Word Count: 9521

The next day, Yixing took Sehun out to look for a job. He made a point of keeping Sehun away from certain areas of the city, likely places akin to a red-light district. It only took them a few hours to find what they were looking for.

They ended up in front of a small building towards the edge of town. Carts piled high with many kinds of flowers sat out front. They were beautiful, and Sehun found himself fiddling with the delicate petals of a few of them.

A woman came out of the store as they were about to go inside. She had an empty crate in her arms and looked up at them with a kind smile. The recognition that passed through them all was a surprise. She laughed first and set her things down to give them a proper greeting.

“Hello, boys,” she said, giving the two of them a small, polite curtsy. "It's good to see you in better shape, Sehun."

Sehun returned the curtsy with a bow, lower than a simple dip of the head to indicate his status. "Thank you, miss," Sehun breathed. He flushed with embarrassment at the memory of how he looked the last time he saw her. She was the woman from the pillory who had written his sins down for the people to judge. Why was she working in a flower shop?

She turned her attention to Yixing with a sweet smile. "And you were one of his masters, correct?"

"Yes," Yixing grunted. She seemed to catch on that it was not something he was proud to state. She moved on, picking the crate back up to take to the cart. She plucked bundles of flowers from the carts and placed them into the crate with car.

“How can I help you gentlemen?” she asked. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"

“We have come to ask for a job,” Yixing spoke. Sehun nodded in agreement. “And it would seem you could use a little extra help.” He indicated the full carts of flowers and her single crate in her hands.

“Indeed, I could,” the woman agreed with a small laugh as she hoisted the now full crate. “Could one of you get the door, please?” Sehun immediately went to get the door for her. In the past couple of months, he had grown used to things such as “could you pass me my waterskin” being orders. She thanked him and took the crate inside where she started to sort the flowers. “I can give you two jobs, but you must be careful when dealing with my flowers,” she said, a gentle warning in her voice. “Some are very delicate and are quick to break at any mistreatment. Others need exceptional care to make the blooms last longer.”

“I understand, ma’am,” Yixing said with a small smile. Then he nudged Sehun forward with a gentle hand on his lower back. “Sehun has a book that we can consult on plants. We have been using it to identify berries and medicinal herbs, but it has flowers and their care in it as well.”

She smiled at Sehun, taking in his skinny and ragged appearance as if looking for something. Her eyes dropped lower and lower down his frame until they landed on his feet, still lacking shoes.

“Do you like flowers, Sehun?” she asked him, redirecting her gaze to his face.

Sehun nodded. “Yes, miss.”

“And does this book of yours tell you meanings of specific flowers?” she asked.

“Yes, miss,” Sehun repeated, another nod of the head. She turned to Yixing with a raised brow.

“Is he a true slave or indentured?” she asked.

“Indentured until next year," Yixing grunted.

“And he was not given shoes?”

“His contract states he is not permitted more than the essential,” Yixing responded. “If it were to snow right now, I would have to get his shoes for him. But until then, he is not allowed to wear any.”

“I deem it essential in my shop,” she told him. “I don’t want him stepping on a pair of sheers or stumbling into a bed of thorns and having no protection on his feet.”

“Then I will grant him shoes if you allow him to work here,” Yixing agreed with a nod. "It shouldn't be an issue with his other masters either."

She seemed to mull over the pair for a few moments, wondering if there was anything else she needed to ask. But when she came up with nothing else to discuss, she nodded her head.

“I'll hire you two," she agreed. "Meet me here tomorrow morning at dawn. Your work begins then.”

“Dawn…?” Sehun repeated, his brow furrowing and a frown coming to his lips. She looked at him with a slight frown of her own.

“Is there something wrong with the early hour?” she questioned. Yixing was quick to explain for him.

“Another master of his has him go for prayer every morning at dawn,” Yixing told her.

“Then tell his other master to take him before dawn,” she told him. “Right before the sun rises is when flowers are best picked, and I need all the help I can get.”

“I will speak to him," Yixing assured her. "We will be here on time.”

“Then I’ll see the two of you tomorrow," she said, smiling. "You may call me Ms. Younha. Please work hard for me.”

-----

Returning to their room was uneventful. Luhan looked up when they returned and smiled when he noted that Sehun appeared to be happier.

“Did it go well?” Luhan asked. Yixing had filled him in on their search the night before. He had told Baekhyun as well, but he didn't seem to care. Luhan wasn't pleased with Sehun finding a second job again, but Yixing had explained. Sehun found that Yixing knew how to articulate Sehun's thoughts better than himself.

“We got a job at the flower shop,” Sehun answered, smiling down at the smaller boy.

Luhan blinked at him once, allowing a small smile to come to his face. "Is your boss nice?”

Sehun nodded his head. "She's the same woman who was at the pillory," he told Luhan, keeping his voice soft. He was a little excited and he didn't want Luhan to have to remind him to keep his voice down. "She was also nice then." Then he leaned back as if thinking of something. "Explains why she had a pocket full of rose petals, too."

Luhan couldn't hold back his little laugh at that realization and took Sehun's hand. "And you're sure you'll be okay with a second job?" he asked. "You won't complain between the two jobs and your other duties?"

Sehun shook his head. "I'll be fine," he promised. "I won't complain. I wanted to earn more money for the group."

Luhan sighed, but he didn't rebel against the wish as much as he had back in the capitol. Sehun suspected that was because the job was more innocent in nature. He didn't say so aloud.

"There's one requirement she listed for his hire," Yixing said, interrupting the moment. Luhan looked at him with a furrowed brow, sending Yixing a silent question. “She requires him to have shoes for the work.”

“He can remove them when he takes rest breaks,” Baekhyun said, looking up from the book he had purchased the prior day. He had been silent until now, but Sehun knew he had been listening. “I agree that working in a flower shop without shoes could be potentially hazardous.”

There was silence for a moment before Luhan broke it again. “Well,” he breathed, not sure how to respond. “When do you start?”

“At dawn,” Sehun answered. "She said that was the best time to cut the flowers." Then he paused and fiddled with the hem of his shirt. He bit his lip as well before he continued. “I know it conflicts with our prayer. So, could we pray a little earlier?”

Luhan’s eyes widened only a fraction and he looked to Yixing for confirmation of what Sehun had given him. When he turned back to Sehun, he nodded. “Of course. I’ll wake you a little earlier. Thank you for letting me know.”

Sehun nodded. Then he looked down, continuing to fiddle with the hem of his shirt. He was a little worried about asking for something. “May… May I have the plant encyclopedia?” he asked. “I would like to study the flowers in it for as long as I have free time today.”

Baekhyun looked up and exchanged a short glance with Yixing and Luhan before nodding. Luhan turned back to Sehun. “You may, but do not neglect your duties to us.”

“I won’t.”

-----

Over the next week and a half, Sehun had good days and bad. His good days involved lots of time at the flower shop, learning from Ms. Younha. He soaked up the names of each flower and their uses and meanings in a bouquet. He and Yixing learned to care for many different blossoms and helped to sell flowers at the front. Ms. Younha pointed out the customers who were in often and why. There were a few that came in all the time for flowers for too many girls. Yixing dealt with these people so Sehun didn't have to worry about them. There were customers that liked to spoil their spouses. Ms. Younha gave them the better picked flowers. They were all fall flowers and they were all beautiful to Sehun.

Other good things that happened included getting proud looks from Luhan all week. After the first time, others approached him a few times seeking to bed him. Every time he got such a proposition, he would bring them to the attention of his masters. Sometimes they wouldn’t give him a choice and they would tell him to turn down the offer with polite grace. Other times, they extended the decision to him.

The first time he said he did not wish to take up the offer, he couldn’t deny how good it made him feel. The way that Luhan smiled helped, too, and made his stomach do somersaults and his heart beat a little faster. That reaction made it easier for Sehun to refuse future propositions as well. He wasn't approached every day and never more than once a day. He wasn't even allowed the opportunity to make his own choice every time. But when got the chance he liked the pride in Luhan's eyes when Sehun said no.

For the first time in a long time, Sehun didn't feel the need to find worth from anyone else. All he wanted was Luhan's approval. He craved it and he did anything he could to get that approval. That didn't mean he was perfect. He slipped up sometimes and earned displeased frowns, but they were not as numerous.

The flower shop did prove a less obvious place for him to be sought after by men. Yixing had been right and Sehun was able to work without much worry. Wearing shoes again was strange after the period of time he had spent not wearing any. But Ms. Younha hadn't deemed them necessary, he would have felt uncomfortable. It almost felt like shoes was even a punishment on its own because putting them back on felt so wrong.

The bad days were when Baekhyun had bad days. Once Baekhyun had pulled Sehun into an alley, pushed him to his knees and told him to be quiet. Sehun didn't argue and thought of this as repayment for Baekhyun mouth. When Sehun cooperated, Baekhyun's forcefulness calmed. He got gentler and Sehun saw a glimpse of the person he had once grown close to. He might try to speak to him again sometime soon.

However, things changed when two weeks came to an end and Chanyeol had sent a bird to tell them that he was on his way back. That night, Sehun had fallen asleep on the floor as usual, but he found himself woken by quiet sniffles. At first, he thought he was hearing things and he tried to go back to sleep. But as time went by, he realized the sounds weren't all in his head. Someone was crying.

He sat up, looked around, dazed with sleep and let his eyes adjust to the dark. He crawled to the first bed where Yixing slept, but the sound didn't increase. It only took his second try to find the bed where the sniffling came from.

"Baekhyun?" he asked in a sleepy voice. He rested his head on the edge of the bed for a moment. "What's wrong?"

The sniffling stopped and Baekhyun shifted in his bed. Sehun thought he had gone back to sleep, and Sehun was about to do the same. But a few moments later, Baekhyun finally spoke.

"Can you hold me?" he whispered, voice tight and watery with tears. "Please? For a little while."

He phrased like it weren't an order, and Sehun climbed up onto the bed with a short, "Yeah." He climbed onto the bed, being sure to keep himself out from under the covers. But he snuggled up to Baekhyun and wrapped an arm around Baekhyun's waist, keeping him close.

Baekhyun turned over then and nuzzled his face into Sehun's chest. It was the most vulnerable Sehun had seen Baekhyun in a long time and he didn't know how to react.

"Are you okay?"

Baekhyun didn't answer and kept his face buried in Sehun's clothes. After a while, he could feel the wet spot that Baekhyun was leaving behind with his tears. He Baekhyun's hair to calm him like his father used to do when Sehun was little.

"Do you love me?" Baekhyun finally asked.

Sehun sighed and thought about their original deal. The one they hadn’t made under contract. The one they had when everything was nice and they were friends and it was a little bit more fun. How did he answer this question now? Was he supposed to default to his lie? Was he supposed to tell him the truth?

“What do you want me to say?” he questioned Baekhyun, keeping his voice down in the dark.

“Give me…” Baekhyun hesitated and took a breath. “Give me the truth. I’m terrible to you and I take advantage of you. I hand down your worst punishments and beat you harder than everyone else. But you don’t complain, and you still come here and hold me like I’m important to you.”

Sehun’s answer formed in his head even while Baekhyun spoke. When Baekhyun finished, he opened his mouth, still Baekhyun’s hair to sooth him.

“I do love you,” he answered, being honest with both Baekhyun and himself. “Or at least, your old self. Your kind self. You’re important to me, and I hope you realize that I am making a choice to allow you to use me however you see fit. I don’t see that as taking advantage of me, though everyone else might. But don’t misunderstand. I am not in love with you.”

“How can you say I’m not taking advantage of you?” Baekhyun questioned in disbelief. “I don’t ask, and I don’t give when I used to give you so much more. And then I justify it to myself the way I treat you.”

“Listen to me,” Sehun urged, taking Baekhyun’s face in his hands so that he would be looking at him. “I signed that contract knowing this could be awful and hard to handle. I have always known how angry you were at me ever since you found out I was the reason your mother died. But I wanted you to take advantage of the rules because you could. Luhan won’t because he’s too kind. Yixing stays out of it as much as he can. Chanyeol's sense of justice is strong and I can feel when he doesn’t want to punish me. He doesn’t believe I deserve it. But I do believe I deserve it. So as much as I hate the beatings and the constant service and humiliation and everything else, I want it to happen. And when you punish me the way I feel I need to be, my guilt slips away a little more.”

“I’m ruining you, though,” Baekhyun cried, tears falling faster again.

“I’m already ruined,” Sehun told him. “And you know very well what I still have the right to refuse. But I haven’t refused you, and it's not only to ease my guilt. I want to be yours to deal with until the end of my sentence. It’s the least I can do for you. Luhan was right: death is too easy, and Taeyeon used her life to save mine, so why should I toss it back in her face? I have to use this life for good things, but I couldn’t take the guilt until this contract gave me a way to serve.”

“Why do you need this so badly?” Baekhyun questioned. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to feel guilty. That much I did know of my mother. It was her choice to save you.”

“And this is my choice,” Sehun rebutted. “And I don’t want you feeling guilty either for a choice I made myself. This contract includes the others, but it’s more about you and me. I want you to act on your anger and sadness because then I will know you are expressing your grief. These tears you are crying right now are telling me you’re running out of anger and I hope that is part of your healing. As much as I hope to be free of my own grief and guilt when this is over, I hope your grief settles as well. If you're already getting over your anger, then you don't have to punish me with that anger. Punish me with your grief.”

Baekhyun seemed to understand a little more of how Sehun thought. He didn’t have to agree with him and he didn’t, but he leaned his head against Sehun’s chest and tried to calm down.

“Fine,” he breathed. “I’ll try not to feel guilty. But that means you better feel completely guiltless when this is all over.”

Sehun nodded. “I’ll try,” he promised. Then he started to pull away to go lay back on the floor, but Baekhyun gripped his shirt to keep him there.

“Stay here,” he said, voice soft and uncertain. “Until I fall asleep.”

“Okay…” Sehun replied, staying still for a little while longer. Baekhyun closed his eyes again, but his breathing didn’t even out.

“If you sleep here, you’ll get ten lashes,” Baekhyun warned. It wasn’t an empty threat, but Sehun couldn't bring himself to care. Moments later when Baekhyun had fallen into sleep again, Sehun stayed put. In this quiet moment where he held Baekhyun, he felt like he had a brother again. Someone who felt bad when he hurt him and and yet still went to him when he was having a hard time. He by no means called them ordinary siblings. What siblings did the things they did? But this moment on its own was as close as they got to pure.

Sehun closed his eyes, still holding Baekhyun close so he could sleep. In the morning, he would receive ten lashes, but that wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

-----

“Ten lashes.”

That was the first thing out of Baekhyun’s mouth when Sehun woke before dawn.

Baekhyun shoved him out of bed with a ruthless kick and Sehun tumbled to the floor with an audible "oof". He groaned in pain and rubbed the tender spot on his hip. Luhan was already up, getting dressed and Baekhyun was getting out of bed as well. Sehun didn't question it and made to get dressed as well.

“Baekhyun will be joining us this morning,” Luhan said once Sehun was decent again. “Don’t dawdle. You have work after prayer and don’t forget to bring your shoes with you. You may not put them on until you are at work.” This was a reminder spoken to him every day, but Baekhyun hadn’t come with them to pray before. That was unusual.

This whole thing reminded Sehun of the way he and Baekhyun had met first and it made him feel a little nostalgic. They sat next to each other and prayed in quiet until Sehun had to leave. Sehun had hoped another bird would come down and speak with Baekhyun today. The grieving man deserved to speak to his mother, but no birds came. He hadn’t told Baekhyun about seeing his mother that day and he wouldn’t tell him unless it happened to him.

Sehun went about work as usual, cutting flowers and hauling them back with Yixing to place in the store. They secured them in bundles with twine, but Ms. Younha crafted bouquets with meaning. Sehun liked flower arranging, but he liked individual flowers more. He liked the ones with meanings of happiness and love most.

He was always amazed by the variety of the flowers in the shop. Many of the ones currently in stock were all in season flowers and it was easy to pick them from the woods. But there were also bright spring and summer flowers that appeared in the shop. It hadn’t taken much guessing to figure out that magic aided the growth of these flowers.

“Yes!” Ms. Younha had said with a laugh as Sehun placed some tulips on display. “It is magic. I am an Earth mage and I can ask for all the dormant flowers even while in the middle of winter.”

Sehun smiled. “I know an Earth mage,” he told her. “I wouldn’t be here without him.” It was then that he finally noticed his arm had not ached in a long time. The last of the cracks must have finally healed despite everything. And so far, he had not noticed any lack of motion despite the damage that he had sustained. Magic was incredible.

“I’m glad you two met, then,” she hummed. “A sweet boy like you deserves to go much farther than here.” He clipped the stems of some roses and set them aside.

Sehun glanced over at Yixing who was busy tying a bouquet with a ribbon. “And it sounds like I will be making quite the journey,” he sighed in response to her.

“Your masters seem pleasant enough,” Ms. Younha said, seeming to catch his meaning. “At least, he does. But it is most certain that you have it easier than some. Would you like to make a gift for them? To thank them?”

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