The guy you spotted in town
Was just someone who resembles me
After all there’s only one answer girl
Cause you are the no. 1

Jinju wouldn’t sit on her chair at dinner. She has been latched on Baekhyun the moment he entered the house. She had been chastised by her sister but Baekhyun doesn’t mind it. So she is sitting on his lap at the table, her sister next to Baekhyun. He feels a sort of warmth he has never felt before.

“I thought you hated children, Baekhyun,” Minseok raises an eyebrow at him teasingly.

“Do you hate children, Baekhyun?” the girl next to him asks, making Baekhyun turn to her. “That’s such a pity. Children are adorable.”

Jongdae states, almost like an anecdote, “She loves children.”

“I don’t hate children,” Baekhyun quickly says, desperate to be in her good books. “I’m okay with them.”

He notices Minseok opening his mouth to say something so he quickly stretches his leg and kicks him in the shin. It doesn’t seem to hurt him because he only grins at Baekhyun. But he thinks that is at least better than him adamantly telling the whole world that Baekhyun hates children just for s and giggles. (Because he doesn’t.)

“Prince B-Baekhyun!” Jinju exclaims.

Baekhyun looks down at her, giving her his attention. She is holding a nacho chip with a dollop of guacamole on it, her little fingers green from the paste. She extends her hand out to him. He smiles at her, his heart melting. The other adults at the table, knowing how difficult it normally is for Jinju to warm up to someone new, are amused to see how much the little girl likes Baekhyun already. It makes their hearts warm as soft smiles creep onto their lips. And Jinju’s sister, who has seen how hard Jongdae and Minseok had to try to get into her little sister’s good books, is entirely too amazed by Baekhyun.

“Is that for me?” Baekhyun coos. She nods her head cutely. He grins and takes the chip into his mouth. He hasn’t even tasted the guacamole properly before he tells her, “Mm! So yummy! Thank you, Princess Jinju.”

She blushes and quickly turns away, looking down at her messy plate. Baekhyun smiles and shifts her closer to him on his lap. He starts chewing on the chip, his eyes now automatically tracing back to his favourite view. The girl sitting next to him is smiling down at her sister even as she eats her taco. But when she notices Baekhyun looking at her, she lifts her head. He has to swallow chunks of his chip that he barely even chewed when her soft smile stretches into a wide one.

“Jinju really likes you,” she remarks with a teeny bit of teasing in her smile.

“Yeah,” Jongdae huffs and crosses his arms as he pretends to get mad at the little girl. “You used to feed me, Jinju! Do you like Baekhyun more than me now?”

She nods her head without even looking at him. Aera giggles and Minseok snorts. Baekhyun quirks a smile and the little girl’s hair gently. The girl next to him shakes her head, laughing softly. When Baekhyun looks at her, he sees that she has a rather defeated smile on her face as she stares at him. He feels his heart skipping a beat. Or two.

“You really do have a way with girls, Baekhyun.”

Now his heart is racing and he feels all hot and nervous. He swallows the lump in his throat, not quite wanting to embarrass himself in front of his best friends but also knowing that there wouldn’t be another opportunity to get out what he wants to say.

“I’m still trying to find my way to you.”

At once, Jongdae and Minseok cough loudly in the background as they choke on their tacos. They gape at the Byun Baekhyun, infamous playboy and womaniser, getting all red in the face, saying something so ing cheesy that they might need to stop eating before they throw up. But they know not to say anything because he actually looks so embarrassed that they think they’re actually seeing tears of agony welling up in his eyes.

Thankfully, the girl ignores them. She keeps her eyes on Baekhyun and he feels the entire room and world melt away. He is drifting, gladly and freely falling, as he gets lost in her caramel brown eyes, filled with warmth and everything nice and sweet in this world. And when her lips stretch into a smile, a sensation similar to an arrow shooting right through his heart hits Baekhyun so hard in the chest that he stops breathing.

“Need a map, then?” she teases, her voice so soft and melodic yet it makes Baekhyun feel the opposite of calm.

His throat is clogged but he is desperate to keep the conversation going, especially if she is flirting back. He just hopes he isn’t reading too much into her response.

“Maybe you can—” Bad idea to talk with a constricted airway because now he chokes on his breath. He gulps, feeling his face getting redder. But he continues anyway, “—lead me to you.”

She tilts her head to the side slightly, her eyes on Baekhyun’s face, analysing and reading his sincere expression. She can clearly see that he isn’t breathing, his ears and cheeks are burning, and his eyes proving how earnest he is. Her lips tilt into a tiny smile as she looks away briefly, resting her elbow on the table, placing her chin on her palm before turning to him again.

“My friends saw you again last Friday, Baekhyun,” she murmurs, putting aside their previous conversation for the moment.

Baekhyun blinks, finding it very hard to search through the fog in his mind, especially when she is watching him like this so naturally like she could do this all day (he really does wish that she could and would). But when his brain finally registers what she has just said, his eyes widen. This time, his heart pounds in anxiety.

She’s going to think that he is a playboy through and through. Well, he used to be, he admits that. But not anymore. He doesn’t want to be a playboy now because it’s no fun anymore. Not when all the girls he used to have fun with won’t even equal to this one girl next to him, combined.

“The guy they spotted must be someone that resembles me,” he quickly tells her, shaking his head.

She quirks an amused eyebrow. “You’re saying they saw wrong. Again.”

He blushes but he is desperate to clear his name. “Well, I was at the club but I left at midnight! Alone!” he adds hastily, making sure he gets that point across clearly. He turns to Jongdae, who is watching him in interest. “Jongdae can be my alibi!”

“Huh?” His friend blinks at him, pretending not to understand what he is talking about. But when he sees Baekhyun’s shocked, betrayed expression, he decides that this joke is too harsh to be played on such a lovestruck puppy trying to impress his crush. He hums. “He called me around 12:30. He was home alone.”

Baekhyun bobs his head rapidly and turns back to the girl, who is staring at Jongdae, doing that thing where she tries to look through lies. She eventually turns to face Baekhyun again, an unreadable mask shielding her features. He feels way too nervous. God must be punishing him now for playing with all those girls, making him feel what they felt when he played them, only magnified by a thousand times.

“Had an early night?” she asks him. He knows it isn’t just a passing question. He answers her honestly anyway by shaking his head. “Not about the clubbing life anymore?” she questions now, sounding like she is teasing.

And that is when Baekhyun realises. This girl is much smarter than she lets on. She sees through everything and anything. But she is so kind and so calm that she makes even an accusation sound like a tease. She had heard rumours and stories, and she knows how true they are. Yet when Baekhyun denied them, she simply said something that seemed dismissive though she knew they were true. God, how much ier can she get? Maybe if she recites the multiplication table, Baekhyun thinks to himself.

So he answers to her question, not quite sure if it is the truth but very certain that it is something he wants.

“I want to go to flea markets and find $8 dresses with you instead.”

Baekhyun knew he was going to get it.

“Go to flea markets to look for $8 dresses?” Minseok snorts as he scrapes the leftover food on plates into the bin. “Seriously?”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes as he washes the dishes. Jongdae decides to have his fun too. “I wish I took a picture of you, Baek. You looked like a ing girl.”

“He sounded like one too,” Minseok adds. Baekhyun is glad they can’t hear the thoughts in his head, then.

“Shut up,” he groans, scrubbing a bit too hard on the dishes. “Leave me alone.”

He grunts when Minseok throws an arm around his shoulders, leaning against him. He can see his -eating grin from the side of his eye. “But you look so cute when you’re in love, Baekhyunie. It’s hard to leave you alone.”

Baekhyun swats Minseok’s hand away at once when the older male pinches his cheek. Almost instinctively, he curses, “Oh my fuc—”

“Eh, eh, eh,” Jongdae warns, kicking Baekhyun on the back of his thighs. He glares at Jongdae, who only darts his eyes to the living room where the girls are. “Jinju is here.”

“Well, then,” Baekhyun grumbles, shooting death glares at the two men next to him. “You guys are meanies.”

Minseok and Jongdae snort. Baekhyun flicks the suds on his gloves in their faces. A whole series of bickering breaks out in the kitchen where the boys are meant to clean up. As annoyed as Baekhyun had felt by his best friends’ teasing, he can’t help but embrace it.

Ever since he started indulging in his playboy lifestyle, ever since he found that time could be better spent with girls who are desperate to pleasure him and make him feel good, Baekhyun has not spent quality time with his friends anymore. Maybe a couple of coffee drinking sessions in the mornings where he suffered from hangovers and perhaps dinners where he left halfway just to attend to a girl offering her body to him, but that is about it.

And now, even as Minseok pretends to be a ditzy, lovestruck Baekhyun while Jongdae acts as his own neighbour, just to annoy Baekhyun, he can’t help but think that Taco Night is the greatest idea ever and that he never wants to miss one ever again.

“Wanna go to bed, Jinju?” the girl asks softly.

Everyone sitting around the table looks at the little girl, who is rubbing her eye, yawning. She is sitting on Baekhyun’s lap again, slumped against his chest sleepily. While everyone else is engrossed in the board game they’re playing, the little girl’s exhaustion doesn’t go unnoticed by her sister. But she shakes her head.

“You look tired, Jinju,” she sighs, now reaching her hands out to slip them under her arms. “Let’s go home, Princess.”

“No!” Jinju mumbles, twisting her body so that she is burying her face in Baekhyun’s armpit.

Baekhyun turns to the girl next to him when he hears her sigh loudly. Feeling a sort of need to be her knight in shining armour, he tells the four-year-old girl on his lap, “I can sing you to sleep if you go to bed now.”

At once, she lifts her head to gape at him, her sleepy eyes still sparkling with delight. “Re—” she stutters due to her breathing. She tries again, “Really?”

Baekhyun smiles at her. “Yes. But only if you go to bed now.”

“O-Okay!”

He looks up to smile at her sister, who is looking at him with a relieved and grateful smile. His throat feels dry all of a sudden. He looks away quickly and carries Jinju in his arms, letting her sit on a side of his hip. His heart bursts with adoration when she latches her little arms on his shoulders, just like a little koala bear. He leans down carefully to grab his phone and pockets it. The girl stands from her seat next to him too. The other three bid them goodbye and Baekhyun makes it a point not to look at Jongdae and Minseok as he leaves because he can already see their disgustingly smug smiles on their faces without even looking at them.

The girl leads the way out of Jongdae’s apartment and back into hers. She turns the lights on and guides him the only bedroom in the house. Baekhyun takes in the bare setting of her home while she lays down the floor mattresses that were folded and kept at the corner of the room. Then, she goes over to Baekhyun and offers to take Jinju, but he only smiles softly and shakes his head. Instead, he steps carefully towards the mattresses and kneels on the floorboards, gently laying Jinju down, placing her head on the smallest pillow apart from the two normal sized pillows on each side of it.

Jinju is blinking up at him sleepily. Baekhyun her hair and murmurs softly, “Any song requests, Princess Jinju?”

“The Three Bears,” she answers right away.

This only reminds him of the night he sang her sister to sleep. So he lifts his head and looks at the older girl, who is sitting on Jinju’s other side. She gives him a shy smile and Baekhyun thinks that has to be the most beautiful smile she has though every other one isn’t far behind. His lips tilt into a gentle smile all on its own. He turns back to Jinju and starts singing for her in a slow and quiet voice, easily bringing her to sleep by the time he repeats the song a second time.

When she is fully unconscious, Baekhyun feels a warm touch on his elbow, causing his heart beat to shoot up. He lifts his head to look at the girl who is smiling at him. She tips her head in the direction of the door, gesturing for him to go outside. He nods and Jinju’s soft hair one last time before standing up from the ground. The girl follows him out, turning off the light as she leaves. Baekhyun stops just a few steps away from the door of the apartment and then turns to her. She is smiling softly up at him.

“Thanks, Baekhyun,” she says quietly, her soothing voice still managing to make Baekhyun’s stomach queasy.

He shakes his head. “Jinju’s adorable.”

She chuckles, nodding her head. “She is. I love her so much.”

“I can tell,” he whispers, staring at her glazed eyes and her serene yet distant smile.

She darts her eyes back to him. She looks at him for a long moment, not even scanning his face, just simply looking into his eyes. He holds his breath, for some reason feeling like he is at an audition, hoping for an approval. She finally lets out a quiet hum and smiles at him, her eyes a liquid brown that makes Baekhyun’s insides feel like liquid too.

“You’re a great guy, Baekhyun,” she murmurs sincerely.

His heart skips at the praise. But like a puppy wanting to receive more affection and also much more confident now without Jongdae and Minseok around, he goes, “Great enough for you?”

She quirks a smile as she lets out a quiet, tinkling chuckle that has Baekhyun grinning too. She is so beautiful. She shrugs. “In the making, maybe,” she teases, nodding her head.

If he was a robot, Baekhyun thinks he might have had a system breakdown. His heart is racing way too fast and his brain has stopped working. He gulps thickly.

“Will you help me, then?” he breathes, not even caring that he sounds dumb because he is ing in love with this girl and all he sees is her and he just wants her to love him back.

She hums. “Depends on the reason why you need my help.”

“So I’m not just a great guy to you,” he says, words just forming without even him thinking of what to say next. He swears to God that being in love has to come under black magic, or something.

She gives him another analytical glance. Baekhyun completely bares himself for her to read his thoughts and expression, desperate for her to understand that he is serious about her. And she does. She exhales and her facial muscles relax. The smile playing on her lips is only slightly playful and only very much sweet.

“I’ll call you, Baekhyun,” is all she says but Baekhyun knows with all his exploding heart that she has given him the green light to woo her.

He tries to play it cool, hoping she doesn’t notice his body trembling with all the fireworks he is trying to pent up in his body. It is only when she shuts the door with a Good night, get home safe, does he run across and pounds on Jongdae’s door. And when Minseok opens the door with wide eyes, Baekhyun hugs him, runs into the apartment and starts embracing Jongdae and Aera.

Jongdae and Minseok watch him punch his fists into the air, amused to see him this happy for the first time in years. They let him expel all his restrained happiness before jumping on him for details. And, like a lovesick schoolgirl, he sits them down excitedly and tells them everything before transitioning into that phase where he worries over when she might call him and if she’d even call him. And when Jongdae and Minseok reassure him that she will, he starts to plan out dates to bring her on and outfits to wear.

Jongdae and Minseok have never seen Baekhyun this crazy over a girl, not even his first love. And as funny as it may seem to them, they find it extremely endearing and cute.

Baekhyun has also long stopped trying to fight his thoughts about him changing and acting out of whack. He had never sang anyone to sleep before, he has never gotten close to a kid before or even tried to, and he has never fallen in love before. He had been so worried over his behaviour when it came to her but he has now completely let everything run its course. Because he realises there will always be a first for everything and he wouldn’t spend his firsts on anyone else.