Baekhyun drove me back to my apartment as the sun began to set, painting the sky in hues of red, pink and lavender. The streetlights were beginning to come on, illuminating the interior of the car from time to time as he sped down the highway. When the familiar apartment complex came into view, the sedan crawled to a stop, and Baekhyun shifted the gear into park. We threw the doors open and went round to the trunk to get my bags. The whole drive, he had been abnormally silent, which rose a red flag in my mind. Normally, he’d be talking my ear off, and me his, of course. But he drove in dead silence, keeping one hand on the wheel and the other over the arm rest. He stared straight ahead, and never once looked my way. The tunes playing over the radio were the only thing that saved me from death by awkwardness.  I watched him from the corner of my eyes, watching and hoping for some sort of response, but got none. A million and one different thoughts flooded my mind, all attempting to reason out the cause of his sudden change in behaviour.

After he closed the trunk of the car, I grabbed his arm, freezing his movements.

“Hey, if buying the dress is too much, I won’t force you. I can just get it myself,” I spoke, squeezing his arm. He raised his head to look at me dead in the eyes. I stared right back, trying to figure out what he was hiding behind those umber orbs of his.

“It’s not that, it’s just…it’s nothing,” he patted my hand, and moved his arm out of my grip. Baekhyun picked up the bags and proceeded towards the building. I scurried after him, still very much confused out of my mind. Was the Byun actually upset about the whole ‘date’ thing? Crap, I never should have brought that up. That probably made him feel weird. Stupid brain.

Two flight of stairs later, he stopped before my door and punched in the code to the apartment. He was the only one I trusted enough with my door code. Sure, that earned me a ton of unpleasant wake up calls, unexpected visits and unplanned parties, but that was Baekhyun and all his nine yards that I had come to tolerate all these years. I followed him into the living room, where he parked the bags on the coffee table. Hesitantly, I approached him once more. This awkward atmosphere was about to make me explode, or even drive me to do some ridiculous heart-to-heart talk that might’ve made me puke on a normal day.

“Baek, you okay? This lack of noise from you is making me feel weird. I swear, you don’t have to get me the dress, if that’s what this is about. Just say something anything, please?”

He did that stare-into-my-soul thing again, and this time I felt the urge to shrink backwards. Then suddenly, the corners of his lips turned upwards, and he doubled over laughing.

ABC may have to cast me on the remake of Lost, because that was exactly what I felt like in that moment.

“You should’ve seen your face! You were so worried, and you had that confused look the whole time and I- Oh my god, this is too funny!” He said in between gasps and laughter. I squinted my eyes at him, calculating the parts of the body that would hurt most when kicked. But I settled for a shove that pushed him to the floor, still holding on to his stomach while the guffaws escaped from his lips.

“What the was that! You were driving me insane with that mute act, you little piece of !”

I stood over him, hands perched on my hips. This brat. When his laughter began dissolving into the air, he slowly regained his footing and got up. With no help from me, of course. I wasn’t about to help the idiot.

“Okay, okay, that was just revenge for the lingerie thing. No more, I promise,” he raised his hands in surrender and smiled at me, his eyes smiling equally as bright. I glared at his hands before slapping them away, huffing as I grabbed the bags and stomped into my bedroom. The air was filled with tiny mutters of  “this er” and “stupid ” and the ever creative “Beakhyun ”. Baekhyun leaned on the doorframe of my room, watching as I took out my irritation on the poor, nicely folded clothes. He shook his head, the small smile etched on his lips never disappearing.

It took about twenty minutes, a shoulder massage and the offer to buy me coffee the whole week until I calmed down. I couldn’t say the same for Baekhyun, though. He eyed me nervously, watching my movements for any sign of possible revenge. I chuckled, and flashed him a smile, which probably threw him off even more. That’s right, Byun. Be afraid. No one messes with me and gets away. Being on the other end of my pranks multiple times should’ve taught him a lesson. Guess not.

(The image of Baekhyun in just his boxers running down the dorm halls a few years back still is one of my favourite memories).

He left when the rerun of Mean Girls ended, and I left him to let himself out while I crashed onto the soft comfort of my bed, quickly drifting into slumber after the long day.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

The phone on my side desk vibrated incessantly, slowly shifting from the middle of the area to the edge. Grudgingly I reached out for it, checking the caller ID, before sliding my finger across the screen.

“What do you want.”

“Good morning to you too, sleepyhead,” the annoyingly cheerful voice travelled through the speaker. I buried my face into the pillow, not bothering to respond.

“I just thought that if I didn’t call, you wouldn’t even remember that we’re going dress shopping later.”

I hummed into the speaker, too lethargic to articulate words. It was too damn early to talk. Baekhyun laughed on the other end of the line, and promised to be at my apartment at 4. I nodded, and hung up. If he had called at a decent time, let’s say at eleven, which was four hours later, I would’ve been awake enough to realise that he couldn’t have seen me nodding in agreement. I rolled out of bed and headed straight into the shower. Might as well grab breakfast in the neighbourhood while I was up this early.

The breeze blew against my face, and I wounded the scarf around my neck as tightly as I could. The gentle falling leaves decorated the path, creating specks of red and brown on the grey concrete. I was a familiar face at the quaint café down the street from my apartment complex, so when I got to the front counter, I didn’t need to ask for my order. Soon enough, I had a warm cup of coffee in my hands and was two blocks away from the local bookstore.

The old bookstore was my safe haven back in my college days, and the cold corner by the back of the store was where I hid myself whenever I had a major exam and needed a quiet space to study. The old man running the store was a friend of the family’s, so he and I had a polite-family-acquaintance kind of relationship.

(Plus, I never needed to pay for the books, so that probably explained why I frequented the place so much).

The smell of old, yellow, tattering books filled my senses, and I eased into the aisles, running my fingers across a thousand book spines.  Sometimes, it was nice to escape into this world. A world away from the bustling city life, the bellowing of the passing cars, and the eddying fumes that slowly killed Man from the inside.

My fingers hooked onto a spine and I pulled the paperback out from its place on the shelf. Turning it around, I let my eyes take in the words floating off the pages as my feet made its way to the back where I could read in complete and absolute—

Wait.

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