~

The evening felt endless. If it wasn’t for all the noise coming from the city you would have thought it was Sunday. The couch was so comfortable that, for a moment, you hesitated to open the door when the ring bell. At a slow and heavy pace you headed for the entrance and your eyes lost all feeling of drowsiness when you saw a man standing there, hurt.

“What– Oh my God! What happened to you!?” you raised your voice.

“Just a little encounter with some idiots,” Daehyun said as if it was the most normal thing as he walked into the house to the couch, letting his whole body weight fall lazily. You just looked at him, speechless, while still keeping the door open.

“How… How do you know where I live?”

“I asked one of your coworkers and she told me,” he shrugged.

“Giving a stranger my address, wow. I feel relieved now.” You went to the kitchen to bring some ice and a first aid kit.

“Hey, no. Why you gonna do that?” Daehyun moved away from you.

“Because that wound looks ugly and you already have blood on your jacket. I don’t want you to mess up my things.” Why else would he have come to your place anyway.

"It's just a cut on my eyebrow, don’t worry.” He was still in the same position on the couch.

“I bet it was because of something stupid.” He said nothing. "Would you mind telling me? And come here so I can clean that up.” You took a ball of cotton and put it on some water.

He sighed in defeat, then sat straight and removed his bangs from his forehead. “It’s not worth it and I don’t regret about it anyway– Auch!" You put a bit of pressure on his cut and laughed at his answer. “I didn’t ask for this.”

He let you finish your task in silence, afraid that if he moved the slightest it would hurt.

“So if you didn’t come for me to help you, then why?” You put all the things back in the box once you were done and he fixed his hair.

“I needed a place to hide for a while.” He said calmly and you gave him a questioning look. “Nothing serious, ok? But the less you know the better.”

You decided to not ask further. “Alright, as long as you don’t get me in trouble…” Daehyun smiled a little and got up the couch.

“I should get going now,” he adjusted his leather jacket and walked to the mirror you had near the door. When he looked at his reflection he frowned and then brought his hand to his forehead.  “What the hell?? No way am I leaving with this,” and he took out the Band-Aid you had put on his wound. “This is for kids, are you kidding?”

Behind, you were laughing. “Hey, don’t make fun of my first aid skills.”

He turned around and mumbled a ‘thank you anyway’ before opening the door and then walked out.

How did you meet him? One day on your way to work, when he gave you the shock of your life with his motorbike. Then when he knew you worked at a coffeehouse as a barista he would go there once in a while to talk and make you some company. He had this image of a tough guy with his leather jacket and always dressed in black riding a motorbike. You always saw him alone, so it looked like he wasn’t the type of socializing with people. You wouldn’t say he was a close friend, but neither was he a stranger or acquaintance. Let’s say he was just a friend from work, even though he didn’t even work there.

Fortunately, the next day you didn’t have morning shift. You woke up later than usual, had lunch and then made your way to work. It was a typical winter-to-spring day, which meant more people would go for their hot drinks.

You arrived just on time and put on your uniform. Lucky you that day you weren’t in charge of preparing the beverages because it always stressed you dealing with a bunch of strangers looking and waiting impatiently for their food so instead you stood behind the cash register to just take people’s orders.

You heard the small bell sound when the door was opened. You didn’t have to look up to see who had arrived. The metallic sound of the pants chain and jacket made it obvious that it was Daehyun. He walked past the queue, as always, to get to the counter near you. You welcomed him with a knowing smile and kept attending to customers. No one else entered after him, so soon there was only one person left on the line. When it was his turn he bid his usual good evening and sheepishly smiled, aware that he didn’t have to say what he wanted as he always ordered the same. He then paid and went to the other queue. To your left, you heard a snort.

“Don’t you find it annoying to take his orders every single day?” Daehyun asked leaning against the bar.

You were preparing a simple drink for yourself. “Excuse me?”

“Doesn’t he have anything else to do than buying coffee twice a day or what?” He rolled his eyes.

“If he likes drinking iced coffee that much and spend his money on it, then let him be,” you shrugged.

“C’mon, he just comes here because he has a crush on you and he’s being creepily obvious.” You choked on the juice you were drinking. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?” His teasing expression made you feel self-conscious and you looked back to the cash register to avoid blushing and give him another reason to tease you.

“Well, at least he orders and actually buys something.” You snapped while another customer had entered and you took their order.

“I do, too?” Daehyun replied back.

“Yeah, for your dates,” you teased. “Thank you for coming. Your order will be ready in a few.” You smiled to the lady.

“You’re just badmouthing me,” he laughed it off and before he could tease you back you changed the topic.

“So will you want your iced vanilla latte?”

“You know me~” he simply winked and you turned around to prepare his drink.

Moments later when you were checking something on the computer, the guy from earlier approached you but not to order again, as you thought.

“Hi again. Uhm, I don’t know what you think about this, but I was wondering if… if you would like to go out?” It seemed that it took him a lot of courage to speak those words.

Before you could say something, Daehyun, who was silently drinking on the bar, had to in.

“She’s still working, I don’t think you’ll get an affirmative answer,” he patted him on his shoulder and you gave him an uncomfortable look.

“Yes, I’m working right now so I’m afraid I can’t. Sorry,” you replied back, apologetically.

“And as far as I’m concerned she has plans after work so I think today is not your lucky day, buddy.” However, the guy seemed rather a bit annoyed at Daehyun’s meddling but he ignored him. “It’s okay. Sorry if I bothered you, I had to try anyway. Have a good day,” he commented and you smiled back before he turned and walked to the door. You looked back at Daehyun.

“See? I was right,” he stated. A smug expression on his face.

“Why did you do that?” Your arms were crossed, waiting for an explanation for butting in something that wasn’t his business.

“What, were you going to say yes?” As you didn’t answer his question, he continued. “Safety reasons. You should be careful of going out with someone you don’t even know. What if his intentions were different from what you think?” He had a point, you had to admit. To be honest, this had never happened to you so you didn’t think of those possibilities he was referring to.

You nodded. “Yeah, I’ll give you credit for that.” More customers were coming in again and you had to go back to your duty.

“I’ll go before this gets too noisy. Stay away from bad guys,” he said looking at you. “Except from me. I’m the only bad guy you can trust in.” He went back to his teasing and, somehow, he still seemed serious on what he said and actually meant it. He then left.

The rest of your week went just as normal as always; it was finally Friday, last day of work until Tuesday. The bad thing was that you were in charge of closing the coffeehouse so the day passed by quite slow. When the last customer walked out, you rushed to put the “closed” sign on the door and went for your belongings to then go home.

You were in the middle of locking the entrance door when someone talked behind you and you gave a jump. Thieves didn’t greet people before taking their things, right?

You turned around and saw that it was this guy who asked you out the other day.

“Oh, I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said after seeing your reaction.

“It’s fine. Uhm, but we are already closed for today…” you signaled to the door.

“Ah, I know. I actually came to… well, you said the other day you were working so… I thought that maybe now you could uhm, go out with me to share a cup of coffee or something?” he scratched the back of his neck shyly. It was kind of ironic to you to get invited to have coffee when you spent most of your time preparing it.

But before you could answer to his invitation once again, what Daehyun told you came to mind. How creepy was that this guy actually waited for you after work? At night? His words echoed in your head again and made you doubt about accepting this time.

“Thanks for inviting me,” you smiled. “But it’s late, I had a long day and I’m tired. I appreciate it, though.” You tried to be as nice as possible to go home quickly.

However, the guy’s attitude changed after hearing your rejection. He looked serious and you didn’t like the vibe he was giving off now.

“You’re with that idiot, aren’t you?” He took a step closer to you.

By instinct, you gave a step back.

“That dude is a thug, have you even looked at him?!” he raised his voice but then lowered it again. “Someone like you shouldn’t be near that jerk.”

Okay, this man was scaring you for real. Was he talking about Daehyun?

“Please, I only want to go home,” you tried to walk away but he grabbed you by your arm.

“You’re coming with me.” His grip was quite strong. He started pulling you with him and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t wriggle out.

“Let me go!!!” you yelled and pushed him once again but it was useless. You heard a familiar motorbike’s engine in the distance and started screaming for help, trying to get someone’s attention.

It was just a matter of seconds until his motorbike was in front of you and the next thing you saw was that Daehyun grabbed the guy by the collar of his shirt, making him release you from his grip, and threw him harshly against the wall. He was taller than this creepy man but now they were face to face and the guy seemed that he couldn’t breathe properly and was desperately pulling on Daehyun’s gloves to stop him from tightening his hands around his neck.

“Don’t you dare dragging your around here again.” You heard Daehyun hiss at him. “If I ever see your disgusting face one more time, I can assure you I won’t be nice.” He then remembered you were witnessing that and let go of the guy, who immediately ran away coughing.

Daehyun walked up to you. “Are you okay?” he put a hand on your shoulder worriedly.

“Y-yes, my arm hurts a bit because of the struggling but I’m okay,” he relaxed after knowing you were safe and breathed out.

“I knew that dude was weird as heck. At least he won’t come back.” You sighed and nodded back.

“Thank you,” you blurted out. He smiled in a kind of warm way, and it was the first time you saw him do that.

“You’re still shaking. Come on, I’ll take you home.”

You glanced at his motorbike. “On that thing?” you pointed at it with your thumb.

“Hey, not anyone can have the honor you’re about to have,” he pretended to be offended but smirked anyway.

“I thought you were a bad boy who doesn’t let girls ride on his bike?” you raised an eyebrow and folded your arms.

“I can be the good boy with you,” Daehyun winked. You only looked at him for a while, trying to decipher what that meant.

“What?” He laughed. “Do I look like the type of guy to spend his time at coffee shops?” he pointed at himself from head to toe while speaking. A giggle escaped your mouth.

“Let’s go,” and you followed him.

It’s true that you’ve always lowkey admired him from afar since he looked… cool? But you had never put yourself in a scenario where you could ride on with him.

You hopped on his motorbike behind him and timidly grabbed the hem of his jacket. A bit scared, you must say.

Daehyun turned his head and let his sarcastic side come up again.

“What you doing… do you want to fall? Wrap your arms around me!” That was such another level of physical contact but you did as he said and hugged him tightly. You heard him laugh and mumble something you couldn’t understand; then Daehyun started the engine and drove off.

~