EACH STEP MATTERS

 

 

“Baekhyun-ah,” Lu Han called the moment Baekhyun entered the room. “I want to ask you something. It’s highly important.”

 

The boy with thick eyeliners around his eyes was just barely taking off his jacket when he hummed back a simple “Hmm?” but then he suddenly wrinkled his nose in disgust and barked, “, Lu Han, did you just have in here? God, it reeks!”

 

Lu Han had the decency to look apologetic enough. “Yeah, about that, Baekhyun-ah. I may or may not have an unplanned, cheap and small in this room that ended about,” he stopped to check his digital clock on the small table beside his bed, “approximately twenty-seven minutes ago.”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“Yep. And it’s Lu Han-Hyung to you.”

 

Baekhyun snorted.

 

“Yah!”

 

“I hope you’re not fully under that smelly blanket of yours, Hyung,” the other boy commented, pointing his head at the way Lu Han was laying on his bed with his bedcover covering his lower half. His upper body was completely unclothed.

 

“Would you want to take a look?” Lu Han teasingly asked, even winking seductively at him.

 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Baekhyun asked, scowling at him. “And how the could you have an in the middle of the day like this, not to mention in our campus’ dormitory?”

 

“Baekhyun, Baekhyun, oh my sweet innocent, Baekhyun.” Lu Han shook his head, tilting his chin arrogantly. “A man has to be as slick as a snake, young man. Always have the plan and the most efficient way to have fun in every occasion.”

 

Baekhyun gave him a judging look. “Are you stoned?”

 

“No,” he slurred, grinning at him with half-lidded eyes. “But I’ve drunk enough amount of alcohol to forget about our next conversation by tomorrow, so if you want to take advantage me, Mr. Byun. Please do it gently. I’ve never been with a man before—”

 

Baekhyun didn’t stay for the rest of his words, and instead, he went to the bathroom and slammed the door impolitely.

 

Lu Han laughed and snuggled comfortably to one of his pillows.

 

A few minutes later, Baekhyun came out with wet bangs and his eyeliner was already washed away. Lu Han whistled wolfishly at the sight of his bare face and commented, “I’d still bang you even without eyeliners, Baek-ah. Still look hot~”

 

“Shut up,” the other boy simply said, before he turned around, giving Lu Han a clear vision of his back, and took his clothes off.

 

“Oh my, Byun Baekhyun!” Lu Han threw a girly gasp. “You’re so lewd. Don’t undress yourself in front of a lady like this! I am reserving my ity.” He actually started screaming like a girl. “No, stop! Don’t force me! Kyaaa~”

 

Baekhyun shifted his feet until he was being face-to-face with his Hyung. He only had this bored, unimpressed look on his face. “Okay, please, do you really have to act like that every time I undress myself in front of you?”

 

“Would you prefer if I moan your name instead?”

 

“I am seriously scared of you.”

 

Lu Han winked before he closed his eyes, threw his head back and slammed his hands to the headboard as he arched his back. “OH YES!” He moaned in his girly voice, loud enough for the whole dorm to hear. “OH GOD! BAEKHYUN, ME HARDER! THERE! ME THERE IN MY TIGHT—” The rest of his was muffled when Baekhyun stuffed a pillow to his face. If Lu Han hadn’t struggled and kicked him away, Baekhyun would’ve choked him to death.

 

“That’s it,” Baekhyun grumbled when he moved away, “I’m sharing room with Chanyeol tomorrow.”

 

“And make Baozi stay with me?” Lu Han said. “Please. He’s gonna kill me.”

 

Baekhyun smiled. “And the world shall be peaceful once again.”

 

“You’re an .”

 

“You’re Chinese.”

 

“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with being Chinese!”

 

“Of course,” Baekhyun waved him off, “But being a Chinese is.”

 

Lu Han narrowed his eyes at him. “Hell is filled with people like you, Byun Baekhyun.”

 

“And I suppose heaven is filled with people like you?”

 

“Oh no, definitely not. I’m ing unique.”

 

Baekhyun looked at him and let out a long exhale. “Your mother must be so proud of you.”

 

Lu Han laughed, throwing an empty beer can to the other boy. “Holy , Baek, you already sound like my sweet, little dongsaeng. Tell me, tell me, how many positions have you done with her?”

 

Baekhyun looked completely flustered when he turned around and he immediately cleared his throat to hide his embarrassment. “No way in hell I’m telling you that, you ert!”

 

“Geez, okay,” Lu Han booed, “Maybe you’re too embarrassed to tell me stuff because you’ve only been doing it missionary.”

 

“.” Baekhyun threw his dirty clothes right on Lu Han’s face, as he yelled, “And weren’t you going to ask me something ‘highly important’?”

 

“Oh, right!” Lu Han effortlessly ducked the half-assed blow. “How do you tell your friend—who is a guy, by the way—that he’s not gay for you?”

 

Baekhyun stared blankly for a while. “Come again?”

 

“Ah, you’re not suited for this kind of question. Nevermind, I’ll probably just tell one of my dates to sleep with him so he’ll know he still prefer s over .” Lu Han waved him off. “I have another thing I want to ask, though. It’s about .”

 

Baekhyun sighed. “Isn’t it always?”

 

“Shut up and listen,” Lu Han scolded at Baekhyun’s snarky acts. “So yesterday, I slept with this girl.”

 

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow suspiciously, as if he was asking Lu Han to correct his words and be more detailed. “Just a random girl?”

 

“Yeah, okay, fine, I slept with our English’s teacher, happy?” Lu Han rolled his eyes as Baekhyun nodded his head satisfyingly. “And okay, we had in her room—she brought me back to her place, and do you know she lives in this ing huge apartment? Holy , the place was awesome! It was like—”

 

“Lu Han,” Baekhyun cut him off. “The point?”

 

“Oh yeah, right. And it’s Lu Han-Hyung to you!” He threw a pillow at him before he continued. “So yeah, we were making-out and touching each other and I was already so hard to the point that it was actually painful.”

 

Baekhyun grimaced.

 

“So then, I decided to rush it—just going straight to the main course. At the beginning, I was really enjoying the moment, you know? Like, we were ing and everything was beautiful. I felt like I was seeing unicorns and rainbows—”

 

“Yeah, I’m going to take a nap,” Baekhyun said, already pulling on his bedcover and wrapped it around his body.

 

“But then, everything suddenly went wrong,” Lu Han said; his voice was suddenly filled with horror.

 

“Did she turn out to be a psychopath and almost tried to eat you alive?” Baekhyun guessed. His voice already sounded sleepy. “Because if she did, she sounds great. I think you should marry her.”

 

“Oh, she wanted to eat me, all right?” Lu Han said, chuckling creepily. “And by ‘eat’, I meant ‘ my ’.”

 

Baekhyun didn’t even bother to reply.

 

“No, actually,” Lu Han continued nonetheless, “It was worse. I saw her face and it turned me off.”

 

Baekhyun opened his eyes again and looked a bit interested then. “But why? Our English teacher is hot.”

 

“I know, right?”

 

“Like, really hot.”

 

Lu Han nodded proudly. “Yep, yep.”

 

“She looks a little bit like Lee Hyori, if you ask me.”

 

“Damn right, she is. And I get to be in her pants! HA! You jealous, eyeliner boy?” Lu Han grinned boyishly.

 

The other boy just rolled his eyes at him. “Don’t you dare bring my eyeliner into this. It’s more important than your whole goddamn existence in this world.”

 

“You and your sassiness.” Lu Han chuckled. “Sometimes I want to take you away and put you in my pocket. You’re so cute!”

 

Baekhyun yawned. “That actually sounds like a great idea. That’ll make my work so much easier.”

 

Lu Han frowned. “What work?”

 

“Cutting your .”

 

The Chinese boy snorted loudly, trying to hold himself from laughing. “Ah, Byun Baekhyun. Always so eager for my ~” Lu Han threw him a seductive look.

 

“THAT’S NOT WHAT I—”

 

“Yes, yes, now back to the point here,” Lu Han casually said and even ignored the fact that Baekhyun was almost literally growling at him. “See, Baek, when I saw her face yesterday during , everything felt wrong and suddenly I wasn’t in the mood anymore.”

 

Baekhyun was really wishing that God would be nice for him just this once, and somehow magically send Lu Han to another dimension so he could just take his sleep. But being such a good friend he was, Baekhyun asked, “So what, you took off?”

 

Lu Han scoffed loudly. “As if I would leave the chance of banging Lee Hyori look-alike just like that.”

 

Baekhyun sighed and snuggled up to his pillow. “Then what happened?”

 

“I did the worst thing ever, Baek. Oh Father, forgive me for I have sinned,” Lu Han dramatically acted like a murderer—or perhaps, the word ‘’ was more suitable with his case—who begged for forgiveness in a Church. “I imagined her as someone else.”

 

“Hmm?” Baekhyun opened his half-sleepy eyes. “Who?”

 

“That, umm…” Lu Han actually blushed and Baekhyun had to blink a couple of times to make sure that he was actually blushing. “That Algebra Girl I often talked about.”

 

“Okay, first of all, dude?” Baekhyun sat up on his bed, suddenly putting on a serious face. “The thing you did to her was mean, but not really. You wanna know what’s mean? Telling me that your precious little dongsaeng likes to be choked during .”

 

Lu Han blinked. “She doesn’t?”

 

“She hates it, you dumb ! She kicked me out of the bed in the middle of !” Baekhyun didn’t just throw a pillow this time. He even threw his own dirty boxer to Lu Han’s face and the older boy almost wanted wash his face with dirt just to get rid of the touch of that goddamn fabric.

 

“Okay, well, sorry,” Lu Han said, shrugging nonchalantly. “She really looked like she’d enjoy it, though!”

 

Baekhyun glared viciously at him before he continued, “And second of all, Minseok-Hyung is going to kill you if he knows about this.”

 

“About what? How you tried to choke your own girlfriend during ?” Lu Han asked. “I think he’s going to kill you instead of me.”

 

“NO—” Baekhyun went flaming red, almost wanting to bang Lu Han’s head against the wall. Lu Han was cackling hard when he saw the look on his face. Baekhyun inhaled deeply. “No, Hyung,” he said slowly, gritting his teeth. “About you imagining her during with someone else. That Algebra Girl you’ve been talking about is his favorite junior, isn’t she?”

 

Lu Han wiggled one finger in the air. “Baozi doesn’t have to know a thing, my sweet Baekkie—”

 

“And why the hell would you imagine someone like her when you were practically banging Lee Hyori?” Baekhyun shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you sometimes.”

 

“I don’t know too, all right?” Lu Han threw his hands in the air out of exasperation. “She just suddenly popped out in my mind and I… Well, I got hard again.” There was another light shade of red smearing his cheeks.

 

Baekhyun rubbed his face with his palm. “Oh, Jesus.”

 

“And who cares whether I was thinking about her or not, right? In the end, I was sleeping with Lee Hyori’s twin.”

 

“Hmm…” Baekhyun threw himself back to the bed and stared at the ceiling. “There’s one thing I want to ask, Lu Han.”

 

“Lu Han-Hyung.”

 

“Whatever,” Baekhyun spat back. “Do you feel guilty about it?”

 

“About what? Having with someone while picturing someone else in my mind? Hmm…” Lu Han thought about it for a second. “No, not really. But there’s this… weird feeling in my chest that I can’t really explain. Like, yes, maybe I do feel guilty about it for a bit, but my guilt isn’t directed to the one I slept with, but rather, to the one I’ve been thinking inside my head. I feel like I want to run out of my room and tell her something like: ‘hey, I’m sorry for picturing you and sweaty under me when I ed our English teacher the other day.’”

 

“Do it, Hyung,” Baekhyun encouraged him. “I want to see you get your balls cut off.”

 

“Honestly, Baek, why do you always seem to be so fascinated with my ?”

 

Baekhyun gaped unattractively. “OH, YOU!”

 

Lu Han puckered his lips and sent him a flying kiss. “Only if you let me handcuff you to the bed, Baoxian~”

 

“LU HAN I SWEAR—”

 

“And I love you too, Byun Baekhyun,” Lu Han said, puckering his lips and sent him a flying kiss.

 

Baekhyun turned to his side, facing the wall and muttering, “Just go yourself.”

 

The older one only chuckled in response. “Lend me your fingers and I’m all set.”

 

Baekhyun bit the end of his pillow to stop him from screaming in frustration.

 

“But seriously, Baekhyun-ah,” Lu Han huffed to the empty air. “Why did her face suddenly come into my mind like that? And moreover, I got off from thinking about her. This is just weird.”

 

Baekhyun didn’t respond at first, but then he muttered, “Hey, wanna know what I’m thinking?”

 

“No, not really—”

 

“I think you love her. That one you call your Algebra Girl? Yeah, I think you’re in love with her.”

 

Lu Han’s breath caught in his throat. He was surprised not because of Baekhyun’s sudden random guess, but because of how true it felt at that moment. Lu Han immediately tried to shake it off his chest. “I’m drunk, but I’m not that drunk to actually buy that you just told me. Very funny, though, Baekhyun-ah.”

 

“Let’s see who’s gonna laugh at the end, Hyung,” Baekhyun said, throwing him a knowing smirk before he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

 

Lu Han spent the rest of his night counting the cracks on his ceiling.

 

***

 

“Thanks for the hard work,” Kris comments as Lu Han packs his belongings back to his suitcase. “I’m amazed with what you did with the case today. I honestly have the feeling we’re going to win this easily.”

 

“Just doing my job, Mr. Wu,” Lu Han responses, smiling smugly. “I haven’t even done my best yet.”

 

“Well then,” Kris stands up from his seat and raises his hand to shake’s Lu Han’s. “I expect more great things to come. Can you stay for a while? We can have dinner together and talk more about—”

 

“Hey, hey, hey! Where’s my praise~?” Yixing joins in, giving Kris a judging look for not giving him a congratulatory handshake and a dinner invitation. “You’re not treating your co-workers fair, Kevin. I am not pleased with this.”

 

“Yixing,” Kris calls, after he just heaves a loud sigh. He does not like it when people interrupt his words. Lu Han slightly laughs at the sudden fatigued look he displayed on his face, because Kris was just fine talking to him a couple of seconds ago. “I’ve had enough of you calling me that.”

 

“What, Kevin?”

 

“Stop.”

 

“But why?” Yixing banters, smiling teasingly. “I mean, that is your name, right? One of many. Like seriously, does anybody even know what your real name is? Kevin, Wu Fan, Lee Jia Heng—”

 

“I’m out of this,” Lu Han says, raising his hands in the air as if he’s surrendering before he takes his bag in his hand and takes hasty steps to leave the room. “I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that dinner, Kris. And—oh, right! I found this nice apartment downtown and I’m thinking of moving there instead of staying in that huge- hotel you told me to stay.”

 

“Huge- hotel?” Yixing furrows his eyebrows before he shoots Kris another glare. “Kevin, you gave him a huge- hotel to stay but you told me to look for my own place? I am very insulted!”

 

Kris exhales exasperatedly while he rubs his forehead. “What’s wrong, Lu Han… Hyung? Did you not enjoy the suite room I gave you?”

 

“Are you ing ignoring me—” Yixing stops and gasps when he recalls Kris’ words. “Suite room?! What the —”

 

“Yixing,” Lu Han flatly says, fingers already one step away from pressing the upload the video option. “Not now.”

 

Zhang Yixing immediately cowers in his seat.

 

“I seriously need to get that video,” Kris mumbles, more like to himself.

 

“Your hotel is lovely, Kris,” Lu Han explains his reasons, “But I prefer to not indulge myself with your money. I know you’re rich, but please, can’t you spend your money someplace else? Like, if you really have that much money, you can just spend some and make a donation or something. You can buy Yixing a cake, and that would still be a better option than you booking a suite room for me.”

 

“A cake would be nice,” Yixing mumbles out.

 

Kris palms his face.

 

“See?” Lu Han gestures his hand to Yixing. “Besides, no offense here, but I’m not comfortable hearing Beethoven’s songs in my toilet. I prefer to take a dump in silence, thank you very much.”

 

Yixing seems very jealous and curious about the suite room and all its glory. “Damn it, Kevin! I want my own suite room too!”

 

“Not if you keep calling me Kevin,” Kris states coldly before he focuses back to Lu Han. “And you’re moving to your apartment tomorrow?”

 

“That’s the plan,” Lu Han replies, “I don’t have much stuff anyway, so I can just leave anytime. Look, I gotta go. Text me later for our next schedule, okay, Ben Ben?”

 

“BEN BEN!” Yixing laughs as he points his finger to Kris’ face. “Ha ha, I always forget about that stupid name of yours. Honestly, Ben Ben is the best name ever. I think—”

 

Kris presses an emergency button on his phone before he places it beside his ear. “Security—”

 

“I’M SORRY, MR. WU!”

 

***

 

When Lu Han appears on the front door of the familiar pastry shop right at seven p.m—said his watch, the last time he checked—he doesn’t stop to ask permission or even greet Cara’s sister and the two other staffs before he goes his way to the kitchen. He just goes straight to where he thinks Cara is currently in. Maybe it’s a bit impolite, yes Lu Han knows that, but Cara’s sister always looks so busy handling her customers, so Lu Han doesn’t want to bother her by asking for her permission first. Besides, she was the one who said it, right?

 

If you have the chance to change her back, then I’ll take what I can get, even if it means having you by my shop every day, that’s what Lu Han remembers.

 

“Cara!” Lu Han calls excitedly, making the said girl jolts on her feet. She almost drops a bowl of dough to the ground but she manages to catch it on time. She finds herself kneeling on the floor when she cradles the bowl back in her arms.

 

“Oh —” Lu Han stops himself and he has two hands in the air as if he’s ready to catch her if she falls, although he’s still being a few meters away from her. “A-are you all right?”

 

Cara scrambles back to her feet and nods shyly when she locks her hazel eyes with his. Lu Han places a palm on his chest as he breathes in relief. “Thank God.”

 

The two of them just exchange secret glances to each other before eventually, Lu Han clears his throat awkwardly. “I was, uhh…” He rubs the back of his head, face a bit flushed. “I was being too excited earlier, so I kind of… screamed your name.” He bends his head down, making a ninety-degree bow. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“Why?” she asks.

 

Lu Han doesn’t expect her to respond, so when she does, Lu Han almost literally jumps in joy.  “Why was I excited or why am I sorry?” he asks, and he feels the tip of his ears turning red because Lu Han can actually hear the contentment in his own voice.

 

Her voice still sounds small and delicate when she replies, “The first one.”

 

Lu Han can’t get over how glad he is for actually having a proper conversation with her. “Well, I…” He can’t stop himself from chuckling in glee—and he suddenly gets reminded with the way Sehun reacts to his girl. Maybe he gives off the same vibe whenever he talks to Cara. “I’m just happy to see you—” And Lu Han tries to correct his line to sound less cheesy. “I-I mean, I just got back from work, and I’ve been waiting to see you all day so now that I can finally see you, I just—oh God,” Lu Han groans as he turns on his heels, showing Cara his backside only. “I’m sorry for sounding this lame. It’s just—you know what, I’m gonna stop talking. Sorry.”

 

It’s probably his imagination when he hears her saying no, so Lu Han slowly turns around again and asks, “What?”

 

And there’s a blush on her cheeks—Lu Han dares to swear it on his life. Cara is actually blushing when she answers almost in a whisper, “Don’t stop talking. I…” She looks nervous as she brings her eyes to her feet. “I like hearing you talk.”

 

And Lu Han just simply falls in love with her again.

 

“Oh my God,” Lu Han mumbles under his breath as he turns himself around and face the door instead of her once again. He can feel his cheekbones starting to hurt.

 

Stop smiling, Lu, you’ll creep her out.

 

But he can’t. He just can’t. He’s so happy to the point he actually feels like he’s dizzy and floating on his feet.

 

It’s after he takes many, many deep breaths to calm himself that he’s able to look at her in the face again. “So,” he says, voice light and cheery. “What do you want me to do today?”

 

She looks a bit surprised with the question. Maybe she was expecting him to just tell her another story; she didn’t think that he’d ask her personal preference about his action. So now she’s just speechless and starts to panic when the room is followed by a pregnant silence.

 

“You—” she suddenly says, startling Lu Han in the process but not in a bad way. “You dyed your hair!” She immediately covers after that, looking absolutely flustered.

 

Lu Han’s first reaction is to laugh but he tries to hide it, although when she blushes even more, he kind of just can’t handle it anymore.

 

“I—I’m sorry if—” Cara stutters, her hands moving panicky in the air. “I’m sorry for suddenly saying things like that and—”

 

“It’s fine, relax,” Lu Han waves her off, trying hard to reduce his laughter into a simple smile. “I’m just surprised that you suddenly said it out of nowhere like that. What’s gotten into you?”

 

She doesn’t answer, only busying herself with a bowl of dough she’s cradling in her arms, but Lu Han knows what she might be thinking at the moment. Something alongside the line I was just trying to make a conversation.

 

Lu Han smiles to himself, feeling his cheeks starting to heat at her cute effort.

 

“Yeah, I dyed my hair brown this time,” Lu Han said, checking a strand of his hair, “Almost black, really. Apparently people don’t take me seriously when I’m trying to win a case at court while sporting my electric pink hair. Besides,” Lu Han leans his back casually to the wall and folds his arms neatly on his chest as he stares at her. “I’ve already achieved my goal, so I don’t need my pink hair anymore.”

 

Cara looks up, showing her curiosity through her furrowed eyebrows as she watches him. “What…” She clears to make her voice stand more vividly. “What goal?”

 

“You, remembering me,” Lu Han says, even dares to add a wink at the end. “Am I right?”

 

Cara looks away after she sees the mischievous wink and quietly comments, “You haven’t changed at all.”

 

 “Would you like me to change?” Lu Han asks, grabbing a stool and sits on it, carefully sets a safe distance between them so he won’t scare her away. “I can change to be whatever you want. If you want me to be all dark and mysterious, I can be that too.” He puts on an act, setting the pitch of his voice a couple octaves lower and stares at her with dramatic, dark eyes. “I am Batman.”

 

Lu Han sees how she tries to bite her lip—to keep her from smiling, perhaps. The man sends her a playful grin and says, “It’s okay if you want to smile, you know.”

 

“Maybe you should just stick to telling stories,” she responds instead.

 

“Okay, okay. I’m not cut out to be a superhero anyway. My hair’s too fabulous.” Lu Han softly laughs when she unconsciously wrinkles her nose at his sentences. “What kind of story do you want to hear?”

 

“Anything’s fine,” she says, and Lu Han feels enormously happy once again when he realizes that Cara is personally requesting him to tell a story. This is the first time Lu Han feels like he actually means something to her—even if it’s just as a simple storyteller.

 

“Okay, so,” Lu Han starts, “This is inspired by a true story, and it’s actually pretty dumb and ridiculous, so don’t take it seriously, okay?”

 

She nods as she sprinkles more sugar into the dough.

 

“Okay,” Lu Han starts with a big appreciative smile on his face, “So once upon a time, there’s this guy named Ben Ben.” And is that a smile she’s trying to hide? Lu Han can never know, but he just thinks of it like that. “Ben Ben was smart, good looking, and his eyebrows were just as thick as the money in his pocket—which is saying a lot actually. His prankster friend, Xing Xing, once referred to him as the angry bird, because Ben Ben always looked mad—he constantly had this annoying face on, forgive my choice of words—and he also had very thick, angry eyebrows. So yeah, Ben Ben was The Angry Bird. Following me so far?”

 

Cara nods again, and she has a hand covering . By the sight of her eyes, Lu Han notices her smiling behind her palm. Even when it’s probably not true, that still gives him more passion to retell a part of his memories.

 

“Xing Xing and Ben Ben were best friends since they were kids,” Lu Han continues. “Ben Ben wanted to be a rapper, and Xing Xing wanted to be a singer. They often composed songs together, which caused them to fight a lot too because Ben Ben always wanted to rap in Xing Xing’s songs even when he wrote ballad ones. They were hopeless, really, these brats.” Lu Han even makes an impersonation of the two boys in his story. “Like, one day, Xing Xing wanted to do a cover of Aerosmith’s I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing. And the song is like, a slow-tempo ballad, right? So Xing Xing was all ready and prepared, with an acoustic guitar on his hands. Then he started singing; beautiful voice flowing with the soft tunes of the guitar. But then Ben Ben just swooped right in, rapping like this—” Lu Han stops himself from speaking to stand up and grabs a big wooden spoon that’s lying idly on the table beside him. He pretends it as a microphone and Lu Han holds it like a professional rapper, imitating Kris’ pose that he used to do in middle school as he poorly raps. “Ayo, girl, I don’t wanna, uh, I don’t wanna, yeah, I don’t wanna miss a thing yow!”

 

Cara smiles properly this time, not hiding it anymore. And Lu Han just finds himself staring intently. His eyes are entranced with the way her lips curled upwards on each corner, and even though he knows he keeps complimenting how beautiful she looks inside his mind, he still can’t stop himself from saying it over and over again. And this time, he says it out loud. “You’re beautiful.”

 

And Cara stops moving, staring back at him with shocked filled eyes. Her smile falters right away, and Lu Han just needs to learn how to keep his mouth shut.

 

“A-anyway,” Lu Han clears his throat, sitting back on the stool. “Ben Ben and Xing Xing went to high school together. Ben Ben joined the basketball team—he was the captain. And Xing Xing was like a hippie singer, really, but he was so good at dancing. The way he moved was unbelievable. It wasn’t long for both of them to be popular with girls in their school.”

 

The awkward tension is still there, but Lu Han tries to deny it.

 

“Eventually, Xing Xing got himself a girlfriend. She was very pretty, and he liked her a lot. Xing Xing felt very happy, but that feeling got crushed down when Ben Ben fell in love with her too. The three of them used to hang around together, so it wasn’t really a surprised when Xing Xing knew he loved her too. Maybe he didn’t seem like it, but Xing Xing cared about Ben Ben a lot, to the point he actually broke up with the girl so he could give him the chance to be with her. Ben Ben was oblivious with Xing Xing’s act and good intention, so he took the bait. Ben Ben dated her a month later, and although Xing Xing was still reluctant about it—about letting her away just like that—he felt satisfied and happy because when he saw the look on Ben Ben’s face, he knew that he loved her even much more than he did. Things got pretty crappy when Ben Ben suddenly moved away to Canada because his parents wanted him to study there so he could inherit their business. Did I mention Ben Ben was a one rich son of a ? Forgive my words again.”

 

Cara nods as she starts kneading the dough. Lu Han longs to see her smile once again, but apparently a man can’t hope for too much of a good thing.

 

“So Xing Xing got super pissed about it,” Lu Han resumes, “He went to Ben Ben’s mansion before he took his leave and confronted the guy. Xing Xing told him that it was stupid of him to leave his girl just because he had to take a scholarship abroad, and Ben Ben tried to defend himself, saying that he didn’t have any other choice. He couldn’t go against his parents’ order. They fought a lot over that… and… The end.” He finished his story lamely. He didn’t want it to end like this, but the tension around the room was so thick and heavy that he couldn’t continue his story easily anymore.

 

When Cara doesn’t give out any reaction, looking awkward and tense, Lu Han felt that it was his cue to leave. “I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable with my… sudden comment about your looks,” Lu Han uneasily says, standing up from his seat and took back his coat and workbag. “Maybe I should just go for now?” Cara doesn’t answer and Lu Han closes his eyes, trying to wash the rejected feeling okay. “Well, then… Good night, Cara.”

 

He almost doesn’t catch it when she calls, “Wait,” but thankfully he does.

 

Lu Han turns around to see her once again, asking, “Yes?”

 

“Umm…” Cara nibbles on her lower lip and she looks like she’s lost deep in her thoughts, before she grabs a pastry box and carefully places three cute and deliciously looking cupcakes inside it. She wraps the white pastry box with a red ribbon before she gently puts it on the edge of the kitchen’s table. She makes a gesture with her hands for Lu Han to take it as she backs away to the end of the room, still trying to maintain the distance between them.

 

Lu Han knots his eyebrows together as he takes one look at the box before he stares at her again. “Is that for me?”

 

She hastily nods. “Y-you said you wanted to try.”

 

“I’ve never tasted anything you guys sell over here. Maybe I should buy one of those cupcakes on my way out.”

 

“You…” Lu Han breathes out, lips parting slightly with his eyes looking dazedly at her. “You remember.”

 

She opens to say something but then immediately looks away. Lu Han doesn’t miss the chance to catch the blush on her face before she turns her body around.

 

“Good night, Lu Han.”

 

The said man smiles, heart thundering against his ribcages and head filled with the thoughts of her. “Good night, Cara.”

 

***

 

Hello, lovely readers! I updated faster this time, hehehee I hope you like this chapter too. Okay, I know how you all want Baekhyun and his girlfriend to appear in this story, and they will, I promise! But not so soon, okay? Please be patient. Those sassy es will find their way to get here soon hehehe :D

But I do feel somewhat sorry for not being able to give you what you want, so yes, I decided to post this sooner than I intended to make it up. Yes, I know, this doesn't mean much. You can think of it as a filler. Honestly? I just wanted to post something with Baek in it hahahaha I miss him just as much as you all do

Even though I don't have the time to reply to your comments one by one, please still leave some for me. I write this story for you guys so I need some feedbacks from you all. Thanks so much for reading this story! I'll see you guys on the next chapter! Annyeong~~ <333