If there was one positive thing I could say about Byun Baekhyun, it would be that he was not a quitter.

If asked the same question, other people might have mentioned his kindness. His gentleness. His sincerity when he talked to you, like you were the only person in the world who mattered to him in that moment. As I say ‘other people’, I mean ‘other girls’. Baekhyun’s looks and manners had gained him an informal but devoted fan club that was rapidly growing in number.

I noted his kindness, his gentleness, and his sincerity as did everyone else. But these traits were impossible to ignore. You were hit full force with his angelic nature when he simply looked at you. Maybe four years ago, I would have been smitten with Byun Baekhyun as well. Baekhyun reminded me in many ways of my piano teacher – Lay, the only person who had been able to make me blush without doing anything. Lay had been kind, gentle, and sincere. I had seen it in his face as much as I had heard it in his music.

But when all was said and done, Lay had left my life after relaying his heartfelt sympathies for my predicament. And in his actions lay the problem with his personality – kindness, gentleness and sincerity in combination encouraged passivity. Wait to offer condolences after the tragedy has already occurred. After someone’s father has died, after someone has lost everything, after someone has run out of money. Wait until it is too late to act. So you could be genuinely sorry for someone and agonize along with them – but in the end, this empathy was useless – at least in the practical sense and the practical sense was all that I really cared about at this stage in my life.

To give Baekhyun credit, however, he never quit. Although I had never gone back to the music room to play, I had stopped by in the early morning many times to hear his music. The original compositions that he meticulously perfected before the halls were filled with the sounds of shuffling feet. It was not uncommon for him to spend an hour reworking a single bar of his piece. He heard the bars before and after in his head and so, with his hands, he worked out the one fickle bar that refused to harmonize. I admired his drive and his unrelenting perfectionism.

Because of his perseverance, I chose to overlook his apparent passivity and conformity in most social situations. I saw that in areas he personally cared about, he was proactive. After knowing him a while, it didn’t bother me quite as much when he earnestly probed into the more dissatisfactory parts of my life. It still annoyed me, but it didn’t make me as angry as it used to because I knew he could be moved to action by certain causes.

As I got used to Baekhyun, I dismissed him as predictable. But then, he did something that made me re-evaluate my opinion of him.

It was the end of classes on the day before my rent was due. As usual, Baekhyun had quietly hovered by my desk and I had impatiently waited for him to spend a few seconds staring at the wood before moving along. It was, after all, the routine we’d abided by for the past few weeks. But then, to my surprise, he broke the pattern. He took a sheet of folded paper out of his backpack and placed it on my desk. I smoothed it out and saw that it was an advertisement for an opening at a convenience store.

“Hey,” Baekhyun said quietly. “I’ve kind of figured out that you’re looking for a job. I saw this on my way home yesterday and I thought of you. I think you’d have a really good shot at the job.”

I picked up the piece of paper and read it carefully. Reasonable hours, from four to ten on weekdays and eight to ten on weekends. Good pay – or at least enough to cover my rent if I worked every day. It figured – the store was in the wealthiest part of town. The job was a dream, but I knew better than to get my hopes up. I set the advertisement back down and in a measured tone, said, “I’m not sure I’m the best fit, but I’ll check it out.”

“Great,” Baekhyun said, visibly relieved. I could tell he’d been worried that I wouldn't accept his help, wouldn’t even consider the position. “It’s on my way home, so if you’d like, I can show you to it today.”

“That’d be really helpful. Thanks,” I said, and I meant it. I weighed the options in my mind; though the odds didn’t seem too strong in my favor, even a miniscule chance was still a chance. It was also important to consider that Baekhyun had gone to all this trouble. The least I could do was check it out and be grateful that he had actually acted on his sympathies. I wouldn’t accept pity, because it was useless, but I would be a fool to reject assistance out of pride. “Even if it doesn’t work out, I appreciate your efforts.”

We walked out together. The fact that Baekhyun was walking with me in public didn’t precipitate a wave of gossip as it might have if Baekhyun had been with any other girl. Everyone knew nothing of consequence would ever happen. Baekhyun was an heir. He was almost certainly going to enter a marriage agreement of financial gain. He probably already had a fiancée he’d never even met. I could tell Baekhyun was tense, self-consciously uncomfortable with the idle scrutiny. He didn’t flow through the mass of students waiting for their chauffeurs with the ease and obliviousness that Kai naturally possessed. Baekhyun stiffened his shoulders, stood a little straighter, walked a little faster.

Neither one of us talked. I was caught up in my back-up plans, fretting over what to do in case the convenience store didn't pan out. From his numerous failed attempts at starting conversation in the past few weeks, Baekhyun knew that I wanted quiet. He let me lose myself in the eddies and whorls of my racing mind. For the second time that day, I felt grateful to him.

The convenience store was actually on the very edge of the wealthy neighborhood. Two blocks before we reached it, there were dilapidated houses lining the streets and rusty chain-link fences that blocked off desolate patches of land destined for bigger and better things. For the time being, though, everything felt lifeless.

“I’m surprised you’re allowed to walk here,” I said, breaking the silence.

“My father doesn’t really care much,” Baekhyun said. He realized that his comment could be construed to mean that his father didn’t care about him in general. He hurriedly clarified his meaning. “He’s confident that I can take care of myself.”

“Oh.” I didn’t have anything else to say and was relieved when the plastic sign of the convenience store loomed over our heads, gimmicky and blindingly bright.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” Baekhyun asked.

“I think I’ll be fine,” I said with a slight smile. “Thank you for walking me here.”

He smiled back. “Tell me how it goes.”

I squared my shoulders and walked into the store. Straight into the chest of a man. Something metallic clattered onto the floor. A name tag. I bent down to pick it up. Apparently, I had just run into the manager of the store. Zhang Yixing. 

“I’m so sorry,” the man said, his voice coming from above. “Are you alright?”

It was a familiar voice.

I looked up into familiar eyes and immediately blushed. A response that had been hardwired into me from the time I was thirteen and dreaming.

“May? Is that you?”

The features that had faded in my memory quickly sprang back into sharp relief. High, elfin cheekbones. A naturally sorrowful look that I had always thought romantic. Elegant hands with long, sprightly fingers.

Lay.