I had known Baekhyun for, more or less, 30 minutes – if you included our first encounter – and during those 30 minutes, I'd learned three things about him.

One. It took him and Sehun less than five minutes to become friends, and it really shouldn’t have surprised me, because those two shared the same annoyingly inappropriate sense of humor and a sharp tongue. And I couldn’t help but wonder if I would get a discount sending them together to some Residential Treatment Center for Troubled Teens (they would surely blend well with those sixteen years old boys thanks to their similar level of maturity) where they could learn some good manners and the common sense they’d obviously lost during puberty.

Two. He was painfully handsome. His eyelashes were long and, along with his pupils, dark like coal, contrasting with his flawless white skin. His messy blonde hair looked soft, encouraging you to touch it with every bounce, and the way his eyes formed small crescents whenever he smiled at one of Sehun’s lame jokes made him look like a doll, not a human. On top of that, there was a tiny mole above the right corner of his lips, making them even more tempting and inviting. Too bad his personality was like a rotten old potato.

Three. He was a sassy little ignorant with a tendency to overestimate his capabilities.

“You didn’t really think I’d let you make coffee straight away, did you?” I said with amusement, seeing Baekhyun standing near the big coffee machine we had behind the main counter with a cash register. He was ready to grab the ground handle and pour the grounded coffee beans inside, but paused immediately at hearing my voice.

“Why not?” His brows were raised in question, and I sighed, walking towards him. I decided to skip the speech about the average time people needed to learn how to steam the milk and not overheat it (it took me more than two weeks before I managed to make a small cappuccino worth serving), and chose instead to show him his lack of knowledge with a simple question.

“Do you know the difference between a café latte and a latte macchiato?”

“Their names?” he stated with a hint of boredom in his voice, calmly observing as I took the ground handle away from him. In the corner of my eye I saw him shrug, which made me want to hit him over the head with the handle instead of putting it back in its place. His matter-of-fact tone irked me, and I snorted with disbelief. This had to be a joke. I was supposed to teach him everything about coffee, but with this attitude I would be lucky if he could handle making a simple espresso.

I turned my whole body towards him, jabbing my thumb over my shoulder at the machine behind me. “I won’t let you touch this coffee machine till you’re capable of reciting what’s in an espresso affogato in the middle of the night without stuttering.”

He rolled his eyes, crossing arms over his chest. “Geez, it’s just coffee.”

“And having a heart transplant is just surgery,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “If you’re not going to take it seriously, you can leave right now.”

He gazed at me cautiously with a scowl on his face, making sure I was serious, and I clenched my jaw, narrowing my eyes at him to show him that I was indeed. After a minute of complete silence and an exchange of furious glares, Baekhyun put his hands on hips, blew air into his cheeks, and let it out slowly, making the strands of hair on his forehead jump slightly into the air. He didn’t say a word, but I knew I had won the battle and, remembering how he had crushed me during our first meeting, I couldn’t help but smile triumphantly.

It was time for him to learn humility.

“Come with me,” I said, gesturing with my hand for him to follow. Putting his hands into pockets, he did what he was told, and we both made our way to the kitchen. “I’m going to tell you how to make all the types of coffee we serve in our café.” I paused to look around. With my back to him, I stood on my toes, holding onto the edge of the wall cupboard full of magazines to find a piece of paper Baekhyun could use as a provisional jotter. “So listen to everything I say, write it down and come back tomorrow with the knowledge inside your head.”

Instead of a proper answer, I heard the high-pitched squeak of a hinge. I hurriedly turned my head in Baekhyun’s direction. “What are you doing?”

“Opening a window?” Baekhyun’s answer sounded more like a question. Not sparing me a single glance, he grabbed the knob tighter and, as he pulled it to himself a second time, a blow of a fresh, cold air rushed inside. He then turned to me and leaned against the windowsill, sliding both hands through his hair and shaking it out a little. I swallowed hard, seeing the messy bed- head look he had earned though one small move. Good God.

As he put his palms back flat on the kitchen counter, his eyes snapped back to mine and he spoke again, seeing my perplexed expression. “It’s damn hot in here.”

It was, but I was sure something else had caused the sudden wave of warmness spreading through my body.

I cleared my throat, regaining my composure and putting the indifferent look back onto my face. The temperature inside the kitchen had risen because of the oven and the cheese cake currently being baked by Jae. I was sure he had also turned up the heating in the whole café due to the sudden change of weather in order to make our costumers comfortable enough. I looked at the heater behind Baekhyun’s legs, and then at the open window. That was a waste of energy and money that I just couldn’t overlook.

“Then take off your blouse.” I tried to sound indifferent, but the ghost of a smile spreading across his lips told me how wrong I was to say it out loud.

He peered at me with his head tilted to the side in interest. “You really want to see me , don’t you?”

Damn you, Oh Sehun. I swear to God, these terrible jokes and ual remarks had to stop, or I would soon drown in a deep sea of awkwardness.

“Surely not in this life,” I said with a serious tone, ignoring the embarrassment rushing through my veins and gazing at him with an unpleasant look on my face. Crossing my arms across my chest, I pointed at the heater hanging on the wall behind him. “Can’t you see that it’s on? Close the window.”

He followed my gaze and looked down behind him. There was a short silence befo