“He hates me.”

Baekhyun had returned from the outhouse to find his roommate facedown in his bed, crying into his pillow.

“Dr. Jongin fired me.”

Baekhyun would have found the sight before him sad if he didn’t find it so pathetic, and honestly…

Kinda funny.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“*Snicker* N-no…”

“I hate you. You’re the worst.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“That doesn’t even make s-“

“So what did ya do this time, Channie?” Baekhyun took a seat on his own bead, which was separated from Chanyeol’s only by a nightstand at the heads.

Chanyeol was silent for a second but finally admitted, “I may have picked him up and hugged him.”

Baekhyun could not with this guy.

The curious grin flew from his face and he opened and closed his mouth several times as a thousand retorts came and went by his lips, also fleeing before they could actually be spoken.

Could.

Not.

Chanyeol heard shuffling on the other bed, and he looked up with red rimmed eyes to see that Baekhyun had gotten under his covers.

Baekhyun could feel eyes burning into the back of his head. “I’m done with today,” he explained. “‘Night.”

“I told you you’re the worst, right?”

Baekhyun flipped around so that he was facing Chanyeol. The younger put his face back in the pillow so that Baekhyun wouldn’t see.

“Now Mr. Park. Tell me: Why on the face of the ing planet did you hug Dr. Jongin.”

“…He asked me to make more food for tomorrow.”

“…”

“…?”

“You’ve got it hard for him, don’t you.”

“NO,” Chanyeol replied immediately, turning so he was now the one facing away from Baekhyun.

“Uh-huh. Then you’re crying because…?”

“I’m out of a job again… Getting fired … There are a thousand other reasons, so why does it have to be that I like him?”

“Because you do, stupid. You’re stupid in love, you’ve done all but verbally admit that you’re stupid in love, and until you admit it, there’s nothing I can do to help.”

Chanyeol turned back over.

“Help with what?”

Baekhyun brought his palm to his forehead. “Getting your job back. What, did you think I meant help you win the doctor over? There isn’t a soul alive who could help you with that. But I guess you can’t do much from the position of being fired, so you can think of it that way if you want.”

Chanyeol didn’t say anything in reply, instead turning back so he was face-down against the pillow, for one full revolution of his body.

“Come on Channiiie~”

Silence.

“You can do iiit~”

Nothing.

“Your ears are fire reeed-“

“Okay, OKAY!” He met eyes with Baekhyun. “I want you to help me get my job back!”

Baekhyun smiled cattily. “Why would you want that?”

“Because… I want my job back…”

“No.”

“I need the rent money.”

“No.”

“I hate looking at your -eating grin.”

“Wrong again, chief.”

Chanyeol puckered his lips and exhaled. “Because I have a thing for your boss, and-“

“A what for who now?”

Chanyeol groaned in exasperation. “I have a romantic interest in Dr. Jongin Kim and I want my job back so I can keep seeing him every day.”

“Good work, Baek!” a voice came from the armoire in the corner by the door. Chanyeol immediately shot up, glaring daggers into the wood.

“Out, Jongdae!”

“Aw, come on,” he protested, popping open the doors and unfurling himself as he stepped out, catty grin present as ever. “I’m all for Team JongYeol.”

“OUT!”

Baekhyun and Jongdae fell into laughter, through which the latter said his “goodnights” before leaving prior to Chanyeol killing either of them.

“Ahhh, okay,” Baekhyun said, finally calming down, “I’ll talk to him tomorrow. You probably just flustered him, and he really needs you now, anyway. You’ll be back on by lunch time.”

“I don’t know whether to say ‘ you’ or ‘thank you’ anymore,” Chanyeol admitted.

“You’re welcome.”

Baekhyun’s alarm woke them both as usual, but with Chanyeol being such a hard riser that Baekhyun had to physically shake him awake to have any hope of rousing him, the younger man was snoring again by the time Baekhyun had pulled on his clothes. He didn’t feel like messing around with an attempt at food or risking waking Chanyeol, so he spared the ten cents for one of the morning pastries the twins always had ready in the lobby. As he snacked on the danish and made his way along the street, he wondered how he would plead Chanyeol’s case to Jongin.

“My apologies sir; my roommate is an idiot.”

“I’m so sorry doctor, please forgive the miserable son of a .”

He eventually came up with a much more tactful apology that he figured would work, and when he arrived at his usual time of around half-past nine, he got to cleaning what appeared to be the forgotten tableware from the previous night’s dinner. 9:57 came and with it came Jongin, hair slightly swept from underneath his bowler hat by the cold winter wind outside.

“Good morning doctor,” Baekhyun greeted, setting Jongin’s freshly made cup of tea by him right as he sat down. He had the tea timing down to its own science at that point.

“Good morning,” Jongin replied, allowing his coat and hat to be taken. After taking a few sips of his tea and a glance around the lab, his ears finally registered that something was amiss.

“Where’s Mr. Park this morning?”

If only he had turned to see the look on Baekhyun’s face.

“He was supposed to come in with the reagents. I’ll be needing those soon into my experiment this morning.”

“Oh, uh,” Baekhyun said, thinking up the quickest lie he could muster, “He was feeling a bit under the weather this morning. I apologize, he asked me to bring the reagents this morning and I must have forgotten them on the way out. I’ll run home and fetch them and be back in a flash.”

“Please do,” Jongin approved, taking note of but not putting a second thought toward the murderous look in Baekhyun’s eyes.

Chanyeol was very surprised to hear the door to their room open so early into the morning. Baekhyun had only left for work less than an hour ago. Still, his heart pushed against his chest when he realized Baekhyun had probably come back with an answer.

“Call me the greatest roommate ever. Now.”

Baekhyun rushed into the room, happy to see that Chanyeol was already dressed in a button-down shirt and brown trousers. That would cut some time off of their trip.

Chanyeol noticed the bag from the pharmacy clutched in Baekhyun’s hands, and wasn’t sure where to start in the conversation.

“You have your job. Now come on.”

Chanyeol’s face slowly came to full brightness.

“YOU’RE THE GREATEST ROOMMATE EVER! Let’s go! No, wait,” he said, hurrying to the ice box and retrieving the food he’d prepared just in case, along with his coat and briefcase. “Okay, now let’s go!”

“So what did you say to him?” Chanyeol asked as they rapidly walked back toward the lab.

“Nothing. I think he forgot he fired you entirely. He was asking where you were,” Baekhyun panted.

“You got the reagents, I see?”

“Yeah.” The bag was into Chanyeol’s hands. “I read the list yesterday. Check to see if everything’s there.”

“You did it by the list?” Chanyeol asked, stopping immediately to look inside of the bag. His fear was confirmed when he read the label on the largest jar.

“We have to go back,” he said, realizing after taking two steps in the reverse direction that walking would be far too slow and that they needed to hail a taxi. One was fortunately rolling their way, pulled by two handsome brown & spotted horses. Chanyeol quickly told the driver the name of the pharmacy and that they would need to go to the university right after. “We decided last-minute that we were going to use agar rather than gelatin,” he explained to Baekhyun.

“Ah.”

When they arrived, Chanyeol quickly rushed in, nearly trampling someone else in the doorway, and rushed back out after exchanging the large jar of gelatin powder for a large jar of agar powder. The cab got them to the university quickly, but the cold wind harshly at their faces.

“45 cents,” the driver said for the final fare when he pulled around the loop that housed the entrance to the laboratory building.

Chanyeol reached into his pockets, realizing as he felt emptiness that he had left his wallet at home in the confusion. He gave one of his famous awkward smiles to Baekhyun, who glared at him before reaching into his own pockets for the coin to pay the driver.

“All I’m saying is that we weren’t exactly in a rush.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll pay you back.”

Jongin could hear the banter from his two noisy assistants halfway down the hall, and he turned to see two pink-faced boys with a bag of supplies and a bag of food. The latter one had a big, stupid grin on his face.

“Sorry I’m late, Dr. Jongin.”