► UPDATE! lol When I wrote this I faced my first bump on this fic lolwat getting stuck and rewritting this (at least the first part) one too many times. It's so hard when you have full idea of what is going to happen but stuck on how to put it in words. Whai~?! But anyway~ A little break and a back to the past. Enjoy! Don't expect too much lol /ai fail/

Word Count: 2487

The café had barely any customers as break had ended. Amber, the short haired girl he met that one time with the other two girls, sat in a table near the counter. She was idly watching Baekhyun draw two cats resting in his sketchpad. The drawing’s details amazing to her amateur eyes.

“Hey Baekhyun, why are you working here at the café?” She wondered aloud.

Baekhyun was too busy drawing the cat’s ears and its details that he didn’t hear his friend speak. He was only startled to attention when a pen with a furry ball at one end was thrown at him playfully.

“Huh? What?” He looked up to see Amber raising a brow. “Yes?”

“I asked.. why are you working here? At the café?”

A sudden rush of panic flowed through his body and his mind went overdrive in a second. Mental breakdown—Oh no. Oh no no no. Not this question. Excuse excuse excuse… think. What excuse did I tell Kyungsoo. .

Amber continued seeing the frozen face of Baekhyun staring at her assuming he did not understand. “I mean, you’re an art student. A very good one at that.” She points at the drawing.

“So why are you here at the café? Baking even.” Cocking her head to the side in confusion.

“What do you mean? Can’t I both bake and art?” he retaliated.

“No no, of course you can.” Amber chuckles. “But we all know the reason Kyungsoo works here is to help his grandfather and to gain experience for his major. Sulli and the others too since they’re all Culinary majors. You though, why? Shouldn’t you be gaining experience in your line of field and not something… far from it?”

“Oh.” Baekhyun was at a loss. Amber was right; he was after all an art student. What experience would he gain from baking and serving at the café to add to his art skills? Before he could form a coherent reply, or might as well stutter because , reason. I need a reason; Kyungsoo appears from the back room and answers for him instead.

“He’s helping me out.” Kyungsoo answers delighted. “Grandpa Hoon needed helpers and my dad wanted to hire people he could trust… trust issues. I told him I could help out but we were short on people and coincidentally Baekhyun was around, plus Grandpa loved him. He’s helped since.”

“I see. What do you mean by ‘trust issues’?”

“I don’t know.” Kyungsoo shrugs. “Dad would just rather trust people within the community than that of outside, said they were untrustworthy and might just scam Grandpa since he’s old and because of their ‘greed for money’, so he says. So Grandpa suggested hiring students to help them gain experience, hence majority of staff students.”

Baekhyun went back to his drawing but could hardly concentrate with all the panic thoughts swirling in his mind. Kyungsoo’s last statement though felt like a jab to him, the words trust and money hit him square in the chest. Trust because Kyungsoo does not know the truth and money because truthfully, the reason why he even applied for the job in the first place was to be able to earn and not solely to help out. It was a win-win situation for him—the café was just outside campus and the pay was enough to last every month. It also helps that since Kyungsoo was the grandson of the owner; their work schedules were lenient due to the elder’s understanding.

“So you get paid?”

“Of course we do.” Kyungsoo chuckles. “We’re still employees and Grandpa said work is still work. Besides, it’d be eh to work here and not at least get rewarded. Work at the café is honestly exhausting.

“Oh! And didn’t you also tell me that your parents said it would be a nice experience?” He turned to Baekhyun.

“Y-yes… yes… yeah. Experience. The ummm… money is favorable. I mean.. who doesn’t want money…. Right? Hehe. Heh.” Baekhyun agreed awkwardly, thankful none of them noticed. So that was my lie.

“Oooohhhhhh… I seeeeee… So that explains it.” Amber says in understanding.

“Well.. you know what they say. In this day and age, it doesn’t matter. Experience is experience.” He replied this time with unfound confidence – although still wavering with panic, he was able to get control of himself. Silently thanking the heavens for Kyungsoo’s appearance saving him from an almost blown cover.

When Amber and Kyungsoo seemed busy chatting with each other and sensed that no more questions would be raised, to his relief, he goes back to his drawing. His panic ebbs away as he was once again in concentration of drawing the two cutest cats he has ever seen, making sure that he draws them as detailed as possible based on memory – smiling at the memory of Chanyeol himself.

♠♠♠

Two years ago

When Baekhyun met Kyungsoo during their freshmen year, he thought he was a God’s sent angel. They shared a class, seatmates even. They did not exactly start on the right foot and ended up being sort of frenemies. Baekhyun was his sociable happy bubbly self and it somehow rubbed the wrong way on Kyungsoo who was a rather serious diligent student and glared at anyone who tried to talk to him and he wasn’t interested.

“Hi! My name is Baekhyun! You are?” He asked his seatmate beside him, excited to make new friends. However, no reply was made. “Excuse me?”

…

“Hello?”

…

Pouting with furrowed eyebrows, Baekhyun did not stop. It was one of his first few classes of the beginning of university life after all, so he was adamant on making new friends. Being an unintentional bother to the boy beside him, he waves his hands up and down, side to side, trying to catch his attention.

“What?” The boy grumbled without looking up.

“I’m Baek