pairing: BaekLay
length: 1017 words

“Question!”

Yixing briefly glanced up from the book he was reading, gently adjusting the metal frame of his round glasses. “What’s up?”

“Do you like Disneyland?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess it’s pretty fun,” Yixing replied with a nonchalant shrug. He glanced back down at his book, but was quickly interrupted again.

“Okay, question number two! Would you be down to go to Disneyland sometime then?” Baekhyun brightly beamed at him, his big brown eyes sparkling with anticipation and hope.

Yixing leaned back in his chair and stared at the younger male questioningly. “What for?”

“For fun!” Baekhyun glibly replied, his grin widening even more.

The Chinese male slightly tipped his head to the left and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “That’s it?”

Baekhyun nodded his head vigorously. “Yup!”

Yixing’s eyebrows remained deeply furrowed as he set his book down on his lap. “There’s no…special occasion,” he mindlessly gestured around, “or anything you want to celebrate at Disneyland in particular?”

The younger male shook his head. “Nope, not really.”

Yixing then raised an eyebrow in palpable skepticism.

“Okay, well, I guess it is Disneyland’s one hundredth-year anniversary this year,” Baekhyun finally revealed with a sheepish smile, “but we’ve already missed the special fireworks show for that so we’re just gonna have to make do with the holiday show. Which is still fun, but I already saw it last year so it isn’t as special as the new show this year.”

“They’re aren’t showing the new show anymore? Since when?”

“Since last month,” Baekhyun answered with a loud sigh, sweeping his arm up to dramatically rest the back of his right hand against his forehand.

“Well, why didn’t you say anything before? We could’ve gone then.”

“Because we didn’t know each other until four months ago. Or like, we barely knew each other, y’know?” Baekhyun reminded him. “I was too scared to talk to you until four months ago.”

Yixing let out a groan. “Oh god, Baek, seriously, I wasn’t that scary. Stop overreacting.”

“I already told you it wasn’t a bad scary! You’re a cool kind of scary!” the younger male explained with a laugh. “But you were still scary, so of course I wasn’t going to ask if you wanted to go to Disneyland while they still had the hundred-year anniversary show. What if you thought I was weird?”

“Well, too late, I already do,” Yixing flippantly answered as he picked his book back up and thumbed to the page he had left off. “Should’ve asked while you had the chance.”

“Tch, I was just about to say how nice you are, even though you’re scary and intimidating, but now I’m taking it back,” Baekhyun muttered as he crossed his arms and pouted at the older male.

“Too bad, you can’t take back something you never gave,” Yixing easily countered with a smirk.

Baekhyun’s pout deepened as he pointedly looked away from the Chinese male. “Jerk.”

Yixing only chuckled in reply as he deftly turned to the next page in his book.

Several minutes then passed in silence, despite Baekhyun fidgeting wildly in his seat across the table from the taller male.

And when Baekhyun accidentally turned, causing his elbow to collide with a stack of thin binders on the table, Yixing let out a deep sigh and glanced up from this book once more. “What is it, Baek?”

“You, uh… You never answered my question.”

“I didn’t? I thought I said yes.”

Baekhyun shook his head and sent the older male a shy smile. “That was my first question about you liking Disneyland. But you never answered if you’d go with me to Disneyland…”

“Oh, sorry about that.” Yixing let out another short chuckle. “Well, when d’you wanna go?”

The younger male’s eyes promptly lit up and he leaned across the table in excitement. “Um, maybe next month? After they switch from Halloween to Christmas decorations?”

Yixing was about to run through his schedule in his head before ultimately giving up, knowing that there was too much for him to keep track of when he was already too mentally exhausted from work. This casual outing at a cafe with Baekhyun was supposed to keep him from thinking about work, not remind him of it. 

And Disneyland…

Well, Disneyland sounded like fun.

Not like the happiest place on Earth. Far from it.

But fun.

And that was enough for Yixing at the moment.

“Hmm, maybe,” the Chinese male cheekily answered as he returned to his book, barely catching Baekhyun’s childish pout return out of the corner of his eye. “I might be traveling next month for work, so it depends on when you wanna go.”

The younger male’s smile overtook his pout in an instant as he clarified, “So as long as you’re free, you’ll go with me?”

“Maybe,” Yixing repeated with a lopsided smile. “But yeah, I’m down.”

Baekhyun let out a loud cheer before hunkering down with his hands clamped over his mouth as other cafe patrons leveled steely glares at him for disturbing their otherwise uneventful evening.

Yixing then leaned over and playfully flicked the younger male on the forehead before shutting his book again and scooping up his binders. “C’mon, let’s go back to my place, doofus. They’re gonna kick us out if you keep screaming like a banshee in here,” he joked as he straightened his glasses.

“You’re a bully, Yixing!” Baekhyun stage-whispered as he quickly helped wipe down the table and push in their chairs.

“Whoops, I just remembered I’m busy next month,” Yixing teasingly called over his shoulder as he began striding out of the cafe.

“Just kidding! You’re the coolest, funniest, least scary person I’ve ever met, Yixing! I wanna be just like you!”

Yixing just laughed as he held the door open for Baekhyun, who breezed past him and then let out another loud whoop while spinning around in jubilation.

“Oh, question!”

“What now?”

“Uh…which way is it to your place again?” Baekhyun giggled sheepishly. “I forgot.”

“This way, you dork,” Yixing replied with a laugh, hooking his arm around the younger male’s before leading him home.

♈♈♈