Chanyeol laughed nervously, surely, he had heard wrong. 

‘What?’ he said, his voice coming out shaky and uneven.

‘Alexandra, she needed to shower, so I helped her.’  Baekhyun repeated wandering leisurely into the kitchen swinging his discarded shirt around. 

‘You saw her ?’  Chanyeol blurted out unable to stop himself. 

Baekhyun chuckled back at him darkly and reappeared gulping down water from a bottle.

‘No idiot, you think she’d let me?’  He laughed flinging himself down onto the sofa.  ‘Junmyeon hadn’t helped her, he left, by the way, so I went to see her, see how she was, she needed help moving, because she’s still sore.  I told her to get undressed and put a towel around herself, then I helped move her into the bath, she filled it, bathed, and then dried herself off and I helped her out.  With the towel around her.  Her long hair got me all wet, so I had to take my shirt off.’  Baekhyun finished his long-winded explanation as if he had helped an old lady cross the street.  Finally, though Chanyeol was able to take a breath and rearrange his face as if he didn’t care.

‘That was nice of you.’  He told him quietly, avoiding his eyes and focusing back on the tv.

‘Hmmm,’ he sighed, still staring at Chanyeol, making him uncomfortable.

‘So Junmyeon left, did he ask you to go over there?’  Chanyeol was trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

‘No.’  Baekhyun said mysteriously.  Chanyeol turned his full attention back to him. 

‘How did you get in there then?’  he asked before he could stop himself.

‘I saw her passcode you left here last night.’  Baekhyun shrugged with a grin.

‘Uh, you’re something else.’  Chanyeol commented, annoyed.

‘What am I going to do wait for her to get better?  Most of us know it by now anyway.’  Baekhyun laughed again. 

‘I’m going to bed.’  Chanyeol stood up, unable to continue the conversation with Baekhyun mentally thinking he needed to help her change the code. 

‘I know you like her.’  Baekhyun said suddenly, as Chanyeol strode past him.  Stopping Chanyeol in his tracks, but he didn’t speak. 

‘You know her, I know you do.  Somehow.’  Baekhyun whispered.  His tone had changed now.  He wasn’t playing with his friend anymore.  He was pleading with him to be honest. 

Chanyeol could not speak.  He did not want to confirm what Baekhyun had said. He didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of what admitting it would do.  Instead, he moved his feet and went to his bedroom without another word. 

Chanyeol didn’t sleep particularly well that night.  He tossed and turned thinking about all the people who had been alone with Alexandra, how vulnerable she was and how it should only be him who was there to take care of her. 

He had to be awake early, he had to go to the company for a meeting, they wanted him to do a photoshoot for a magazine.  Baekhyun was there along with Jongdae, Minseok, Jongin and Junmyeon all for different meetings for one thing or another.  Junmyeon was in talks with someone about a drama they wanted him to be involved in. 

‘I said I’m sending Kyungsoo Baekhyun.’  He told Baekhyun for the 100th time that morning.

‘I can do it, she knows me.’  Baekhyun whined at him. 

‘Sure, but you can’t cook for .’  Junmyeon moaned at him as his phone beeped and he immersed himself in the message.  Chanyeol tried to ignore them the best he could. He had so far managed to avoid Baekhyun’s knowing gaze at him every 4 seconds since he woke up, but thankfully Baekhyun had not pushed him to talk about what he had said last night. 

Junmyeon was sending Kyungsoo, pretty much the only member of Exo today with a free schedule over to Alexandra’s to make her breakfast and look after her. After he heard about Baekhyun sneaking into her place after he left last night, Chanyeol could tell Junmyeon was not keen on sending him in to help her.  Jongin was part of the conversation, though not being a decent cook he didn’t offer to go himself, and he had meetings all day.  Jongdae and Minseok were not at all interested, and the option of Chanyeol going didn’t even come up.

It was some kind of nightmare for Chanyeol having to deal with Junmyeon bossing everyone about and worrying about her like this.  Chanyeol desperately didn’t want Junmyeon to keep getting involved but he was so used to looking after other people, he guessed it came as second nature for him to take that role. 

‘Why didn’t you offer?’  Baekhyun whispered to Chanyeol when everyone else was out of earshot.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Chanyeol mumbled training his eyes on the documents in front of him.

‘To go and look after Alex today, you already cooked for her once and she didn’t die.’  Baekhyun said quickly.

‘Junmyeon is sending Kyungsoo,’ Chanyeol answered mechanically. 

‘You need to tell him you like her Chanyeol, tell him you know her.’  Baekhyun implored him, finally breaking his silence on the subject.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’  Chanyeol answered him, feeling the same nervousness as last night.

‘I think I do.’  Baekhyun answered him but didn’t comment anymore. 

Chanyeol’s meetings finished quickly and he was free for the day, thankfully Baekhyun was not so he was unable to pester him again to tell him the truth. 

Heading back to his apartment, he idled in the hallway, wondering if he should knock and see if Alex did need anything, but more so to see if she remembered that he was the one who looked after her the first night. 

He chickened out and headed down the hall to his door when Kyungsoo stepped out of his own apartment. 

‘Where are you going?’  Chanyeol asked quickly, too quickly. 

‘I’m going to meet Jongin for food, want to come?’  He asked eyeing him suspiciously.

‘No I’m tired.’  Chanyeol said slowly, taking his time typing in the apartments code. 

‘How was Alex?’  He blurted out.

Kyungsoo stopped in his tracks a step away from the elevator, turning to Chanyeol. 

‘She’s ok, getting about, slowly.  I made her breakfast.’  Kyungsoo answered slowly as if he was being interrogated.  Chanyeol couldn’t ignore the look on Kyungsoo’s face. 

‘Ok, good.’  Chanyeol said, punching in