pairing: BaekChen
length: 1753 words

Jongdae hated everything at this moment.

Which is why he found himself sitting at the counter of his favorite bar, ordering drink after drink so he could drown his sorrows in alcoholic bliss. It was rare for him to get to this point; he was usually the designated driver of his group of friends, not being particularly fond of alcoholic beverages. But right now, he needed to forget everything that had happened in his life and decided that alcohol was the best way to go.

The amber liquid tasted like fire in his inexperienced mouth, but he forcefully swallowed the drink, sending a searing sensation scorching down his sensitive throat. He didn’t even keep count of how many drinks the bartender kept setting in front of him; as soon as he emptied a glass, a full shot replaced it. It was like clockwork. And the buzzing feeling that first emerged in his head soon evolved into a pounding sensation.

With every shot he downed, he felt lighter and lighter until it was like he was flying on clouds. He roughly undid his gray silk tie, letting it hang crookedly off of his neck. His unkempt bangs were pushed messily across his forehead, having run his fingers through his hair several times in frustration. The background music faded away as his inebriated state overtook him.

That’s when Jongdae opened his mouth.

“Ey, you,” he slurred while waving around his right pointer finger. “Gimme another round of drinks, yeah?”

Baekhyun sighed as he prepared yet another glass for this drunk fool sitting at his bar. The bartender lost track of how many he had made within the last half hour for him. It was clear that this man was going through something difficult in his life. Baekhyun had seen many types of people enter his bar and he knew Jongdae’s kind the moment they sat at the counter.

“You da man,” Jongdae cheered, roughly grabbing the shot glass from Baekhyun’s thin hand before the bartender could set it down in front of him. He made quick work of the alcohol, already numb to the burning feeling of the liquid coursing through his throat. “You must be wondering why I’m so drunk, huh?”

“No, not particularly.”

Jongdae let out a peal of laughter, slamming his palm on the polished counter multiple times as tears streamed out of his eyes. “You’re funny,” he drawled as he continued hitting the counter, blissfully unaware of the pain that was shooting through his arm. “Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway. This jerk,” he spat as he said the word, “that I used to call my boyfriend had the audacity to cheat on me. And do you wanna know who he cheated on me with? Do you wanna know who was filthy enough to touch that dirty cheater?”

“I expect you will tell me anyway.”

“That low-life thought it would be fun to cheat on me with my boss of all people. Can you believe it? My boss!” Jongdae threw back his head and guffawed even louder, as if he had told the best joke in the world. Tears were still streaming down his face, but Baekhyun couldn’t tell if they were tears of laughter or tears of sadness. “I work at a company that rakes in billions each year. But I guess my paycheck wasn’t enough for that greedy piece of scum. So he jumped onto my idiot boss, since his salary happens to have a few extra zeroes. Can you believe it?!”

“Humans are quite insensitive, I agree.”

Jongdae grabbed another drink and drained the glass within seconds before letting out a sigh. His eyes were half-lidded as he continued spilling his problems to this apathetic bartender, who was busily cleaning dirty glasses. “And when I caught the two of them at work, which was the most stupid thing they could’ve done, that dirty rat had the gall to say I wasn’t satisfying him enough. Well, excuse you, Mister. You aren’t as hot as you think you are.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“Oh, but that’s not the end. Oh no, there’s much more,” Jongdae continued, letting out a mirthless laugh. His expression had darkened now that the poisonous thoughts he had been trying to erase from his brain came flooding full force back into his mind. “My boss even said that I’ve been slacking off at work. I, the manager of three projects that are netting the company millions of dollars, am apparently not doing what I’m being paid to do. If he even showed up to work for one day, he would see that my teams have been working non-stop, trying to reach deadline after deadline.” Jongdae was about to angrily throw the shot glass he had in his hand, but Baekhyun quickly pried the object from the drunk man’s grasp, not wanting an extra mess to clean up.

“Sir, perhaps you should calm down for just a moment.”

But Jongdae didn’t want to calm down. He wanted to smash every bottle that was sitting in the shelves behind the bartender. He wanted to watch the bottles crack into millions of pieces, see the liquid essence spill out every which way, and laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Because he felt broken right now. He felt like he had been manhandled by these two lying cheats and now, he was but a lifeless doll with no purpose anymore. The supposed love of his life had abandoned him without a second glance and now he was on the verge of losing the job he had painstakingly worked at for almost ten years.

He had no one in his life now. His parents had died when he was young, so the only person he had been able to rely on was himself. So when his ex-boyfriend had waltzed into his life, Jongdae thought he had finally found someone to share the joyful times and the sorrowful moments with. He wasn’t alone anymore. He had been climbing up the corporate ladder and was making a respectable living for himself. He wasn’t a nobody anymore.

Life was great and Jongdae couldn’t be happier. All of the pain and adversity of his childhood had pushed him towards reaching the sweet success he had always dreamed of. But now, his world was crashing down around him. If his boss was successful in firing him because of those ludicrous reasons, it would be difficult for him to find a job in a similar company. He might even be blacklisted from the industry altogether if his boss did enough damage to his reputation.

And he had no one to shoulder the burden with him now. He had no one to assure him it would be okay. He had no one to tell him that no matter what, he would overcome this obstacle and come out of it stronger than ever.

He had no one at all.

Once reality finally set in amidst the fuzzy drunken thoughts that were floating around in his head, Jongdae silently let the tears flow from his eyes down his sharp cheeks, dripping onto the smooth counter. And those silent tears soon became heaving sobs as Jongdae cried for the first time since he had caught his ex-boyfriend cheating on him a week ago. He cried for the once happy memories that would now only be painful reminders. He cried for the loneliness and emptiness in his home, that had once again become a bachelor pad. He cried for help, wanting someone—anyone—to help him pick up the shattered pieces of his soul because he just didn’t have the strength to do so anymore.

“Sir?”

Jongdae looked up when he felt a bony hand on his shoulder and found himself staring into the emotionless eyes of the bartender. Those large, dark brown eyes of the bartender looked as if they were staring right through him. Jongdae’s gaze then slipped from those unblinking eyes down to the inviting, pink lips that were slightly parted. The intoxicated young man felt so captivated by those lovely lips that he recklessly lunged forward, hoping to taste them and see if they were as delicious as they looked.

“I think you have had quite enough for the night.” Baekhyun’s small hand was tightly locked over Jongdae’s face, having stopped his drunken advances immediately. Jongdae had barely moved an inch before being smothered by the bartender, who looked indifferent as ever. “I shall call a cab to send you home,” he said as he removed his hand from Jongdae’s face to reach for the phone hooked on the wall behind him.

“Do I have to leave?” Jongdae whimpered as he gazed downwards with a crestfallen expression, not wanting to return to his home where he would be reminded at every corner of his now-ruined life. He wanted to indulge in this act of escapism just a little longer. Even if this was a futile attempt at forgetting everything, he couldn’t bear the thought of going back alone to his empty home now.

Baekhyun stoically stared at the broken man in front of him, knowing he needed to get this man off of his counter as soon as possible. But the tiny shred of humanity and compassion within him stopped him from booting the inebriated man out of his bar right then and there. With another sigh, Baekhyun asked his assistant, Junmyeon, to temporarily watch over the bar as he walked over to the customer's side and hauled the drunken mess named Jongdae into his arms.

The bartender carefully navigated his way to the back of the building where there was a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor’s special private rooms, usually reserved for VIPs. Baekhyun walked to the last room at the end of the hallway, which he never rented out simply because it was his favorite. He carelessly dumped the drunk man on the neatly made bed, slightly wincing when he realized his perfectly pristine room was no longer such with Jongdae in it. Just as he was about to leave to go back to the bar, a faint voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Please don’t leave me alone.”

Those five words wrenched at his heart. No one else had ever pleaded him with such sincerity before. So Baekhyun turned around and pushed a large armchair to the bedside. As he sat down, adjusting himself so he was comfortable, he answered with a ghost of a smile on his face, “As you wish.”

♈♈♈