Jae made sure everything was in place after he locked the front door and looked at the clock, it was a little over 8PM and it started to get dark outside. He always hated staying overtime at work but something about Brian's aura made him hate it less that one time. Returning to his boss, Jae made sure he made his presence known because the last thing he wanted was to startle the other.

“So, what do I do?” Jae asked and shifted on the other side of the table looking at Brian curiously.

“Keep me company as you said.”

Jae nodded and roamed his eyes over the cake, it was layered with a nice touch of ivory on the bottom and the top layers, it looked like a bridal cake and Brian was working on some really delicate sugar flowers. But Jae was still really curious “Why cakes and sweets?”

For a moment, Brian was quiet, like he was thinking of what he was going to say. “When I was little, I was allergic to sugar and I wasn't allowed to eat sweets, just ones that were sugar free but... I hated how they tasted and whenever I had pocket money I would sneak to the first cake shop and spend them on a few things I really loved." he chuckled at the memory, "Obviously I ended up rushed to the hospital every single time. At some point it got scary cause it went from just taking an anti-allergic shot to being hospitalized for a few days. My mom was afraid of losing me to my sugar addiction and she started baking alternatives that would be safe and still tasty for me." Brian continued, rolling up his sleeves, part of his tattoos being revealed.

Jae stared at them once again, they looked gorgeous and they fitted Brian so well. "And because I started hating seeing my mom struggle while baking just to keep me away from the actual sugar, I tried doing them myself. And as I grew up I learned how to control myself and actually use real sugar to bake cakes and pies for her and my father. It's not an amazing fairy-tale-like story. I just discovered I loved baking more than playing football." Brian laughed a little as he was adding the delicate flowers at the bottom of each layer.

Jae nodded a few times, biting his lip as he looked at Brian's focused face, "Are you still unable to eat sugar?" Brian shifted his eyes to Jae, "I got a treatment, but the allergy is still there. Not as bad as when I was a kid, but I’d much rather not eat sugary stuff. I resorted to dark chocolate for the days I crave sweets."

"You are cool. Dark chocolate is horrible, ew!” Jae shook his head and Brian thought that was cute and chuckled at the other’s reaction.

“How many tattoos do you have?” Jae asked after a moment of silence when Brian started connecting the flowers like they were cascading down the ivory layers.

“Ah, I lost track of the number but most are here on my right arm.” he looked at his own arm and then at Jae. Most were black and white, placed nicely on a sleeve over his arm.

Jae nodded and moved closer hesitating whether he should touch the other or not, “Did they hurt?” he asked looking at the other, his glasses slipped on the bridge of his nose.

Brian chuckled at that and looked over at Jae pushing his glasses back up where they belonged, “What do you think?”

The tips of Jae’s ears were burning red already, of course tattoos hurt, you . "Yes, yes of course they hurt--"

***

Two weeks passed since Jae started working at Brian’s bakery. Two weeks where the tension between them became almost unbearable for both Yugyeom and Dowoon who weren’t used with Brian being too much around them while at work.

They figured after half a week that Brian would use all the opportunities to touch Jae, at first it seemed innocent, just the boss trying to teach his new employee how to cut a cake because, obviously, the new employee was clumsy and ruined a few slices of cake before. But at some point, Jae was able to portion everything without making any mistake and Brian was still there, wrapping his arm around Jae while he took some notes or washed mugs.

Brian took all the opportunities he found to touch Jae in a way that made him sweat and the other two guys wondered if he is some sort of evil human that enjoys torturing Jae or that he actually has a thing for him.

On the other side, Jae thought it’s how Brian acts around even though he never saw him do the same around the others but he figured it was because he was new and he didn’t want him to make any kind of mistake.

After those two hectic weeks, because besides the slight skinship Brian initiated all the time, they had a lot of clients and orders and Brian always asked him to stay overtime, and things started to move faster since Jae helped him with the ingredients and with cleaning around. He felt helpful but hoped they could talk a little more even though Brian humming while layering cakes was enchanting already. Jae finally got the chance to look at his compass while he was finally on skype with Sungjin. He was going back and forth around his room, telling Sunjing everything that happened in the past weeks, when he stumbled upon his backpack, he remembersx about the compass.

“Ah.” Jae took the object and looked at it, it still pointed straight forwardly like before, “Since it’s weekend tomorrow maybe I will go out and explore the town, maybe I will find something.” He said determined and looked over at his laptop.

“Have you ever took it at work?”

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