in front of the whole class. I heard that cats could sleep for 16 hours a day, and wow, that was totally what I wanted.”

Chanyeol laughed, this time truly a laugh with his head thrown back and his mouth opened wide. The sound of his laugh made Baekhyun jump in surprise because it was so boisterous and loud. Like it had been a thousand years he didn’t laugh and finally all of his laugh flooded out at this time.

Baekhyun smiled at the end. His story wasn’t even that funny, and he wondered what kind of life that his husband led for he was laughing like crazy with just a dry joke like that.

~

“Master...”

“Huh?”

“Wake up.”

Baekhyun groaned. His eyelids felt like glued and his throat was dry like a broken faucet.

“Would you please quickly wake up, Master? We need to go somewhere.”

It was Kyungsoo’s voice. Annoying voice. Baekhyun hated his voice from the moment he heard it in the first morning he survived—

His glued eyes immediately opened, and just like yesterday, he was welcomed by the bright ray of sunshine coming from his large window. It was already morning.

“Go where?” his voice was hoarse, but his heart was hammering like crazy right now, waiting for Kyungsoo’s answer.

Kyungsoo wore the same attire like yesterday, standing beside his bed with a small towel in his hand and a couple of maids behind him.

The head maid chuckled. “Relax, I’m not taking you to the harbour if that’s what you’re freaking out for. It’s already morning, you see? If I’m going to send you away, it would be dawn.” But then his amused face was switched into a tensed expression. “Would you please hurry up?”

Kyungsoo urging tone made Baekhyun get up from his head hastily, panicking along with his maid. Kyungsoo immediately put his hand all over Baekhyun, undressing him, putting him the black formal attire, fixing and styling his hair. It was all done in a matter of minutes.

“What’s going on?” Baekhyun asked when he finally had the time to breathe. Kyungsoo was throwing him a tie around the colar of his black shirt and tying it for him. “You’re making me nervous.”

Kyungsoo kept focus for a moment to Baekhyun’s tie, but after a while, his expression had relaxed and he put on a smile. “Have you seen our garden? It’s amazing.”

Baekhyun blinked in confussion. “We’re going to a garden? What’s with the hurry?”

“Just shut up and come,” Kyungsoo answered as he tightened his tie and immediately grabbed Baekhyun’s jacket suit and put it on him.

After that, Baekhyun was dragged out of his room with some of the maids in his tail. This one side of quarter was oddly full with people, Chanyeol’s people. Baekhyun held his breath when he realized that all of them were holding guns. Sehun immediately joined them when he saw Baekhyun came out from his room.

It just registered to him that all of them were protecting him.

“Kyungsoo, what’s going on here?”

The servant pressed his lips into a thin line. “Just follow me first.”

Kyungsoo took him through a door that Baekhyun didn’t even remember it was there. Only he, Kyungsoo, and Sehun entered it. A narrow aisle was what welcomed them. Both his servant and his bodyguard kept him close as Baekhyun only could follow them.

It took some times before Baekhyun finally could see another door, leading to an antechamber. Kyungsoo and Sehun didn’t show any signs to stop. They kept dragging Baekhyun to another room, and another room, then another room, until they finally arrived at a large green house.

Kyungsoo opened the door and Baekhyun gaped at the place. He didn’t expect the “garden” Kyungsoo mentioned earlier to be this kind of grand and beautiful garden. His previous worries were wiped away from his mind for a second.

“Do you want to go around, Master?” Kyungsoo asked. Then he faced the bodyguard and command him, “Sehun, guard outside.”

Baekhyun could still hear the hint of nervousness in his servant’s voice. Sehun did as he was told. The master weighted the possibility of asking another question to him, but he had a feeling his question was still going to be ignored. So he just agreed to Kyungsoo’s invitation.

The green house was mostly stuffed with green, only a little bit of red and yellow here and there. The smell of wet soil and damp leaves filled his lungs. The scenery around him sent a calm feeling into him.

“This green house was pretty new. It was built for Boss Chanyeol by his parents,” Kyungsoo explained beside him. Kyungsoo, too, seemed more relax now after they spent some times in there. “Chanyeol really liked it here and he asked me to bring you here today.”

Baekhyun stared at Kyungsoo, waiting for him to continue but his servant didn’t say anything after that, only looking at a big tree in front of them.

“Why?” Baekhyun asked. He somehow predicted it wasn’t because Chanyeol wanted him to see the scenery here.

“Believe it or not, this is the safest place in the quarter,” Kyungsoo explained, his face contorted. “We don’t have a metal bunker here. Chanyeol’s parents thought they needed to build a safe place for Chanyeol, and they chose to build this. So, amidst everything happening outside, Chanyeol would still feel calm, surrounded by flowers and trees. I’m not sure if it make sense, but it certainly works for Chanyeol.”

Baekhyun drew a nervous breath. “And what’s happening outside right now?”

Kyungsoo sighed and stayed silent, saying nothing. The silence was defeaning. Baekhyun thought he will hear something from outside, but nothing. He heard nothing.

“Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun called him, feeling uneasy. He hated it when he knew nothing. “Is... Is Chanyeol alright?”

At that, Kyungsoo laughed. “God, you two. You guys indeed act like a married couple.”

“Kyungsoo, I swear, if you didn’t tell me right now, I will—“

“There’s an uproar outside the quarter right now. Maybe if you weren’t so deep in sleep, you would hear.”

“A what?”

Kyungsoo ran his hand through his hair as he clicked his tongue. “People was in rage now because of you. Because Chanyeol didn’t send you away.”

Baekhyun shook his head. “Wha—Wait, I don’t understand.”

It was just last night that he watched some news on TV. The nation was calling him “nation’s sweetheart”. What happened now?

“Baekhyun, Chanyeol has sent thirty people before you. Very smart and talented people, who have bright future ahead of them. Why did he stop? What about the life of the other thirty? People want explanation.”

Baekhyun’s legs grew weak. He fell onto the ground and let out a shaky breath. “Oh my god.”

“Don’t worry. Chanyeol’s handling it.”

“They were right, Kyungsoo. What about the others? This is... Me being here... it’s not making any sense. It’s not fair for the other thirty.”

“Then what do you want, Master? You want to be shipped away too? And Chanyeol will keep searching for another person, send another person, on and on?”

Baekhyun pulled his hair and stood up. “What the is happening here? I don’t even know!”

“, this is so messed up.” Kyungsoo turned his body around, his back facing Baekhyun. “How I wish you were the first person he married. Why Kris only found you now.”

His chest heaving, Baekhyun tried to process all Kyungsoo had said but failed to understand. He really didn’t understand. “Kyungsoo...” he trailed.

The said servant turned his body around again. It was apparent he forced his tensed expression to soften in front of the master. “It’s okay. Chanyeol wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Chanyeol had announced to the whole quarter that your safety is the number one priority, so you don’t have to worry.”

Never did Baekhyun worry about himself the second Kyungsoo told him the news. Chanyeol was the only thought that crossed his mind throughout this ordeal.

“I don’t care about my safety, Kyungsoo. I’m just a boy. Chanyeol is...” Baekhyun stopped. He surprised himself when he almost said that Chanyeol is everything.

Kyungsoo chuckled, his face amused. “Funny. Chanyeol said the same thing. He said he doesn’t care about his safety. That he’s just a boy. And that you are his king.”