They saw the ghost one busy lunch hour in a Lexington Avenue Restaurant.

Baekhyun Park and Chanyeol, his husband of a little more than a year, had gone into a steak house known as Downing Squarez And been seated at one of the tables on the rear balcony. It gave them a fine view of all the lower floor dining level and the entrance. They frequently went there on this gloomy, snowy February day it had seemed like a good idea to get out of their brownstone town house on East Eighty-first Street and take a cab downtown to the warm, elegant dining room in the British wood-paneled tradition.

Chanyeol was a well-known and successful playwright with a show currently running on Broadway and the captain in charge of their table showed them suitable deference.

"A great day, Mister." he said with a smile towards Baekhyun and then turning to Chanyeol, he asked, "How long do you think Driftwood will run, Mr. Park?"

Chanyeol shrugged and with an amused look, told him, "I'd say we're good until the pre-summer slumo. Say early in June."

"I'd expect it to run longer than that," the captain said, handing them the menus." "Everyone says it's a great play."

"I hope it does.," Chanyeol said. "But you have to be conservative in your estimates."

"The ususal martinis?" the captain wanted to know.

"Yes," Baekhyun said with a tiny smile for him. "We never vary in that." The captain nodded and went off to order their drinks while they studies the menu which they already knew well. He turned to him and said, "I'm glad we made up our minds to come here today. There's so much activity in here you forget how dreadful is outside."

Chanyeol gazed at him fondly across the table. He was a handsome youngman with sandy hair in contrast to Baekhyun's attractive sheer blondeness. Baekhyun, who considered Chanyeol to be the perfect devoted husband, often wondered why his first marriage had ended so disastrously.

"I felt the need to see some other faces," Chanyeol agreed. "Even if it means taking the subway back to the apartment. There will be few taxis around by mid-afternoon if this snow storm keeps up."

"What's wrong with subways?" Baekhyun wanted to know. "Before we were married I used them all the time."

Chanyeol pressed his hand over Baekhyun's on the white table cloth and jokingly said, " I'll send you a copy of the authority report."

"I'm serious," he said, studying Chanyeol with his lovely blue eyes. "Just because you're a successful Broadway playwright and fabulously wealthy you've sort of lost your sense of values. As a former working secretary I can't. I know how that other half lives."

"Glad you do," he told him. "you help me keep on the right track."

He was about to make a reply to this when he saw the sudden change of expression on Chanyeol's lean, aristocratic face. He had the bronzed, high-cheek-boned features of an outdoor manand the slim, tall figure one. Just now his face paled as he stared down into the crowded restaurant with a startled look.

Baekhyun was at once concerned. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Chanyeol kept staring so intently that Baekhyun tried to see who or what it was that had caught his husband's attention in this fashion. He swept his eyes from the table to table and finally let them come to rest at the entrance hall of the restaurant where a tan man in a dark topcoat exchanged a few words with the head waiter. It was not these two who caught his eyes but the guy in the trench cotton coat who stood next to the tan man. He glanced  back for a moment and Baekhyun gasped at the sight of a handsome, fine-featured boy whose features he would never forget.

"Excuse me," Chanyeol said, in a taut voice as he rose from the table without glancing at him and hurried down into the main body of the eating place.

He watched with a feeling of panic for herself and a kind of sadness for him as he saw him stride along between the tables. He was delayed every so often by a waiter or some other person in his way but he was making for the entrance hall and t5hat beauiful brunette in the black mink. Baekhyun was sure of that. It frightened him becuase he's never realized before how deep Chanyeol's scars were. How badly hurt Chanyeol had really been.

Tensely he noted his progress and at the same time watched the couple at the door of the restaurant. The tan man finished his few words with the head waiter, the brunette gave the head waiter a part ng coquettish smile and the two exited the big oaken door to the driving snow of Lexington Avenue. Chanyeol was still a distance from the door when they went out. Now Baekhyun waited with bated breath to see what would happen next.

Chanyeol approached the head waiter but they only spoke briefly. Then Chanyeol swept by him and followed the couple out into the bitter, cold of the stormy street without a hat or overcoat. Baekhyun sat back in his chair feeling bleak and lost.

"Martinis, Sire?" It was the waiter by the table with their drinks.

He glanced up at him. "Yes. Two. The gentlemen will return in a moment." But as she watched the waiter set the drinks down, one for him and the other before Chanyeol's empty chair as he wondered if this would turn out to be true. Would Chanyeol come back? He didn't dare to think of the alternative.

Mechanically he reached out for his martini and began to sip it. He needed something. The buzz of the noon-day conversation in the crowded place assailed his ears. It seemed warm in there and he feared he might faint. He went on sipping his drink and hoping that Chanyeol would soon come back.