He’s usually so bright. Baekhyun’s never met anyone like him – Baekhyun’s never met him, either, if he’s being honest – he’s never met anyone with such a perpetual smile, with so much fierce, positive energy. He’d finally learned his name last week, after agonizing painfully over the morality of his actions, when he sifted through the signed receipts in the cash box and found it - his usual order, galbi and some weird foreign beer that Baekhyun had tried once out of curiosity and hated completely – Park Chanyeol, hastily dashed off at the bottom of the receipt, barely legible at all. Baekhyun was more ashamed of himself for looking him up online when he got home, just to check, because that had brought up more than one picture of Chanyeol’s smiling face, his completely endearing eyes scrunched up in happiness – an award for a science project in middle school, published on their online blog; several pictures with his high school band, all in uniform and squinting in the sun. And then there was the most recent picture, the face Baekhyun recognized best, Chanyeol on study abroad in China, published on his college’s student blog page last year – Chanyeol with the most beautiful, delighted smile he’d ever seen, one of his long arms wrapped around the shoulders of an even taller boy with a wry little grin stretching his lips and the other flung wide, both of them standing in the middle of the Great Wall. Baekhyun had devoured that little snippet of Chanyeol’s life with more attentiveness than the two paragraphs probably warranted, and barely restrained himself from looking up Chanyeol’s sour companion, reasoning that a name like Kris wouldn’t get him many accurate results.

It’s been two months since Chanyeol started coming in on Wednesdays at nine – two months since the start of the semester, and Baekhyun wonders if Chanyeol has a late class in the science building across the street, knowing that the university cafeteria closes long before now. Chanyeol always sits in the same table in the corner, long legs stretched out and sticking into the aisle, backpack spilling papers onto the empty chair opposite him. He always wears those big tortoise shell glasses, pushes them up the bridge of his nose constantly, and Baekhyun wonders what he looks like without them, how bad his vision is, if he needs them to read the textbooks he opens above his plate and skims while he eats. Baekhyun thinks it’s probably a good thing that he has to run stock on Wednesdays so their order will be ready to be called in in the morning, because if he had to be anywhere near Chanyeol for that hour between when he came in and when they closed, he’d probably stare the whole time, and then Chanyeol would definitely notice him.

He’s pretty sure he’s been driving Kyungsoo up the wall, asking him about Chanyeol all the time. But his friend is so easy going, he just smiles in a pained sort of way and relays what scant details he has – Chanyeol always orders the same thing, always smiles and says thank you often, and his voice is low and deep but Baekhyun’s not sure he believes that one. He’s talking Kyungsoo’s ear off one day, a month in to his unfortunate crush, when Jongin meets them for coffee after their shift. He only lets Baekhyun talk for maybe twenty more minutes before stopping him, leaning his elbows on the table and ignoring Kyungsoo’s calming hand on his thigh, and telling Baekhyun to just, maybe, try talking to this guy if he likes him so much.

Baekhyun’s terrified to take his advice, but he thinks about it. Once Jongin’s put the idea in his head, actually, he thinks about it quite a lot. He’s pretty sure that saying hi to a total stranger isn’t going to be the most painful experience in his life, but on the other hand he thinks he might die if Chanyeol looks directly at him. But he has to do it, he rationalizes, he can’t keep pining over him from afar – honestly, he’ll probably be annoying, or arrogant, or some other awful thing, and then Baekhyun won’t have to deal with this stupid crush and everything will go back to normal.

It takes the entire morning, and Baekhyun spaces out during his entire psych lecture, but by the time his shift rolls around he’s convinced himself that really it would be for the best. He allows himself to briefly entertain an optimistic future – during a particularly boring slide about the parts of the brain, he imagines making friends with Chanyeol, maybe getting to hang out with him once or twice, seeing that smile directed at him instead of the cell phone that chirps texts on the table beside his plate every Wednesday. But optimistic futures are a little scary, when he thinks that maybe he wants to know how soft Chanyeol’s lips would feel against his own, so he pulls himself back to the bleak probable reality of completely embarrassing himself in front of someone he kind of really likes. He still manages to convince himself, though – he’s pretty sure even embarrassment and failure would be better than this tension, this twist of knots in his chest whenever he sees Chanyeol, so he thinks maybe he just has to do it, and then at least it will be over, for better or worse.

Of course, nine o’clock hits and everything falls apart.

Chanyeol is usually so bright but today, the day Baekhyun’s been trying to talk himself into for almost eight days now, today Chanyeol isn’t smiling. He orders ginger tea and rice and sits there barely eating, staring blankly at the same page of his anatomy text book for the whole hour, his phone buzzing angrily on the table – but he doesn’t pick it up. He gets up to leave at closing time, like he always does, but his movements are slow as he packs up his book, he fumbles the strap of his backpack when he pulls it onto his shoulder and almost trips over a chair on his way out. And his phone is still buzzing on the table.

Baekhyun feels like someone’s punched him in the gut but he knows what he has to do, so with a quick word to the manager he grabs Chanyeol’s phone off the table and rushes out the door after him. It’s cold outside and he forgot to grab his jacket, and Chanyeol’s phone – purple, on further inspection, and covered in little stick-on stars – will not stop ringing. The name on the screen is Jiaheng and Baekhyun wonders very briefly who that is, while he looks around to see which way Chanyeol went. It doesn’t take long to locate him, shuffling slowly up the street, backpack slipping off his shoulder and kicking a loose piece of asphalt in front of him, and Baekhyun resists the urge to call out his name, just rushes after him as quickly as he can, trying not to hug himself – it’s so cold, too cold for just the t-shirt he wears in the stockroom – and taps Chanyeol lightly on the shoulder.

The tall boy looks around with wide eyes, and his glasses are tucked in the pocket of his jacket, and Baekhyun has to remember to breathe.

“You, uhm, you forgot your phone,” he finally manages, trying not to stare, and holds out the still buzzing electronic.

Chanyeol’s expression crumples for a moment so brief that Baekhyun isn’t even sure he sees it, before that shockingly bright smile he’s come to know so well plasters itself across his face. “Thanks,” Chanyeol says, and his voice is quiet and rough, and Baekhyun feels like someone’s reached inside his chest and closed their fist around his heart. Chanyeol’s fingertips just brush his when he takes the phone, and his skin is warm to the touch. He thanks Baekhyun again, his voice even lower than Baekhyun thought possible, before turning to go.

Baekhyun stands on the sidewalk watching him walk away until his fingers tingle and sting from the cold.

Chanyeol doesn’t come back for a few weeks, and Baekhyun tries vainly not to hate himself. He can’t stop replaying the look on Chanyeol’s face when he handed him the phone, like maybe he’d abandoned it on purpose.  When Chanyeol does start coming back, Baekhyun keeps himself in the stockroom – focuses on his job and doesn’t go out to sneak a look at him, not even once, because he’s sure he’s ruined something, and he doesn’t want to face that. Eventually it’s not something he thinks about – he’s not avoiding Chanyeol, he just doesn’t want to be that creepy guy who stares all the time.

“He asked about you,” Kyungsoo says a month later, crossing his arms over his chest, and Baekhyun blinks at him in the most confused manner he can manage until he continues. “That guy, Chanyeol. He asked if you still work here.”

“What did you tell him?” Baekhyun asks warily, even though he wants to ask Kyungsoo to repeat Chanyeol’s question word for word, not give him this summary like it doesn’t matter exactly what Chanyeol said.

“To wait for you to come off your shift,” Kyungsoo deadpans, and Baekhyun’s never looked so alarmed in his life, but Kyungsoo just shakes his head and pushes his coat into his hands, shoving him towards the door. “Get out of here, I’m sick of you moping around like you did something wrong. Go make a new friend.” And with that he propels Baekhyun through the swinging doors to the back room, and Chanyeol looks up from his textbook, glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose, and smiles.

Baekhyun’s fairly sure he won’t survive if this lasts very long. Chanyeol shuts his book and shoves it in his bag without looking, getting up with unexpected grace and by the time Baekhyun forces himself to walk out from behind the counter and head for the door, Chanyeol meets him, and when the doors swing shut behind them Chanyeol’s slowed his long gait to stay at Baekhyun’s pace.

“I wanted to thank you,” he says, and Baekhyun narrowly manages not to wince, “really, most people probably would’ve figured I’d come back for it. You didn’t get sick, running after me in the cold, did you?”

He sounds so genuinely concerned that it’s painful. Baekhyun wishes for the ability to evaporate. “I mean, I figured, I’d hate to lose my phone, you know. It was nothing. I didn’t get sick or anything,” he says quietly, and then glances up before crossing the street. Chanyeol follows him without the slightest hesitation, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning around to walk backwards beside him, watching him, and Baekhyun hates him just a little for being so endearing.

“Let me buy you lunch,” Chanyeol says after a brief silence, and when Baekhyun looks up at him startled his face splits into a wide grin. “Or coffee. Something.”

“I mean, if you… want to,” Baekhyun says lamely, and prays desperately for Chanyeol to think his cheeks are pink from the cold. “Coffee would be nice. Not right now, I mean, but…” he trails off, because of course Chanyeol doesn’t mean now, it’s almost eleven o’clock at night, and he should stop talking before Chanyeol realizes he’s an idiot.

Chanyeol laughs though, loud and sharp and it echoes down the street, and Baekhyun thinks the way one of his eyes scrunches up more than the other when he really smiles is the sweetest thing. “No, I guess right now wouldn’t work,” Chanyeol says calmly, still grinning, “but are you free tomorrow?”

They meet for coffee after Baekhyun’s morning class, and it’s the single strangest two hours of his life. Chanyeol is sunny and loud, full of warm laughter and crooked smiles, and every time their eyes meet Baekhyun’s breath catches a little in his throat.  Chanyeol tells him about his science major and his trip to China and his passion for guitar and he tries to respond in kind but all he really wants to do is listen, to soak up every detail of Chanyeol until he knows everything about him, until he’s committed the deep cadence of Chanyeol’s voice perfectly to memory.

He calls Kyungsoo when Chanyeol heads off to class – grinning and waving enthusiastically at him as he goes – and tells him everything in painstaking detail, fully aware that his friend probably doesn’t need this kind of explanation, but then suddenly Jongin’s voice in coming down the line and Baekhyun almost trips in his confusion.

“Are you listening to me? I asked why he asked you out.”

Baekhyun feels his cheeks heat up. “He didn’t ask me out,” he says tartly, “he wanted to thank me, that’s all.”

There’s silence for a long moment, and Baekhyun wonders if Jongin hung up on him. It would be just as well.

“You actually believe he asked to buy you coffee to thank you. You didn’t do anything,” Jongin states plainly, and Baekhyun thinks he hears Kyungsoo say something admonishing about being nice.

“Why else would he, though?” Baekhyun asks, trying to sound indifferent and failing completely.

“You’re an idiot,” Jongin says, and then Kyungsoo wrestles the phone away from him.

---

“Ah, I won’t be able to Skype tomorrow night,” Chanyeol says, practically bouncing in his desk chair, and Kris tilts his head at the camera. “We’re going to Myeong-dong for the festival.”

Kris looks confused, a little crease forming between his bows, and Chanyeol grins even wider. “I’m going with Baekhyun and his friends,” he says cheerfully. “You know, I told you about them, the—”

“The waiter, yeah, I remember,” Kris says quietly, and Chanyeol’s expression must falter for a moment, because Kris sighs and looks away from the camera, fingers flying across his laptop keyboard. “I remember who Baekhyun is, Chanyeol, you’ve only been telling me about him for the past month.”

Chanyeol can’t help it. Baekhyun fascinates him. He’s so delicate, he’s pretty and small and Chanyeol feels the biggest urge to protect him, but he’s not sure what from. Baekhyun’s been warming up to him, he thinks – after a couple days getting coffee together it was a simple step to meet for lunch, and now sometimes Baekhyun comes home with him on Wednesday nights, and they play video games in Chanyeol’s dorm until the sun peeks through the curtains.  Baekhyun’s quiet and loud by turns, demure one minute and bitingly sarcastic the next, sweet for Chanyeol and sour for Jongin but sometimes it changes, sometimes Chanyeol will just enough and Baekhyun’s pretty face will contort into a glare and he’ll say something snide and angry but Chanyeol never listens, because Baekhyun is so cute when he tries to be mad at him. Chanyeol’s keeping a catalogue in his head of everything he learns about Baekhyun – he wears eyeliner every day, his fingers are always cold, he’s embarrassed about his liberal arts major enough to double it with psychology, he blushes bright red whenever Chanyeol takes off his glasses, he has a thousand little quirks and Chanyeol finds he wants to learn them all.

“I have to go, I’ve still got work to do,” Kris says mildly, and Chanyeol snaps back to attention, focuses on the little crease that hasn’t left Kris’s brow, the way his hands flit over the keys fitfully, the pull of a frown at the corners of his lips. Chanyeol knows he’s making Kris unhappy.

He can’t help it.

“Okay. I’ll text you tomorrow, alright? Send you pictures from the festival.”

Kris looks into the camera for a moment and Chanyeol hears the telltale chime of another Skype call coming through. Kris wrinkles his nose and looks away. “Yeah, alright. Have a good time,” he murmurs, hitting the button to end the call before Chanyeol can say goodbye. He wonders who was calling, but then again, he’s pretty sure he knows.

---

“…I really like him.”

“I know you do.”

“No, I mean, I really like him—”

Jongin sighs loudly before Kyungsoo can repeat his reply again. “Baekhyun, we both know you like him. Hell, probably everyone you’ve met in the past, like, four months, knows you like him. Except him. So maybe just ask him out already, okay?”

Baekhyun makes a face like he’s going to punch Jongin and Kyungsoo holds up his hands and steps between them. “He’s not ready for that yet, Jongin, you can’t just push him into something important like this…”

“Yeah, don’t peer pressure me,” Baekhyun says, pretending to pout, and Jongin rolls his eyes.

“Fine, we’ll make a deal,” he says, and Baekhyun frowns a little, waiting for him to continue. “You have until New Years to ask him out – at which point I will do it for you, because I’m so sick of listening to you.”

Baekhyun can feel his cheeks heating up. Kyungsoo grins a little. “That’s pretty generous,” he murmurs, and Baekhyun wants to hit him. “That’s what… about five months from now?”

“This is stupid,” Baekhyun growls unhappily, looking down.

Jongin snorts. “Take it or leave it. I can ask him for you now, if you’d rather—”

“No!” Baekhyun says a little too loudly, and Kyungsoo covers his mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Ask who about what?” Chanyeol’s deep voice comes from behind him, and not for the first time in his presence, Baekhyun wishes he had developed the ability to disappear. He starts to stammer out an answer, blushing so hard he can feel the tips of his ears heating up, but then Jongin smirks and waves a hand in a dismissive sort of way.

“I’m just trying to get Baekhyun to talk to his crush,” he says, and Baekhyun wonders what the consequences would be to strangling him in broad daylight. “But he’s reluctant. He thinks this person doesn’t like him, you know?”

Chanyeol frowns, that slow expression like he’s really thinking about something hard, and if he wasn’t overrun with hatred of Jongin, Baekhyun would find it adorable. “I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t like him,” he says, voice soft.

“That’s what I told him,” Jongin continues, smirking, but Baekhyun can’t really hear him anymore. Chanyeol looks sad and hopeful and earnest, and Baekhyun can’t focus on anything else.

Having a deadline helps, in a way. He wouldn’t have expected it to – he was so mad at Jongin for suggesting it, and he tried repeatedly to refuse him, but Jongin made a pretty good argument that it would help him just make up his mind and get on with it. And for the most part, it has. He has a plan now.

Well, more like a series of plans, because plans never really go well with Chanyeol.

He does try to be straightforward. He asks Chanyeol point-blank to go out with him for dinner, or to the movies, or any number of things, but Chanyeol seems to view these interactions as a normal extension of their growing friendship. Baekhyun’s pretty sure he’ll choke before he says the word ‘date’ and Chanyeol definitely isn’t going to understand unless he’s completely and totally unsubtle about it, and that’s a terrible combination.

But on the other hand, all this extra time spent together is really nice. Chanyeol is sweet and charming and Baekhyun’s never had a boyfriend who treats him this nice – admittedly, Chanyeol is not his boyfriend, but if he were, he’d be the nicest boyfriend Baekhyun’s ever had.

He has a deadline, though, he has to manage it. After all, Jongin would do it all wrong – he doesn’t know how Kyungsoo puts up with him, he’s not romantic or sweet at all. Or maybe he is, but Baekhyun only sees his most obnoxious side, and he doesn’t want Jongin saying anything else to Chanyeol and probably ruining his chances completely.

And he thinks he’s due for some real good luck. Maybe their first meeting didn’t pan out properly, but now they’re friends, things are really starting to go well, and Baekhyun thinks he’s got a shot at really not messing up on asking him out.

He figures out how he’s going to do it exactly eighteen days after Jongin issues his challenge. They still have coffee together on Thursday mornings, so Baekhyun will ask him Thursday. He’ll wait until the end – they usually sit there for about two hours, and if things get awkward, he doesn’t want to have cut their time together short – and then ask him as honestly as he possibly can. He’s pretty sure he can call it a date without flinching or blushing but that’s the other part of waiting until the end, so he doesn’t accidentally spill coffee on himself in his agitation. It feels like a solid plan. Kyungsoo agrees that it seems like he’s thought it out well, and although Baekhyun is pretty sure Kyungsoo rolled his eyes as he said it, that doesn’t make the comment any less true.

Thursday morning in stressful, because although he always cares what he looks like around Chanyeol, today he cares more, so it takes an extra half hour to pick out the right outfit, and the walk to the coffee shop from his class ends with him ducking hurriedly into the bathroom to fix his hair, but he’s pretty sure the effect is still casual enough not to make him seem like he’s trying so hard.

When he comes back out of the bathroom – after gripping the edge of the sink so hard it made his fingers hurt, taking a deep breath and telling himself that this had to happen today, there was no more room for waiting – Chanyeol is already sitting in their customary corner of the shop. He doesn’t look up, just stares out the window, sipping his drink. Baekhyun takes another steadying breath and hitches his backpack a little higher on his shoulder, wishing he’d just given up on notes today so he didn’t have to carry it. He orders his drink, thinking Chanyeol will notice him like he usually does, but it’s not until he sits down across from him that Chanyeol seems to register that there are even other people in the café.

Baekhyun smiles and sets his bag down beside his chair, sipping his coffee, and Chanyeol grins and greets him in his usual happy tone, setting his own cup down on the little table between them, and Baekhyun smells it.

Chanyeol’s forgone his usual coffee for ginger tea, and before Baekhyun can even finish saying hello – he hesitated, though, frozen for a second in confusion, trying to remember why ginger tea associates poorly with Chanyeol’s smiling, bright face – Chanyeol’s launched excitedly into explaining that his friend from China is coming to visit, finally, and he’s so happy, and he can’t wait for Baekhyun to meet him, and would Baekhyun mind hanging out with them one day, because he told Kris all about him, and…

Baekhyun tries not to tune him out. ‘Kris’ brings up the admittedly vague memory of that picture from the university’s study abroad blog, the angry looking boy with the harsh eyebrows, the way his smile seemed a little off compared to Chanyeol’s obvious joy. ‘Kris’ never gets mentioned, Chanyeol’s avoided ever bringing up his time in China – and Baekhyun even once tried to ask him about it, but the taller boy just shrugged and said it was fun, and he looked so downtrodden that Baekhyun had to change the subject – but now he’s coming to visit, now he’s someone Baekhyun should meet. Baekhyun keeps returning mentally to Chanyeol telling Kris about him, wonders when that happened, if they talk often, and feels that grip around his heart again, tightening.

He puts on a smile because Chanyeol is smiling, and it barely feels fake. He nods and says of course he wants to meet Chanyeol’s friend, of course he doesn’t mind spending time with them, and Chanyeol’s smile only gets brighter.

By the time they leave the café, Baekhyun feels like he couldn’t have failed more utterly. He can’t bring himself to ask, and he’s not sure what’s stopping him.