Cashier-boy walks over to us and waves toward Baekhyun. “Hi, I'm Chanyeol. Do you mind if I talk to Ji Ho for a few minutes?”

I make a sign towards Baekhyun that could only be interpreted as ‘tell him no’ but the fairy apparently didn’t get the message because he shrugs and says, “Like I care.”

“It won’t take long. I just tell her something.” And with that he turns to me.

I shrink back with his unexpected eye contact. I would run if there was anywhere to go, but even I know when I lost the fight. So I scowl and flick my wrist at him. “So, what’s so important that you keep bothering me?”

He held out his hand and opened it to reveal a small fuzzy keychain.

“Oh that’s-”

“It fell off your backpack when you left yesterday.”

I cautiously took the keychain from his hand. My fingers slightly brushing against his palm, which made me clear my throat. It was definitely my keychain, but it was a cheap thing I bought from the dollar store. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing.

“A-actually…”  He stutters out.

I look back up at the boy who now looked a little less confident as he stared down at his feet. What kind of boy that tall acts so shy?

“I really just needed an excuse to apologize. I didn’t want to let you leave today without telling you that I’m sorry.”

I blink in response. It’s not often that I hear such honest apologies, so I admit it caught me off guard.

“I shouldn’t have got involved in your business. You had every right to be mad at me.” He says.

I catch Baekhyun peeking over at us with a smug grin and my face goes scarlet. He's definitely eavesdropping

“W-w-whatever. It’s not a big deal.” I turn away so he doesn’t catch a look at my embarrassed face. “Let’s just forget about this and hopefully we never run into each other again.”

“That might be hard, since we live in the same building.”

He drops that bomb so nonchalantly; I almost pass it over. But what!

“You live in my building!?” I manage to spit out.

“You haven’t noticed? We take the same bus to school.”

My mind is flooding with questions and concerns as I desperately try to piece together any memories of this boy living in my building. I bite my nail in worry and glance up at him, but he has not a care in the world as he smiles back at me.

This just got a whole lot messier.

Baekhyun and I walk toward the bus stop, but I can’t help glancing behind my shoulder every few steps because there, casually following us, is Cashier-boy.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be uh… Chanyeol?” It feels weird to say his name out loud.

“I don’t have work today so I’m just going home.” He shrugs and continues to follow behind. I roll my eyes.

“Just let him do what he wants, Korea’s a free country.” Baekhyun chimes in while scrolling through his phone messages. “We shouldn’t be worrying about him anyway. My manager is the real problem so we need to get home as-”

“Ahh!!” I let out a shout which make both the boys turn toward me in surprise. I just barely managed to cover up Baekhyun’s words. ‘We need to get home’, is he crazy? Basically, announcing to the world that he lives with me.

“Something’s is definitely wrong with you.” Baekhyun walks ahead of me, shaking his head. Murmuring that maybe he should just go ahead and turn himself into his manager instead.

Cashier-boy jogs up to take the place at my side and leans in to whisper. “So, I don’t want to be rude but who is that guy? It doesn’t look like he goes to our school.”

“He is the constant pain in my side.” I sigh

“What?”

“My cousin…yeah, my cousin.”

Good save Ji Ho.

Cashier-boy furrows his brows. “Oh.”

By the way, I noticed this kid is getting awfully friendly, too friendly. Leaning in and asking me questions like we're best buddies. I don’t know why I’m suddenly surrounded by people who are so un-deservingly bold but it’s quickly getting on my nerves.

Once we make it to the bus stop, I scoot a few feet away from that kid, to imply that I am in all cases, definitely not his friend. I watch with dismay as the familiar silhouette of the bus rounds the corner and trudges toward us. I don’t think I can bear riding all the way home with cashier-boy watching my every move. It’s awkward, to say the least.

“Actually,” I clear my throat. “I just remembered my cousin needs to pick up his uh…medicine from the pharmacy, isn’t that right?” I nudge Baekhyun in the side.

“Huh?” He growls at me, but I did my elbow deeper into his side.

The bus pulls up in front of us and creaks open its doors. Chanyeol pauses, glancing back and forth between me and the inpatient driver.

“Oh, okay I guess. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, Ji Ho.” Chanyeol says, before hesitantly stepping into the bus.

“Yeah, hope not.” I reply but I’m not sure he hears, since the lug of a machine shuts its doors with a loud huff.

I watch the bus- and Chanyeol- roll away, with a sly grin on my face.

“Can you tell me why we didn’t get on? Especially, since I told you my manager is actively looking for us.” Baekhyun narrows his eyes at me.

“We’ll just catch the next one.”  I wave him off. “But that boy knows too much. Can’t let him figure out that you’re hiding in my place.”

“You worry too much. If he found out, I could just.” He reaches toward my forehead with a glint in his brown eyes. “Rearrange his memory, if you know what I mean.”

I swat his hand away, quickly. “What did I say about your magic stuff. If you don’t want to live on the street again, you better keep that kind of thing to yourself.”

“Don’t be so uptight. Even if that boy found out, he wouldn’t say a thing. Because he likes you too much.”

“L-l-likes me?” I cough, nearly choking from surprise. “W-what on earth gives you that idea?”

He shrugs me off. “If you can’t even notice that. You’re hopeless.”

I fan my face in an effort to bring down the temperature rising in the tips of my ears. Likes me? Only a fairy could come up with such an off-the-wall conclusion like that. It's not like anyone in their right mind would ever like me anyway.

It isn’t long until the next bus pulls up, but it brings a surprising face along with it, one that makes the edge of my lip twitch in annoyance. Plastered on the bus’s side is long banner with a picture of Baekhyun right smack in the middle of it, the rest of the cast smiling behind him with the words “The Lovely Ones, airs Mon/Tues at 6PM” written over their heads.

Baekhyun raises his eyebrows at me and mouths something along the lines of “I’m famous”.

I ignore him and enter into the bus. I take a seat in the back by the window, my usual spot, and Baekhyun slips into the seat next to me. You wouldn't think that out of all the crazy things he's done today, this would be the thing that surprises me the most. But it caught me by complete surprise.

It wasn't a big gesture and a normal person wouldn't think twice about it. But it has been so long since anyone had sat next to me on the bus without being forced to because it was rush hour and there was nowhere else to sit. The way Baekhyun naturally slid in beside me, despite there being plenty of other places to sit, made me pause. It was almost like how friends sit beside each other. How my friends used to sit next to me. Way back when-

“Hey, you’ve got that dumb look on your face again.” Baekhyun literally snaps me out of my memory. Which I’m glad for because there’s no reason I should be thinking about that time in my life. That was gone and this was the reality.

“It’s nothing,” I turn toward fairy-boy. "Say, do you have any friends?"

"What? That's random." He scoffs.

"Call it a sixth-sense, but I can recognize a fellow loner when I see one."

"I'm not like you." He sniffs and sits up taller in his chair. "I have lots of friends, so many I can't even count. Plus who wouldn't want to be friends with me?"

"Then why aren't you staying at any of their places?"

His eyes dart back and forth under his baseball cap, as he tries to make some excuse up. "I just don't want to bother them. Celebrities are different, you wouldn't know."

I nod dismissively. So he doesn't have friends either. I guess that makes me feel some sort of kinship with him.

"So, then what about your manager? What's his issue? Celebrities usually don't run away from their managers,do they?" I ask.

"There's no issue, just a small misunderstanding."

My lips pull into a grin."He wants to fire you doesn't he?"

He tries his best to center himself by drawing in a deep breath. His words coming out from between his teeth. “Why would they want to fire me. I’m. Byun. Baekhyun.”

“Dunno. Why else would you be running away?” I got to admit it the way he gets flustered so easily made me want to even more.

“It’s none of your business, really.”

“Just admit you’re scared of being fired, it’s okay. I won’t laugh.”

He whips around to face me and pokes my head with his finger. “There’s really nothing up there is there?”

I purse my lips and turn away to face the window. "Fine then, don't tell me." I trail my finger on the glass dramatically. "I guess I'll just go find your manager myself and ask. Kyungsoo was his name,right?"

"You're teasing. You wouldn't be able to find him if you tried." He huffs.

I just shrug back in response. That seems to make him anxious as he just stares at me with a concerning look on his face.

The bus finally reaches our stop and I get off first. "Think what you want fairy-boy." I try my best to keep a straight face but it's hard to stop the smile that's pulling at my lips.

"Ji Ho?" Baekhyun scrambles after me off the bus. "You're joking, right? You're not really going to find him, right? Right?"

I ignore him as I punch in the code for the stairs to the apartment. This was a little too fun.

He calls my name out all the way up the stairs until I unlock the door to my apartment.

"Fine!" He bursts out once we get inside, after I ignored all his pleas. "I'll tell you. Just promise me you'll never try to contact my agency."

I raise an eyebrow for him to continue. He slumps onto the couch, with a dramatic exhale. "My relationship with my manager is... different. He's a fairy too. Actually the whole agency I'm under is completely fairy-run. Our contracts are not business contracts, they're magical contracts. AKA super strict. So any violation such as running away is treating very seriously. They'll do anything to get me back."

"So go back then."

"I can't! Not yet." He starts twiddling his thumbs."I did something. Well I lost something to be exact. And I need to resolve it without them knowing. Only then can I go back. Right now they think I've just ran away for fun. Which is bad but not a super serious. At most I'll get another century added to my contract. But if they find out that I lost....that um, thing then I'll be in big trouble maybe even sent to…" He lowers his voice to a whisper. "Fairy-court.”

I in my lips, in an attempt to contain my laughter. “F-fairy court?”

“It’s a lot more serious than it sounds! So I need to fix my mistake before they find out. If they find me first, Let’s just say it won’t end well for us."

"Us?" At the sound of the word “us” makes me wince. Why am I being roped into this.

"You’re basically an accomplice at this point. Aiding and abetting a criminal.”

I groan and close my eyes. I think I feel a headache coming on.

Bonus

Chanyeol peered out of his window, brushing the curtain aside just enough to see Ji Ho and that boy walking toward the apartment entrance. They were talking and Ji Ho was smiling. Chanyeol’s eyes narrowed as he focused on the boy that she called her cousin. He let the curtain fall before taking a deep sigh.

“Why does she have to be involved in something like this?” He murmurs to himself as his eyes catch on the large painting that hung over his bed. He walks over to it. It's an abstract painting of the sky and most ordinary. Anyone would think he just picked it up at the market or something. But it wasn’t the exactly painting he was interested in.

He reaches out, fingers skimming the wooden frame's edge until he finds the hidden latch. With a click, it opens and the large painting creaks open, like a door on a hinge. Chanyeol stares into the shadowy vault now before him. He hesitantly reaches in, pushing aside the crossbow and the knife collection. Instead he pulls out a book so heavy that he has to use both hands. He plops it down on the kitchen table, coughing as the dust puffs up like smoke in his face. The title of the book burns bright red almost as if glowing. A Hunter’s guide to Magical Beings.

He splits open the book with a thud, his finger skimming through the pages until he lands at the chapter titled Fairies.

Skipping over the section for appropriate methods of capture, his eyes instead fall on the section titled “How to identify”.

 “As fairies are capable of taking on many different forms including some resembling human, identifying them by sight alone is nearly impossible.” Chanyeol mutters under his breath as he reads. “Instead test for magical footprints or observe the suspect’s mannerisms. Common fairy behaviors include extreme vanity, disregard for human well-being, and lightness of foot as if floating.”

He leans back in his chair, staring at the overhead fan. Maybe he was her cousin and he was just overreacting. But he had specifically heard the word magic and something about that guy seemed…unnatural. And his instincts, the one that made the hair on the back of his arms stand up as soon as he saw that guy on the school lawn, those instincts had never lied to him before. He lays a hand over his face blocking his view of the fan blades overhead. He left home so he didn’t have to be a hunter but why is all this magic stuff following him? And a fairy of all things, his family’s specialty.