| II. someone call the doctor |
(trigger warning: thorns, small mention of blood)

"Dr. Byun Baekhyun?"

The young doctor raises his head at the sound of his name, seeing the receptionist lady smiling at him expectantly. "Here is your apartment key. According to this," she says, pulling out a key and placing it in front of him, "you're on the fourth floor, room 436. Try not to lose your key, but if you do end up misplacing it then come back and tell us so that we'll give you a new one." 

Baekhyun smiles as he takes the key on the counter. "Thanks."

"Have a good rest of your evening," the lady says as Baekhyun stoops down to pick up his suitcases. He looks back and mutters a "you too" before walking up to the elevators and pressing the 'up' arrow. After a few minutes the doors open with a ding and Baekhyun steps inside, where a man wearing glasses was already standing. Baekhyun gives him a curt nod before standing on the guy's left hand side.

Just as he's about to reach out and press his floor number, the other guy starts talking. "Which floor?" He says kindly, taking Baekhyun by surprise. The doctor looks at the guy next to him for a while, and back at the array of buttons, where floor number 17 has already been pressed. Well, maybe there are still nice people left in the world.

"Um, fourth. Thanks." Baekhyun finally says, as he watches the other guy step forward slightly and press the button with the number 4 next to it.

It takes a while for the elevator doors to close again (for what reason, he does not know) so Baekhyun steals a glance at the other guy standing next to him. He was around the same height as the doctor, maybe an inch shorter—it was a little hard to tell since he was currently looking down at his phone. He seemed friendly enough, Baekhyun didn't feel uneasy around him like he sometimes did with other people. He doesn't know the guy's name yet, so he decides that he'll just refer to him as Glasses Guy in the meantime.

"Just moved in?" Glasses Guy then says, surprising Baekhyun the second time.

"How did you—oh." Baekhyun starts, but stops himself when he realizes that he's indeed holding two very large (not to mention noticeable) luggages in both of his hands. The young doctor curses inwardly at his own stupidity before responding. "Yeah," He then says awkwardly, raising a hand and running it through his light brown hair. "I was living in the countryside before moving here in the city. Perks of getting a new job."

Behind his glasses, the other guy's brown eyes widen slightly. "Oh, wow, really? That's pretty something."

"I guess." Baekhyun supplies, returning his hand to the suitcase's handle. 

Glasses Guy opens his mouth to say something, but he's instantly interrupted by a faint buzzing noise. Baekhyun watches as the other guy feels his pockets, eyebrows furrowed, and taking his vibrating phone out a few moments later. He smiles apologetically at Baekhyun (who smiles awkwardly back) before taking the call, while the young doctor trains his eyes on the now closing elevator doors.

"Junmyeon! Are you there?" A voice then yells, and both Baekhyun and the other guy wince at the noise. 

Ah, so Glasses Guy does have a name, and it was Junmyeon. At least he got one thing out of the way. Baekhyun usually doesn't eavesdrop, but it really is hard not to if one of the people in the conversation was talking pretty loudly.

"Jongdae? Yeah, it's me—ouch. Why are you yelling?" Junmyeon says, his eyes widening. He ignores the muffled sounds coming out from the other side of the line and squints at the screen before sighing to himself in realization. "Oh, haha. It was on speakerphone. Uh... hello? Jongdae? Ugh, you're still loud." He grumbles, rolling his eyes at whoever this Jongdae was even though he wasn't with him at the moment.

Pretty soon the doors open at floor number 4 with another ding and Baekhyun, slightly relieved, picks up the handles of his suitcases and walks out of the elevator. He looks back to see Junmyeon with an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. He seems a little upset, which Baekhyun is a little miffed about (he doesn't like it when nice people get angry), but then again you really can't judge someone without really knowing them yet. When Junmyeon sees that Baekhyun is looking at him, he holds up his hand in a short farewell before the doors finally shut in front of him.

So much for first impressions. Maybe he'll see Junmyeon around sometime.

He walks down a hallway, head moving from side-to-side as he looks for the right door when he finally sees the right set of numbers. Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, Baekhyun sighs as he opens his door at last, the cold air inside his new home greeting him as soon as he stepped inside. The doctor lugs his suitcases inside as he shuts (and locks) the door behind him, exhaling as he places his belongings on the floor. 

It's not the first time he's seen his apartment (he's visited before to decide if he really wanted to move in or not) and nothing has changed since he's seen it last. After Baekhyun had gotten hired by the company he would be working for, the company also told him that he would have to move into the city (he was living in the countryside at the time) so that he wouldn't have to keep driving for more than three hours a day after work to get back home.

However, Baekhyun didn't really have enough money to live in an apartment for at least a month so the company decided to pay for his expenses. It was pretty considerate of them to do, and the doctor was grateful for it. Baekhyun would start paying for his stay after he officially started work in about a week. He was in awe to see that the apartment was in such good quality at first.

Baekhyun walks over to the sectional in front of the large, glass windows that allowed him to look over the city and runs a hand over the armrest, thinking to himself for a bit. He hums a tune as he walks through the hallway in his apartment and stops in front of a bedroom door. There were actually two bedrooms, but Baekhyun decided beforehand that the room would just be a guest room if he had anyone over.

He walks into the living room again, frowning slightly. He really, really likes his new home but... it seems a little bit bland to him.

Baekhyun stands in front of the large windows and crosses his arms. It was just past seven o' clock pm, and he still had a lot of time to kill. Maybe he'll just go look for some house decorations so his apartment wouldn't look that uninteresting. What would his mom say if she was here? Baekhyun thinks for a bit, before his eyes widen suddenly. Flowers. His mom loved flowers. If there weren't flowers in their house, there were paintings of flowers on the walls instead.

Flowers... where exactly should he get them?

Baekhyun pulls out his phone at the thought and types 'nearest flower shops' in the search bar. Lots of flower shops come up, but all the shops that showed up had pretty poor reviews. There were a few shops that seemed reasonable, but apparently the service was pretty bad. He wrinkles his nose from reading multiple horrible descriptions, before filtering the search so that it would show the flower shops with the most reviews and highest ratings.

Among the top results is a store that goes by the name of We Are One, and for some reason it catches Baekhyun's eye.

He presses the store's name with his finger, and a picture of the building pops up onto the phone screen. It's medium-sized, with the words We Are One painted in cursive lettering on the large sign. A bouquet was painted next to the words, with a bunch of different flowers painted inside of it. There are flowerbeds also in front of the sides of the store, and they all look like they're in good condition. Baekhyun checks the most recent reviews, and they all seem really promising.

There are quite a lot of comments that all went something along the lines of: Wow, these workers are so, so handsome. They are all literal flower boys! It's like they came straight out of a drama, their smiles are so incredibly sweet and their visuals... *heart eyes emoji* which made Baekhyun snort. 

Other than that, there were reviews that were actually pretty helpful.

So, Baekhyun ends up calling them after a few more minutes of deciding. He frowns when the receptionist or whoever they called it over there doesn't pick up right away, but on the fourth ring someone answers his call. "Thank you for calling We Are One flowers. How may we help you this evening?" A cheerful voice says on the other side of the line. It sounds a little familiar, but Baekhyun can't really pinpoint who it belongs to. 

"Hi. Can I have some red roses?" Those were always his mother's favorite.

"Yeah, sure. Hold on for a bit." There's a slight pause, and Baekhyun hears the guy put down the phone. In the background, Baekhyun can hear "Luhan" (someone's name, probably?) followed by loud laughter and a muffled "get some red roses for me, will you" before he hears the phone being picked up again. "Hi, sorry about that. Are you still there?"

"Yep."

"Okay, good. So would you like them in a vase or tied up in a bouquet?"

"A small vase, if you don't mind." 

Baekhyun hears a quiet and breathy thank goodness from the other person on the phone and finds himself laughing at the guy's reaction. "What, is a bouquet too hard for you to do or something?" He jokes as he runs a hand through his hair, grin growing wider when he hears the other guy chuckling as well. 

"It's not hard, but I have a bad habit on forgetting to remove thorns off roses."

"Oh, gosh. That's got to hurt."

"Yep. Hurts like hell. I still have to deal with thorns even if I put them in a vase, but it's easier for me."

"Interesting."

"Also, before I forget... are you coming to pick them up or would you like to have someone deliver them to you?"

"Hmm." Baekhyun muses, as he takes a seat on the edge of the sectional. He turns to look through the windows and is surprised to see his eyes land on a familiar-looking, medium sized building. He squints and makes out the cursive lettering on the building. Yep. There's no mistaking the flowerbeds in the front. Maybe he could go over there himself and pick up the flowers, but he doesn't really feel like going down and getting them either. "If you don't mind, can someone deliver them for me?"

"Not a problem. What's your name and where do you reside?"

"Byun Baekhyun, and I'm actually living in the really tall apartment building besides your shop."

It's silent for a short period of time and Baekhyun figures that the guy probably took a short look outside and checked if what Baekhyun was saying was true. After a while the doctor hears light laughter through the phone, which confirmed his thoughts. "Wow, you could actually walk down right now and get them yourself, but you choose not to huh?"

"Damn, you got me there."

The guy laughs again before continuing. "Sorry, but what's your room number?"

"436."

"Alright." There's scribbling, and Baekhyun thinks that the guy is writing down all of this stuff on a notepad, or a small slip of paper. "We'll send someone over in a few, they're going to handle the payment and all that fun stuff. Anyway, it was nice talking to you Byun Baekhyun. Have a good rest of your evening, and thanks again for calling."

"Yep, no problem." Baekhyun's not sure why the guy's voice sounds so familiar. "Say, what's your name?"

"Kim Jongdae." 

Realization dawns on the doctor when he realizes why the name sounds so familiar to him. Junmyeon, the guy in the elevator, was talking to a Jongdae on the phone as well. Were they the same person? If they were, then that would be pretty weird and cool at the same time. It really was a small world, wasn't it? Baekhyun wanted to ask Kim Jongdae if he knew anyone named Junmyeon, but he figured that he shouldn't disturb him any longer. "Well, bye then Jongdae."

"Later."

---

Baekhyun looks at his watch for about the 38th time that night.

Not that he's been counting, but it's been about twenty minutes since he called the store and the delivery guy still wasn't here yet. The situation was a little curious considering that the building was literally five minutes away from the flower shop, but maybe the guy got lost or something.

Baekhyun was a little more than tempted to call the store back and ask what was taking them so long, but they were a pretty popular flower shop so he assumed that Jongdae was busy taking in more calls. After the phone call, Baekhyun went online and ordered a few paintings to decorate the walls of his apartment since he still had a lot of free time.

He was starting to doze off a bit when a light knock brought him back to reality.

Baekhyun instantly gets off the sectional once he hears the noise and rubs his eyes, dragging his feet to the door. He places a hand on the knob and opens it slowly, not expecting to see a tall and ridiculously handsome man standing a few feet away from his doorway. The taller male immediately broke into a soft smile the instant the door opened—suddenly Baekhyun managed to lose his voice, and forgot how to breathe at the same time.

"Hey," the man finally says, his deep voice sending shivers down Baekhyun's spine. Tall Guy (he decides to refer to him as that, mainly because he didn't know his name and it was true anyway) was holding the small vase of roses that Baekhyun requested in his hands.

"I'm really sorry I took so long, I read 14th floor instead of 4th. To top it off, I also didn't bring the delivery van so I carried this all the way here. It's not the lightest thing in the world, but I managed." He laughs a little, the corners of his brown eyes crinkling. Baekhyun doesn't realize that he's staring until the taller guy frowns at him, a little confused and possibly even worried.

"You are Byun Baekhyun right?" He says nervously, looking at a slip of paper. "Crap, I really hope that I didn't get the wrong person again."

Baekhyun mentally slaps himself and manages to find his voice, with some difficulty. "Yes, that's me. Sorry about that." He breathes, as he looks up into the other guy's eyes. His voice came out way smaller than he intended it to be. A brief, awkward silence ensues—the other guy is glancing at him with a gaze so intense that Baekhyun ends up tearing his eyes away from him, feeling his cheeks heat up almost instantly.

"I think I should be the one apologizing." Tall Guy then says, handing over the vase of flowers with a relieved grin. "Anyway, here you go."

Baekhyun mumbles a quiet thank you as he reaches out for them, not realizing that Tall Guy's hands weren't completely off the flower vase yet. He felt his face burn up again when he felt his own cold hands meet a pair of slightly warmer ones, jumping slightly at the contact. After a while, he feels the guy's hands slip out from under his and Baekhyun brings the red roses closer to his own chest, refusing to meet the other's eyes.

The young doctor then reaches into his pocket and pulls out the payment, placing the money in Tall Guy's palm.

Tall Guy stares at the money for a bit, before smiling and handing Baekhyun some of it back. When Baekhyun furrows his eyebrows in confusion (he was very sure that he gave the exact amount), Tall Guy's grin grows wider at his reaction. He pockets the rest of the payment in a small pouch, as Baekhyun looks at him in utter bewilderment. "Um... didn't I give you the right amount?" 

"Yeah, you sure did. You did give the right amount, nothing wrong there." Tall Guy says kindly, crossing his arms over his apron. "But, I feel kinda bad. I'm usually right on time, but for the first time in a long time I'm twenty minutes late. So in short, I gave you twenty back. It's fair—well, to me it is." He explains, placing his hands inside his pants pockets. 

Baekhyun gapes at him in astonishment. "Are you even allowed to do that?"

"I don't know, but I just did."

"Uh..."

"Let's just keep this between us, yeah?" Tall Guy then says, covering his mouth slightly with his hand and winking at him. 

"Okay." Baekhyun nods slowly as he felt his face heat up once more, which was turning as red as the roses in his arms. He curses himself for acting so weird around this guy, not really sure why his heart chose to pound really hard in his chest every time he witnessed Tall Guy smiling or laughing. Hell, he literally just met this man five minutes ago. That wink he just gave Baekhyun made the doctor's stomach churn, making him feel slightly light-headed. 

As Baekhyun steps back to go inside his apartment, he accidentally trips over the doorway—causing a single rose to fall out of the vase (the water inside sloshed dangerously and the doctor almost swore). He's about to reach out and grab it but Tall Guy is quicker, and he manages to catch the flower before it falls to the floor. However, right when Tall Guy takes it he yelps in surprise and ends up dropping the flower—clutching his right hand with a pained expression on his face.

"I'm so sorry! Oh, gosh, that was so stupid of me—" Baekhyun starts rambling, but stops himself when he sees Tall Guy's hand, where a few thorns are stuck onto it. There are lines of red liquid flowing out of the affected areas. "—holy , you're bleeding."

"I'm fine, don't worry." Tall Guy sighs, staring at his hand. "It happens."

"You're not fine, you need a doctor! You might get that infected if you don't take it out sooner. Argh, this is all my fault..." Baekhyun says frantically, and then he comes to his senses after a few moments. "Wait, what the hell am I thinking. I am a doctor."

He remembers that one time where this kid got thorns in his foot from when he was still a trainee, and how his mentor at the time taught him what to do in situations like these. Baekhyun lifts his head to glance at Tall Guy, who's glancing at him with his eyes widened in surprise. With a newfound confidence, Baekhyun says, "Come here and wash your hands with soap and water, I'll go get that rose outside."

Baekhyun turns around and puts the vase of roses on the dinner table before walking out of the doorway—and is a little taken aback when he feels something on his wrist. He looks back to see Tall Guy holding onto his wrist loosely with his good hand, looking at the shorter one with worry evident in his eyes. "Hey, be careful. Don't get yourself pricked either." He says seriously, as the shorter male turns away to hide his red face.

"I-I won't." 

"Good." Tall Guy says gently, as he walks inside Baekhyun's apartment. He hears the sink turn on in the background.

Holy crap, Baekhyun thought, as he stoops down to pick up the fallen rose. He knew he was going to regret doing this sooner or later. Letting a stranger into his house was one thing, but he had a feeling that Tall Guy wasn't going to hurt him at all. He seemed like a friendly giant—the only thing that was intimidating about him was probably his height. Baekhyun curses his genetics, wishing he could be tall like him.

Baekhyun shuts the door behind him as he returns to his apartment, putting the flower back in the vase where it belonged. The doctor walks up to him, inspecting Tall Guy's injured hand with a small frown on his face. He raises his own hand and holds Tall Guy's wrist carefully (secretly marvelling about how warm he was), letting out a sigh of relief. "Okay, you're lucky. They're not in too deep." He walks into the bathroom and grabs the clean pair of tweezers before returning into the room, looking for the perfect angle to get them out.

"Stay still for a bit." Baekhyun instructs, getting the thorn out with the tweezers in one swift motion. He does the same for the other two thorns which were still embedded in Tall Guy's palm, and after he finishes with the last one he flashes a satisfied smile at the other male. "And... we're all done. I'll get some band-aids for you, and after that you'll be all set." 

"Thanks, Baekhyun." Tall Guy smiles. "I didn't have the slightest idea that you were a doctor." 

Baekhyun wonders how Tall Guy knows his name, and then he remembers that the latter was originally here to just deliver the flowers to him. "Ah, it's fine. But now you know right?" He says with a nervous laugh, earning a small smile from the other man. Baekhyun dashes into his bedroom to grab his medical kit and takes three small band-aids out of it before walking up to Tall Guy, who was now washing his hand at the sink again.

It's silent as Baekhyun places the band-aids carefully on Tall Guy's hand, patting them down gently. He knows Tall Guy's watching his every move, and feels a little distracted at the thought of it. He manages to finish putting the last band-aid on the last wound without any difficulty, and he exhales slowly when he's done. "You're all set." He says, as he steps back from Tall Guy, not realizing how close the two of them were. 

"Thank you." Tall Guy says again.

"No problem." 

"I, uh, have to get going now. Kyungsoo's going to kill me if I come in late. There's still flowers to be delivered..." Tall Guy then says ruefully, glancing back at the shorter male. Baekhyun nods slowly in understanding, feeling a strange twinge of jealousy inside of his chest. Who was this Kyungsoo? "Anyway, I hope you enjoy your flowers." He continues, as he walks over to Baekhyun's door and places a hand on the knob. "Feel free to call if they're not in good condition." 

Tall Guy then opens the door, and before it's too late Baekhyun blurts out: "What's your name?" 

"Park Chanyeol." He says with another bright smile, after a few moments pass. Finally, Tall Guy had a name. "See you again, Byun Baekhyun." Chanyeol says cheerfully, waving to him with his left hand as he used the other to close the door. Once it snaps shut behind him, Baekhyun feels another smile working its way up to his lips. He looks down at his wrist, where Chanyeol had took it earlier.

Baekhyun doesn't know what to do now, but he's not sure why he has the sudden urge to order more flowers.

---

Chanyeol practically bolts into the flower shop as soon as he gets back, almost hitting Luhan in the face with the doors.

"GAH!" The other brown haired boy shrieks as he almost drops the watering can. Chanyeol can't help but burst out laughing at his fellow employee, clutching his sides as he watches Luhan's surprised expression morph into a mixture of slight annoyance and exasperation. "Chanyeol, what the actual . You almost killed me." 

"Haha, sorry." 

"You don't sound sorry at all." Luhan mumbles to himself, as he continues on walking to each of the plants. He gives Chanyeol a dirty look from behind a pot of lilies. Chanyeol gives him a not-so-apologetic grin before walking over to Kyungsoo and Jongdae, who were sitting behind the counter. Jongdae was twirling the phone cable with a bored expression on his face, his mind elsewhere and his hand balancing his head—besides him, Kyungsoo was looking at Chanyeol expectantly. 

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow when he approaches. "You took much longer than I expected."

"Sorry." Chanyeol apologizes (sincerely this time, because an angry Kyungsoo is not a fun Kyungsoo), holding his right hand up. Kyungsoo's eyes widen more at the sight of the three small band-aids on his palm. "I got the wrong floor, and I also had a handful of thorns to take care of." He puts a heavy emphasis on the word thorns as he stares pointedly at the brown haired employee sitting next to Kyungsoo.

Jongdae snaps out of his daydream, and chuckles sheepishly. "Whoops, sorry about that."

"You really need to stop forgetting about the thorns," Kyungsoo says, sounding unamused. He crosses his arms and sighs before continuing. "people actually can get hurt by those. Also, don't forget to bind and tie the flowers a little bit tighter next time so that situations like these won't happen again." 

"Will do."

Chanyeol frowns as Jongdae's apologetic grin grows wider. "It's okay, Kyungsoo. I had a doctor to take care of this anyways." He says, waving his hand once more. He looks down at it, remembering when Baekhyun held his wrist gently. His hands were so cold. Chanyeol hoped that Baekhyun was taking good care of himself, but who was he kidding. He was a doctor, after all.

"A doctor?" Jongdae repeats, surprised. "Was it really that serious?"

"Oh, no. You know that guy who called earlier, the one who lives in the really tall building next to ours? Byun Baekhyun?" Chanyeol says, crossing his arms. "Well anyway, turns out that he's a doctor. He told me he was recently hired or something like that. He kind of panicked when he saw my hand bleeding so he offered to take care of it for me, saying it was going to get infected if I didn't do anything about it." 

Jongdae smiles, and puts the phone cable down. "Wow, you got lucky there." 

"Yeah." Chanyeol supplies, smiling to himself as he thinks about Baekhyun's adorable box shaped smile. "I really did." 

---

A/N: hey guys, I hope you're all doing well.
thank you so, so much to the 25 of you who subscribed! and thank you to that one person who upvoted omg :-0
so, yeah. here's some chanbaek/baekyeol stuff
I'm thinking of updating this every Saturday but I'm sure that it will change in the future
also yeah I do know it's a sunday (or monday/tuesday if you're in a different timezone) right now haha I actually should be asleep rn it's pretty late

thanks so much for reading, feel free to leave a comment about what you think!
more pairings (and characters!!!) will be coming up in future chapters dw

**also, for future reference—this is taking place on the same day as chapter 1. it's just much later in the day, so that's why jongdae and chanyeol are here running those errands. junmyeon's just got home (cafe closes earlier on fridays btw), jongin and sehun are probably asleep and kris is off doing whatever lmao 

-seokminz