Characters: Kyungsoo, Baekhyun

Five years prior.

Sehun was pouting, “Come on, he's cute. Why do you dislike him so much?”
“That's just because he's smiling this disgustingly while talking about you and you don't even know the basic swearing in sign language. If you did, then you would understand my reasoning. If you did, then you would at least get the surface of his swearing, ”, Kyungsoo was skimming through all different kinds of documents strewn all over his desk.
“What did he say?”
“You'd kill him on the spot with your bare hands”, Kyungsoo looked up.
“... But can't we, I dunno, badmouth him?”
“‘Badmouth him’, seriously, how old are you? Ten? Have you considered that he's able to read lips?”
“Duh, can't we cover our mouths?”
Defeated, Kyungsoo glared at the younger one and pointed an accusing finger at him, ”You haven’t considered that you're not able to hide your facial expression as well! And I don’t think he’s deaf...”

Sehun remained silent.
“See?!”
“And now? Kill him?”
“That was my initial plan, but he 'promised', or more like I threatened him, not to tell the police. But that isn't our problem anyway, the madman was going berserk and that’s more concerning, even if he's not one of us. But I don’t know how much value his word- sign- whatever holds”, Kyungsoo trailed off and highlighted a passage in a document about Byun Baekhyun before continuing reading. He squinted his eyes, with an arched brow, tapping the tip of his nose with his pen, he was immersed into the document once again and scribbled some notes beside a passage further down.
“And if he rats us out?”
“My thoughts exactly. Yixing?” he tapped his chin in thought and addressed the third party in his office, without looking up.

A little out of it, Lay looked up from his task that included polishing and sharpening his knives, “Hmm?”
Kyungsoo propped his chin on his palm and sighed for the umpteenth time that day, “Any options?”
Lay looked from Kyungsoo to Sehun and back. Pointing the tip of the knife he was sharpening at Sehun, he began to speak, “Teaching Sehunnie sign language?

“Ha, ha…” Kyungsoo dryly laughed.
“Hey! I'm not that dumb!” Sehun defended himself.
“You don't know a single thing when it comes to social norms. How did Jongin even end up with you?” Lay declined and shook his head.
“You’re giving your technical devices pet names!” Kyungsoo pointed towards Sehun’s phone.
“Don't bull Priscilla!” about to throw a fit, Sehun threw his hands up.

“See? I told you”, Kyungsoo grimaced towards Lay.
“You really weren’t kidding, were you? Priscilla? Seriously? God, Sehun! That's what we're talking about!” Lay exclaimed in utter horror. He knew it was bad, but that bad?
“I see what you two are getting at”, Sehun meekly admitted.

Feeling somewhat sorry for his little brother, Kyungsoo directed the discussion back to the main problem at hand, “Back to the topic. We can't kidnap him, he's famous... kinda. And in light of the current situation, it would be too obvious.”
“Tailing, like blackmailing is not an option?” Lay asked.
“Would be an option, but I'm not sure. He has his tactics to escape fairly well and often. I told you how often he escaped our men”, Kyungsoo deadpanned.
“Aye. Letting it die down? It was Kai after all, not us. We can worry about him another time”, Sehun added.
Lay shook his head, “No. He may not be with us, but he's associated with us and the PD and officer Kim would love to go up against us.”

Resting his head in his hand, Kyungsoo spun his pen around, and more to himself he spoke up, “Back to square one, I guess…”
Leaning forward in his armchair, Sehun stared intensely at his older brother.
“And if we try talking with him again?”
“WE? I see no ‘us’ here. You mean I! So I'm stuck with that bastard!”
The thought left a stale aftertaste on Kyungsoo’s tongue.
“Pretty please?”

Lay made a gagging sound, “That display of attempted cuteness was disgusting. That was the most disgusting thing I have seen in a long time. I might vomit.”
Kyungsoo was still cringing because of it, “Same.”
Sehun smirked, he already had both of them twisted around his little finger long ago, “But you can’t say no, can you?”
Kyungsoo slumped down over his desk, “I wanna die so bad right now.”

════════════════

A few days later, dropping another cigarette on the ground, Kyungsoo was gnawing on his thumb. All the information of Byun Baekhyun he had collected the past few days were concerning, to say the least.

Growing up in an orphanage. His manager was a total who was exploiting a young man without guidance in his life, taking away his desired career path for something entirely different.

Talking with Sehun on the phone, he received constant updates about Byun’s SNS updates for the day.
“The press con starts at 1 pm sharp, there’s an ID card for you at the front desk. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have thought you were a fanboy of Byun”, Sehun’s voice chuckled through the earpiece.
“ you.”

Kyungsoo was busy rolling another cigarette when he heard screaming. Looking up into the direction of the sound, he wetted the glue with the tip of his tongue, and dragging it along the glue in one swift motion, he finally rolled up his cigarette.
“I hear those fangirls’ ovaries exploding over the line, should I call back later?”
With the cigarette dangling between his lips, Kyungsoo hummed in response, “Don’t cut the call. Suffer with me.”

Lighting it, he made his way over to the horde of mentally pre-teen girls. Pulling his hood and his cap deeper into his face, he mumbled to himself how controversial it is that the girls scream when the man’s supposedly deaf, but then he reconsidered that silent screaming would have been weird as well, “He’s just a model, for ’s sake, not an idol in a nine-member boy group.”

Taking in all the disgusted stares due to his smoking, he just stood near the girls and waited. Baekhyun came out of the building and politely greeted his fans while being ushered by his manager. Kyungsoo, waiting for his opportunity, or more specifically, some eye contact just stood there. Lit cigarette between his lips, hands in his hoodie pocket, and the fakest, dumbest grin was plastered on his face.

Once Baekhyun spotted him, his expression darkened for a split second before he returned to his fake smile. Kyungsoo’s sign language might have been a bit rusty, but even this short time was enough the get his message through. He just lifted his left hand to a fake salute. Baekhyun got the message and he didn’t like being called a bastard one bit. Both men still maintained occasional eye contact, Kyungsoo’s eyes never leaving Baekhyun, watching him like a lion waiting for his prey. Kyungsoo pointed both his index fingers towards himself before shaking both hands twice, palms facing upwards. ‘Just a chat’, he mouthed.

Disappearing in the sea of people out of sight, he spoke up again, “Sehun? Number?”
“Private one? Just arrived.”
Kyungsoo thanked Sehun and disconnected the call. He fished out his phone, after a little bit of scrolling and swiping here and there, he found the desired number and created a new message.

to ‘Byun’: 1500 cafe bora no manager

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Baekhyun’s press conference started at 1 pm sharp and Kyungsoo wanted to pay him back for the first time they met. Baekhyun estimated that Kyungsoo did not know sign language and constantly cussed at him to the point where he even signed about his mother, all the while, a fake smile was stretched on his lips. Kyungsoo just wanted to genuinely talk about Kai at that time. In the end, he wrote a note with his reasoning and all it took Baekhyun to agree was a gun muzzle pushed at his temple.

Arriving a bit later than Baekhyun, Kyungsoo stood at the very back and leaned against the wall. Halfway through the conference -which, by the way, was total bull- Byun finally spotted Kyungsoo, his self-proclaimed nemesis. Glancing at the clock, he wondered how long that guy was already there and how he got in, but he already had a bad feeling.

A lot of the questions revolved around him being deaf-mute, how he was interacting with fans and things like that. He was seriously tired of these questions, but he answered them nonetheless. His manager has been dragging him from one event to another and he didn’t understand why. Why is it so important that he’s unable to speak and hear? He’s just a model and nothing more.

Much to his interpreter’s dismay, he started a lengthy explanation about how sweet it is that his fans try to learn sign language to communicate with him. When his interpreter wasn’t even halfway through the interpreting process, he spotted Kyungsoo subtly signing him “bull”. After that, he continuously eyed him during the interpretation process. Baekhyun was visibly shaken, as Kyungsoo commented on the questions the way Baekhyun wanted to answer - harsh, rude, and most importantly, honest. How could he even know that?

Through the rest of the conference Baekhyun’s face just resembled a doll face, eyes slightly widened and smile forced, it already started to hurt his cheeks, due to Kyungsoo picking up all of his fake answers.

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After the room was clear beside a couple of people, Kyungsoo approached Baekhyun and not much to his surprise, the interpreter, bodyguard and his manager all have left without him, just leaving him all alone, not even checking on him. Baekhyun looked kind of down, Kyungsoo noticed. He stood before him for a good minute before Baekhyun finally looked up. The rims of his eyelids were watery. Wiping his face, he glared at Kyungsoo.

“Mr Byun?” Kyungsoo smiled at him, eyes cold.
He was flipped off by Baekhyun and it was kind of refreshing to see him without his happy-go-lucky demeanour, just a raw presentation of himself, the real Byun Baekhyun. Kyungsoo signed him a ‘why’ and was answered with a look that seemed to say ‘what’, kind of glaring, scrunched eyebrows, upper lip slightly pulled back, a little bit of upper teeth showing. Kyungsoo sighed and pointed into the empty room behind him. Baekhyun pointed his finger at the door, empty, exhausted. Kyungsoo tapped his glasses and mouthed ‘manager’, to which Baekhyun nodded.

Kyungsoo motioned Baekhyun to follow him and gave him a cap and jacket to cover himself. Baekhyun was unsure of what to make of it at first. Using the back exit and the side roads towards their destination, the two of them walked in unusual, comfortable silence. “It should have been that way all along”, Kyungsoo mumbled to himself. He pulled out his tobacco and started rolling himself a cigarette, tugging the pouch under his arm. When he was done, he handed everything to his companion. He received a questioning look. A series of movements involving him touching his cheek before letting his hand hang loosely down, but Kyungsoo pointed towards Baekhyun and then at his cigarette. Baekhyun widened his eyes and his mouth formed an O. Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his head.

To an outsider, it may have seemed like Baekhyun blew Kyungsoo a kiss, but it was just a “thank you”, a genuine smile finally forming on his lips. The mute had to stop, otherwise, he wasn’t able to roll a smokable cigarette. His clumsy demeanour spoke for itself; he hadn’t done it in a long time. Suddenly his phone vibrated and upon seeing the message his expression fell and darkened all over. Kyungsoo snatched his phone and checked for himself. Baekhyun had received a message from his manager, who was calling him all sorts of names and demanded him to come back. Kyungsoo just shut off the phone and back-pocketed it, all the while observing Baekhyun who stared at him wide-eyed.

Kyungsoo, on the other hand, handed him a lighter. Baekhyun pointed towards Kyungsoo, touching his cheeks, he moved his palms inwards before moving them away from each other. A “thank you” executed with both hands followed and Kyungsoo discovered tears slowly collecting themselves in the corner of Baekhyun’s eyes. Kyungsoo arched an eyebrow and waved him off. Shrugging his shoulders he signed Baekhyun ‘I’m the mafia, did you forget? That’s why I know so much.’

Baekhyun’s smile faltered a little, he shook his head ‘no’ and smiled again. Looking around, he suddenly tugged at Kyungsoo’s sleeve, catching him off guard. Kyungsoo didn’t have much time to be confused, because Baekhyun was already pulling him by his arm towards a little cafe on the side road. He chuckled, Baekhyun’s behaviour reminded him of a puppy or Sehun; either would be accurate. A smile graced his lips. Baekhyun had a light skip in his stepping pattern.

“You know, Baekhyun, I know you’re not deaf.”
Baekhyun stopped dead in his tracks, let out a yelp of surprise and let go of Kyungsoo in an instant. Turning around, he cautiously looked at Kyungsoo. His eyes were wide open and fear was radiating in them, eyes dilated and eyelids raised.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me. I know what happened to you, the reason you don’t speak. I won’t force you to talk, I’m just here to talk about the whole Kai-going-bananas-thing the other day and how we get you out of the model slave contract your manager forced you into. We had a rough start after all. But I’m not sorry for threatening you with a gun, you called my mother all sorts of things. Let’s get to know each other”, Kyungsoo patted him on his back, while the younger one was mouthing non-stop apologies. Kyungsoo held the door open for Baekhyun to enter and showed him a genuine heart-shaped smile, no malice behind it. He meant it and Baekhyun seemed more than amazed and confused.