About ten minutes ago, you were over the moon for getting a hybrid. Yet now, you were being told off for not doing your job properly. Life never failed to bring you back to Earth.

“You’re supposed to help improve the tone of the book, not change it.” Haejin told you, rather tactfully, actually. Once your boss called you over, you thought it’d be much, much worse. “I’ve never read something more positive.”

He relaxed back into his chair, eyes going from the computer screen to you. His point had been made, and you surpassed the urge to sit on top of your hands and keep them from twitching. Haejin wasn’t angry, not really. Thinking about it, you couldn’t pinpoint a moment in time when he had been angry, and that counting that time an intern spilled coffee all over his desk. And that had been you, so there’s no way you remembered it wrong.

Still, you had to at least try to defend your craft, right?

“Isn’t it improved then?” you asked hopefully.

He looked over his glasses. “It’s a horror story.”

Right.

“I am so, so sorry. I’ll start over right away,” You pleaded “it wasn’t even halfway finished anyway.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll assign it to someone else, but I do need you back in the game. I don’t know what’s happening to you, but you better fix it.” he waved his hand in dismissal.

You got out of the office, sweet relief passing through you as the door closed behind you. He wasn’t wrong about you being off your game, there’s no helping how distracted you were lately.

The whole “background check” required by the shelter didn’t really seem like much to you. That is, until you actually had to wait a week to be approved. Everyday was twice as long than usual, every little mistake you ever made repeatedly reappearing in your mind like a curse. Why did you ever call your second grade math teacher an ugly frog face? That went into your permanent record. Stupid, stupid!

But yesterday you finally heard from them and went to pick Baekhyun up. Now the problem was the awkwardness. That weird vibe people get stuck into when they’ve just met and aren’t sure what to talk about. Annoying as it was, according to your favorite blog, My Pet and Me (a very useful, though grammatically incorrect, source of hybrid info), most people go through this during the first few days of cohabiting. So you were only mildly worried, and mostly excited. Hopefully, he was feeling the same.

During that week, you had plenty of time to prepare for his arrival. Time you spent essentially thinking about cleaning while doing other menial tasks, like online shopping or watching Netflix. The one thing you refused to do was decorate his room. Sure, the poor cat had to sleep on the couch for a night, and sure, you felt a little guilty about not offering your bed, but today he’d get to pick his own mattress! Overall, decorating his room seemed like something personal, something Baekhyun would feel better doing himself.

Except he was horrible at it.

“That’s all? You’re sure?” You asked, astonished.

Baekhyun was embarrassed. The salesman was embarrassed. Heck, the old lady that kept following you around the store, waiting for the salesman to become available to help her, was embarrassed. You, however, were not. You were flabbergasted.

“Hm, I don’t really need much.” He answered in a hushed voice.

“You don’t say.” You tried to lower your tone as well.

On the way to the store, you kept telling yourself that there needed to be a price limit. You couldn’t simply go on a merry shopping spree with Baekhyun, only to be left with an empty wallet for the rest of the month. Besides, that was rule number 3 of My pet and Me: "Don’t spoil them too much, like, they totally won’t respect you later", which sounded a lot like rule number 7: "Set boundaries and stuff". So it had to be important, you were all about it. But there was no need to get hyped about saving money, because Baekhyun only asked for a bed and a nightstand. A nightstand! the most boring furniture of all!

“Surely that can’t be everything you want.” You turned to the salesman for support. “What about a wardrobe? An armchair? A rug? Oh!” something clicked in your brain. “Little glowing stars for the ceiling!”

“We don’t sell those.” The salesman informed.

“Not helping!” you gestured around frantically. “Show us some LED lights then.”

Now it was the salesman who turned to Baekhyun with pleading eyes. Traitor.

“Can’t wait to waste all your money on me, huh?” Baekhyun said playfully.

You gasped, cheeks reddening. “No!” Wasting money was the exact opposite of what you wanted, but still, only a bed and a nightstand? No way he only needed that. It’d be cruel to let him live in a room like that.

“Hey,” he lightly pulled on your sleeve. “this is all kind of new to me. I don’t know how I want to furnish the room yet.”

Okay, you just picked him up yesterday, maybe he just needed some time to adjust. “But…”

Baekhyun pouted “Please?”

The salesman’s smirk followed you all the way to the cash register.

***

Your apartment wasn’t anything big, or special. No walls separated the small Kitchen from the living room, and it had only one bathroom. Once you got it, you chose to let the master bedroom vacant and keep the guest room to yourself. Sure, your room was slightly smaller, but it had more hours of sunlight and the view was prettier.

Wooden bed parts filled the master bedroom, that was now your pet’s bedroom, weird as that sounded. You were trying to assemble the damned furniture for almost an hour, and it wasn’t nowhere near resembling a bed. Why you decide to put the furniture together yourself every single time you move was beyond you. It’s like you secretly enjoyed the suffering. That, and the assembly costs were half a fortune.

“Honestly, why make a manual without words? That’s the number one thing they need.” You inspected the images for the hundredth time, unsure of which screw to use next. Once you turned the instructions upside down, Baekhyun cleared his throat.

“Let me take a look.” He leaned closer.

Four long seconds passed before you let yourself give him a side glance, Baekhyun’s full attention on the instructions. He really is gorgeous, you thought. Sure, the memory of you basically announcing it to the world still made you shake your head in embarrassment during random hours of the day, but it didn’t make it any less true. Your heart skipped a beat as your eyes traveled from his face to his ears. So, so fluffy. Slowly, your right hand released the manual in your grasp, and moved towards his ears. He’s so close, I could just-

A loud music made you jump, and you retreated your hands to your chest. Two feet from you, your phone blasted Wonder Woman’s Theme Song at maximum volume.

“You ok?” Baekhyun asked.

“Y-yeah,” you stuttered ”just one sec.” Flustered, you reached for your phone.

Every contact on your list got their own hand picked ring-tone, a habit you started during law school. Nothing like spending hours choosing the perfect song for that one guy you got stuck with for a group-project, that did not like you, nor was likely to ever call you, instead of actually doing some research for said project. However, you knew exactly who it was before even looking at the screen, so maybe it was a little useful in the end.

Ji-Woo.

No movement came from your fingers to either answer or reject the call. The phone was left to cry out for as long as it could before the screen went black, all the while you stared at it. You turned it off hesitantly, only then noticing Baekhyun watching you with curious eyes, tail slowly going from one side to the other.

“I’m busy.” You shrugged.

“Hmmm…?” Baekhyun didn’t quite believe your excuse, but thankfully said nothing about it. “I figured out what to do next.” He let out a mischievous smile, pointing at the soon to be his bed.

“You did?” relief coursed through your veins. For a while, you thought he might have to spend another night on the sofa.

Fifteen minutes later you realized that no, he hadn’t truly figured out what to do next. But you carried on following his call, it’s not like you knew what to do either, so why stop now? The only reason you ever finished your bed in the first place, was because your ex-roommate was there to bark orders around. Eventually, the bed was perfectly assembled, and you were left with only a few mysterious screws that seemed to belong nowhere. Now, as long as you refused to look at the nightstand still in its box, there was no other task at hand.

“We did it!” Baekhyun collapsed on top of his mattress and groaned. “Ugh, so goooood.”

“Move over, I want to try it too.” Maybe it was exhaustion talking, but it did feel heavenly. “I am so gonna steal your mattress.”

“No way. I am not above scratching, so don’t you dare.”

Giggling like a kid, you your side to face him. “So…”

“Yeah?”

“Can I pet you?”

He nodded. Okay, this is finally happening. Far from calm, you let your fingers run through his locks and, once he didn’t flinch, slowly reached his cat ears. Baekhyun closed his eyes, purring  away. Oh no, your heart was going to explode, you could even hear it.

The bed fell with a BANG, a short lived scream escaped your throat. Still lying down, facing an equaly terrified Baekhyun, It took you some time to put together what had just happened. The bed just... broke down, you guessed.

“Those screws were important after all, huh?” You got up with a nervous laugh and your heart still going a mile a minute. Baekhyun did the same, except he wasn’t laughing. “Are you hurt?” you asked.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He panicked.

“What for?”

“I broke your bed.”

“It’s not your fault, the bed broke down pretty easily. The poor thing was doomed from the moment we decided to set it up ourselves.” You tried to cheer him up. “Besides, it’s your bed, not mine.”

He averted his gaze. “But you’re the one who paid for it.”

It wasn’t so much what he said, but the way he said it, that got the gears inside your head turning. Your memory went back to this afternoon, to how the hybrid’s eyes would follow different pieces of furniture or decorations, yet he’d never stop to properly look at one. This time, you refused to let the matter slide.

“Baekhyun, why didn’t you ask for more things while we were shopping?”

“Ah,I knew you couldn’t wait to waste your money on me.” He joked with a confidence that didn’t quite match his eyes. You crossed your arms in front of you, waiting for a more serious answer.

Baekhyun sighed, and you forced yourself to remain strong at the sight of his ears going down. “I know hybrids are too expensive.”

You opened your mouth, then closed it again. What? That was it? It couldn’t be the whole problem, no way. Everyone knows that hybrids are too expensive, that’s no plot twist, you had no idea how to work with that info. “If I waste too much money it’s my fault, not yours. There’s no harm in asking for things.”

“Yeah, like no one ever says that to us.” He muttered.

“I’m not heartless. If things get tough, then they get tough.” You shrugged.” But no way I’ll ever take you back to that shelter. Ever.”

He didn’t look convinced. Then again, if you lived in a shelter for years, like he had, you’d probably need some time to trust your new owner as well. “So, you’re really not mad?”

“Of course not. Wait,” You clapped your hands together in excitement. “let me go get my notebook real quick, we can start buying right now. I mean, at the very least, you need a new bed.” You winked. Surely, there was no harm in breaking some rules of My Pet and Me every once in a while. It was just a stupid blog anyway.

“Okay,” He smiled, still unsure “but can we make someone else assemble it?”

***

Y/N [12:46AM]:

Hey hon

Can you lend me some moneeey???

I kind of blew my budget

>___<”

Y/F/N [7:46AM]:

Well

U too huh?