Day 1

“You want to take me what?” Baekhyun asks, completely turning in the passenger seat, although the seatbelt is restricting him a bit.

I told him I was taking him on a date, but actually I was taking him to a Bed, Bath, and Beyond to do my gift registry for the wedding. Hyosung had a dentist appointment to remove her wisdom teeth and Jongin is up in San Francisco for the next two weeks for updated protocol training or something like that. I could have easily taken my sister with me, but it seemed like a better idea to torture Baekhyun with kitchen utensils and soap dispensers for a few hours.

“I need to do my wedding registry before the invitations arrive in everyone’s mailboxes,” I mention, as if it would actually take away from the fact that I was having Baekhyun help me prepare for my own wedding.

“You want me to help you scan future wedding gifts for you and Jongin? Seriously?”

“How serious are you about this? Is this too hard for you, Baekhyun? Because I can easily just call this whole thing off-”

“Fine, I’ll go,” he gives in and heavily leans back in his seat, but it wasn’t like he actually had a choice, him being locked in a moving vehicle and all. “But I’m not walking down any toy aisles with you if you’re planning to add something like that to the list…”

“What kind of home decor store has toys?”

“I don’t know. What does the ‘Beyond’ in Bed, Bath, and Beyond actually entail?” he says with a smirk and I manage to whack him in the head while keeping my eyes on the road.

***

“You’re here for your gift registry appointment, yes?” the tall guy at the customer service desk asks with absolutely no emotion in his voice.

Before I can reply, a short, chipper guy comes out of the back room with an overbearing smile on his face that turns his eyes into crescents. “Zitao, what did I tell you about service with a smile?” he says through his smile.

The tall guy, Zitao, rolls his eyes and sighs, and forces a fake smile on his face and glares at what must be his boss.

“Excuse him, he’s new to the job,” the shorter man says, eyes still hidden behind his crescent eyelids.

“I’ve been working here for six months…” the other mutters before disappearing to the back room.

“Err… Sorry about him. He just has some of those days sometimes…” he whispers. “But anyways, let me just pull up your file on the computer and get you started with your registry already,” he says, turning to the computer. The huge smile finally falls off his face and his eyes are finally visible and it turns out his face is actually decent looking when his smile isn’t scrunching up a majority of his face. “You’re the Kim’s right?” I nod my head at him and the smile is back on his face again. “You two look like a lovely couple,” he notes, while he waits for the printers to print out the documents.

“Oh no, we’re not-”
 

Baekhyun’s arm suddenly drapes over my shoulder and he lets out an obnoxious chortle. “Ah, yes, thank you. We’re both really ecstatic for the wedding.” I glare at Baekhyun and he squints his eyes at me, much like the man that was helping us at the moment.

“Awe, you two are really adorable,” he replies and I try not to scoff. “Well, here you go. Two scanners and instructions on how to use them. It’s simple really. Just scan the barcode of the item you want and bring it back here when you’re done. My name's Joonmyun if you need help later.” He smiles the same overbearing smile at us and I can’t walk away faster.

“Thanks Joonmyun,” I mutter as I shake out of Baekhyun’s arm and head to the other end of the store. When we're far away enough, I say to Baekhyun, “He’s nice, but I don’t think he knows how to not smile…”

“Yeah, but he has a lovely taste in couples,” Baekhyun teases and I roll my eyes and walk away from him down a kitchen appliances aisle.

I scan my eyes over the different appliances and stop when I find the one I was looking for. I scan the barcode and feel content with my very first item on the registry.

“Do you really need to be scanning that $300 stand mixer? Do you even bake?” Baekhyun asks, staring at a popcorn popper in awe. “This seems like a much better investment,” he notes, grabbing the tag and aiming the scanner at it. I slap his hand away before he can add it to the registry.

“You idiot, how often am I going to use a mini replica of a popcorn machine?” I scold, and try to hold in a girlish squeal when he pouts and rubs the part of his hand that I smacked. “And yes, I do bake. Very well actually. Cakes, cookies, pies, you name it, I can bake it,” I say walking toward the pots and pans section.

“Really? I didn’t know that…” he says, shoving a hand in his pocket, trying to hide the fact that he was barely realizing that he really didn’t know much about me at all—besides the fact that I’m amazing in bed.

“Yeah, well we’ve never really actually gotten to know each other. All I know is that you can be a really annoying sometimes,” I say scanning a fancy looking set of stainless steel pans.

“Well, I’ve learned you like really expensive kitchen items…” he says glancing at the $400 price tag.

“I like high quality things…” I mutter, not realizing I wasn’t even looking at price tags.

“Hm, must be why you like me,” he says leaning on the shelf in front of me with a grin. I would’ve melted right there and then, but he knocks over a bunch of boxes in the process and I can only crack up as I run away from the scene. “Hey, wait up!”

It takes him a few minutes, but he finally catches up with me in the plate section.

“That Zitao kid really knows how to glare at people… I thought he was going to kill me when I tried to walk away from the mess…”

“An employee made you clean up a mess when that's their own job?” I chuckle and his ears grow red. “Man up, Baek,” I joke.

He composes himself and brings his mouth close to my ear. “You already know how much of a man I can be,” he whispers seductively and I feel my face grow warm. He smirks at the reaction.

I try to ignore his statement and change the subject. “I don’t know what plates to get…” I say glancing over the rows of plates displayed on the shelves. “I’m thinking these square ones, but then I don’t know what color…”

“Square plates? Really?” He walks down the aisle to look at different ones and stops when some catch his eye. “What about these? They’re unbreakable. You’re gonna need them when you get in the many fights you two will have.”

I roll my eyes at him and scan a set of square plates anyways. “You’re not gonna win this battle by putting down the competition, Baek. That’s cheating,” I say and he shuts his mouth with a sigh.

His obedience surprises me and I can’t help but feel touched by how much he really wants to prove this to me. Of course I didn’t need to go through this whole month to figure out my true feelings for him. I already knew.

Why I agreed to this whole thing, I don’t know.  As much as I already knew that I love Baekhyun, I knew I couldn’t be with him.

And I hope he realizes it too.

It’s selfish of me and I know that. I can’t keep having this idea that I can have both. And the longer I extend this just leaves more hurt waiting at the end of all of this.

This whole thing is only going to end up hurting Baekhyun more, hurting Jongin more, and inevitably, hurting me more.

But for some reason, I can’t stop. 

Woooo double update~ Finally throwing in some fun scenes... lol 

And if you're confused by what a wedding registry is, it's just a wishlist of gifts for the couple to be so that guests can purchase specifics and it also ensures that there are no duplicate gifts ^^