Word Count: 1889

For months since his friendship, as well as relationship with Chanyeol, has gotten deeper and their bonds tighter, Baekhyun realizes for the first time that he has been too distracted from his ugly reality. He has been living a dream-like life after all, completely disregarding his poor situation. But his recent encounter with Yongguk’s group brought him back to reality as if shattering the perfect image of fantasy.

Standing by the doorway of his apartment, he looks around – all an ugly dirty sight to his eyes. Sighing in defeat, he walks to the center. Numerous thoughts invade his mind as if fighting each other to take that one clear spot in his head – Junmyeon’s mansion like house, Kyungsoo’s  angels by their gate, Jongdae’s house with pretty and expensive decorations, Jongin’s chivalrous act in front of his boyfriend’s parents, Tao’s parents, Chanyeol’s penthouse,… his damned empty apartment. He feels a headache coming in, too many thoughts to handle.

For a moment, he clears his head.. at least try to. It wasn’t very successful as the paper in his hand brings him back to another reality – ing financial status. As he looked at the list though, he realized that compared to before, he is stronger.

The list in his hand was the list of materials he needed for his projects; the list that started out with barely anything written but was now a complex mix of letters and numbers, from quantities to sub-totals to totals, many crossed out but many added in – all of which adding to Baekhyun’s fast rising headache.  

If before, the mere thought of his list would send Baekhyun to a desperate seek of solution and an immense worry of future outcomes, this time however, he was filled with positivity and distraction. He’d have to thank Team E.B. for that, dragging him to their group and distracting him of whatever he is going through. So yes – stronger than before.

Baekhyun walks towards his window, momentarily forgetting its glassless state. He looks out to see the hotel that is occupied by familiar people as well as different strangers every night. Before he met his friends, he remembers watching the people below almost every night when given the chance; always tempted but never brave. Now however, he is brave enough to shoo away thoughts of temptation and hang on the slowly thickening thread of hope. He smiles at the thought, happy of his personal change.

For the rest of the day, Baekhyun spends it humming a happy tune as he did chores and continued work on his projects – the thought of his friends, the reminiscing of memories, gluing a smile on his face that lasted till the evening.

♠♠♠

Tonight, he decided to treat himself to dinner, buying food a little bit pricier than his usual. After all, he has saved enough for school needs and his gifts were already safely kept all prettily done. Tonight would be a night for himself. Or so he thought…

Walking to the near food stalls a few blocks from his apartment, he looks through the foods. Pouting his lips as he could not decide what to eat and where to eat, eat out or take out. Busy looking through the different food displayed, he does not notice the person who was walking towards him.

“You!!”

Startled and nearly screamed in shock, Baekhyun is greeted by the same pretty girl he met at the gift shop and equally exclaims. “You!”

The girl lets out a hearty laugh at the funny shocked expression the boy had in front of her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Amusing to meet you here.”

Lightly scratching his cheek with his finger, Baekhyun awkwardly laughs in embarrassment. “Eheh~ Hi.”

“Were you planning to have dinner?”

“Umm… Yeah. Sort of.”

“Ah! Me too! Not here though but.. join me?!” She asks excitedly.

“Huh?”

Not even waiting for a reply, the girl pulls him away the food stalls towards the row of restaurants from across, much to Baekhyun’s absolute horror because they were all pricey.

“Ummm… Uh… Wait!” He shrieks in panic causing the girl to stop midway to look at him in question.

“I can’t afford such places.”

With a look of horror as he realizes his slip, he tries to stutter out an excuse. “I-I mean… I don’t… Uh…”

“Oh.” The girl says with not so much a reaction, having figured out what probably was his problem. “Don’t worry then, I’ll pay for you.”

“Wh-what? N-no! No it’s okay! Really.” Baekhyun tries to escape the girl’s tight grip, almost tripping as she continued their walk.

Now seated at a rather not so fancy restaurant but not cheap either, Baekhyun fidgets in his seat while the girl watches him amusedly. Cute.

“Calm down, I won’t do anything to you.” She says with an amused raise of eyebrows. “We’re just going to eat.”

“N-no. It’s not that. It’s just… You really