"That idiot will not kill Baekhyun!" he roared. "Do you understand me?" He stormed over to the nearby coffee table and kicked it sending it and the half dozen coffee mugs sitting on it flying across the room. Most of the them cracked or shattered. One of his personal bodyguards started cleaning up the mess almost straight away. He turned to Tiffany and felt the bile of anger within him rise even further at the sight of her. "Do you understand?!"

"Obviously I understand, I'm not a moron," she answered, rolling her eyes inwardly. "I didn't know that he'd go ahead and climb out the window."

"Well how about you learn to expect this from him! He is not an ordinary boy! Have you learned nothing from living with him these past couple of months?!"

Tiffany kept shut and stared at her hands.

"Baekhyun is useless if he's dead. I will not allow him to die. I don't care if he jumps off a twenty story building, he will not die. I will not let it happen!" He couldn't stop ranting now no matter how hard he tried. He always managed to get worked up easily whenever the topic of Baekhyun came up. "Show me the pictures."

Tiffany handed him the pictures that she'd stowed in her handbag. He stared at the first one, taking in Baekhyun's hair as his face was staring at the doughnuts in his lap, it was covering his face almost completely as it was so long. His sweater which was far too big was hanging off his shoulder and his legs were crossed at the ankles. His gesture was quite similar to his mother's and he felt his heart skip a beat in his chest as he stared at the photo. Baekhyun was a handsome boy but he didn't at all look his mother, Katia. Her hair was naturally light, glossy brown and her eyes were somewhere between green and gold, taller and thinner then Baekhyun.

In the next picture, Baekhyun's eyes were visible as was the boy standing behind him with a gun pointing at his skull. He glanced between Baekhyun's eyes and the boy's - the boy's were wild like a starving animal's, agitated and aggressive but Baekhyun's were almost blank, no fear in them whatsoever despite his circumstances. Unbelievable. Even in this moment that most people would be terrified, Baekhyun seemed unfazed. He couldn't detect any sort of fear in those eyes, something he was pretty much a professional in at this point. Baekhyun was everything that he had expected, he didn't fail any of the expectations given to him and for this reason, he could not, would not die.

In the following picture, the idiot boy was about to pull the trigger, his face close to Baekhyun's and his eyes even darker with rage than the last photo.

"Keep that punk and his moronic friends away from Baekhyun, at all costs."

"Yes."

"That gun is not to get near Baekhyun ever again, am I clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"You listen to me, Tiffany," he started, glaring at her extremely intensely. "If anyone is going to kill Byun Baekhyun, it's going to be me."

He looked at the next picture and felt his heart leap. Baekhyun was at his peak here, flipping that idiot over his shoulder and his face looked so sharp and focused like a piece of art. No, Baekhyun did not resemble his mother. He decided that Baekhyun resembled him.

 

~

 

He probably wasn't even going to be there, why would he be there? If he had any sense he'd be avoiding him.

Park Chanyeol hurriedly entered Washington Square Park with his chemistry textbook tucked under his arm, a sort of cover in case anyone realised what he was up to (not that anyone would), he could pretend he wanted to study outdoors. If he had any sense, he'd be avoiding him. But instead of doing that, he was using a study cover up and going to the park at any time he could just to try and spot the boy, even just to get a glimpse of his blonde hair. He tentatively walked to the chess tables where he’d first seen the blonde boy and started staring at them much more intensely than he normally would. No. There was no blonde boy there. He couldn’t believe the overwhelming sensation of disappointment that filled his stomach and gut.

He sat on the benches near the chess tables thinking over what he could possibly do now. He didn’t want to play chess because he’d get too involved and might miss him if he came around and also when he played chess with Baekhyun on his mind (all of the time lately) he was always terrible and lost. Maybe he had already been and left  or seen him from a bit away and decided to leave the park. Probably because he hated Chanyeol…

“Park?”

Chanyeol jumped in surprise at his own name, clutching his chest a little. “Christ on a bike Jimmy, you scared me!”

Jimmy smiled warmly at him and chuckled. He was a young Filipino boy who was too tall for his own good since he’d recently gone through a growth spurt and wasn’t used to his newly found long limbs. He was also quickly becoming one of the best chess players in the park. “Are you looking for Baekhyun?”

Chanyeol’s face dropped into a frown. Did he have a see through skull or something so everyone could just read exactly what he was thinking? Was it that obvious that he was obsessed with this new blonde boy who’d almost beaten him to a pulp that one time?

“No!” he said too quickly, turning on his defensive mode. “Why?”

“No reason, I just thought you were looking for someone new to play since you’ve practically beaten everyone else and he’s a newcomer you know? Baekhyun could probably give you a good game!” Chanyeol stared at the boy to try and detect some sort of other motive behind his words but he could see that Jimmy was speaking genuinely. He was simply thinking like a chess player. He realised that he was being the most paranoid person on the planet right now.

“Yeah,” he smiled and nodded at the young guy attempting to be nonchalant. “Maybe he could beat me in a game or two.”

“Yeah… he’s unbelievable!” Jimmy seemed fascinated by Baekhyun but Chanyeol could read that it was just because of his chess playing and not that he actually found Baekhyun attractive. Unlike Chanyeol.

“Yeah…” he nodded and cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Well, see you around!” Jimmy pat his back and wandered back over to the chess tables. Chanyeol watched as he started a match with Mr. O’ Hara, an Irish taximan who illegally parked his cab outside the park and always abandoned a game if the cops came by. No matter if you were quite obviously beating him, he always said the game was ‘undecided’. He sat back on his bench and opened his chemistry book, pretending to study with it.

His promise to himself that he’d stop thinking about Baekhyun had completely gone out the window. He’d planned on completely focusing his energy on Kyungsoo but Baekhyun was like his own personal drug, in his blood system permanently now and he didn’t want to get it out of him. He was officially a junkie. Clearly him just promising himself not to think about Baekhyun wasn’t working so he needed to try something new, something different. Maybe he should try talking to him like a normal human being, talk about normal everyday things like the weather and stuff. That might take away some of the otherworldliness that Chanyeol saw in the boy. Maybe he could have a meal with him? There was no way he could view the boy as a god-like person while he was stuffing his face. He would probably order something Chanyeol hated like.. liver or something. Maybe he would chew too loudly for Chanyeol’s liking or get a piece of lettuce stuck in between his teeth. Then maybe he’d get bad breath or something. Yes, Chanyeol needed to make Baakhyun more human to him.

After all, on the inside Baekhyun was just a normal person just like everyone else…

…right?

 

~

 

He was a disgrace.

He was a terror.

He should have his license as a gay man revoked.

Baekhyun turned and looked at his in his mirror that hung on the inside of his wardrobe. He’d bought himself some skinny jeans in an attempt to be more y and make his look good but instead he looked like if he bent his leg a little too much or squatted they might burst open like the Incredible Hulk when he was changing from Bruce Banner to the green monster. What shoes should he wear for this? Boots were a terrible choice. Maybe it was getting too cold to wear flip-flops.

Chanyeol was definitely not going to fall for him, in actual fact he’d most likely turn in the other direction and run screaming or die from laughter.

Why was he doing this to himself? Normally he managed to pull off this sort of persona that he really didn’t care about what others thought of him. Normally he shopped in thrift stores because he had basically no money. But now that Baekhyun actually cared about how he looked he had turned into some neurotic freak. Caring took too much effort and work.

He pulled off his jeans and instead opted for his favourite pair of sweatpants  and a oversized red sweater. Better to be ugly and know it than attempt to be pretty and laughed at. Fashion motto of the century. He had to leave before Tiffany came home and recognised Steve's aftershave that Baekhyun had sprayed on himself in an attempt to at least smell attractive to Chanyeol. He sprinted down the stairs as quickly as he could, locking the front door behind him before chuckling to himself in his head. Imagine, he’d left school a class early to work on how he looked.

He rushed to the park, not stopping at any point for worry that AJ would shoot at him before he even got to Chanyeol. Not that he was scared that AJ would shoot him in broad daylight but in October the sun started setting a lot sooner so his time was limited. Amazing how it turned out that the guy he wanted to sleep with for the first time and the guy who wanted to take his life hung around in the same park. In such a huge city the likelihood of that was almost impossible but of course this was Baekhyun’s life. Of course they hung out in the same place.

He felt a churn in his stomach as the park drew closer. How was he going to approach this situation?

“Hi, I know you hate me and that you have a boyfriend but would care to sleep with me and take my ity?”

On the one-in-a-trillion chance that Chanyeol said yes, what the hell would they do then? in a public park was out of the question.

Just then, a real life version of Chanyeol entered his vision, sitting on the bench that Baekhyun favoured with his ginormous college textbook on his lap. . Had he been spotted yet? Could he turn and run?

“Ba