If Toben was usually hyper, it got even worse as soon as Chanyeol got his leash out and gave the signal that it was time to go out for a walk.

"If you keep jumping around I won’t be able to put it on you and then we won’t be able to get out of here," he gently scolded the puppy, scratching behind his ears in a moment of calm.

As soon as Chanyeol tried clipping his leash on his collar again, Toben started wiggling around and Chanyeol had to physically hold onto his excited to keep him in place. He booped his nose as soon as the leash was on and get up with a groan. That had been exhausting.

"Now, remember," he said, wiggling his finger at the puppy and watching him tilt his head, tongue out and breath quick. He looked so cute Chanyeol wanted to stop there and take a dozen pictures of him but he kept his voice firm and his finger chiding. "If people out there try and say hi to you, you should at least look at them. Getting ignored by a dog is the most hurtful feeling in the world. Let’s be kind, buddy, alright?" 

He waited a short moment, staring into Toben’s eyes to make sure he was understood. He then nodded to himself in satisfaction and turned towards the door, putting his shoes on as Toben sniffled on an unused pair.

Before he could open the door, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket, unlocked the door with one hand and tugged the phone out of his pocket with his other hand to take a quick look at it. He stopped despite Toben’s impatient yip as soon as he saw the name on the Snapchat notification. Dropping the leash, he grabbed his phone with his two hands and opened up the app, staring at the red square next to Baekhyun’s name.

He’d been waiting for this moment the whole week, ever since they’d exchanged phone numbers and social media accounts back when they’d been at Baekhyun’s apartment. Chanyeol hadn’t sent him a snap first, he’d taken a few pics of random things a few times before deleting it every single time instead of sending it. He’d chickened out too many times, he didn’t even know why. Baekhyun made him a little more cowardly than he knew himself to be.

But Baekhyun had sent him a snap. And this was so stupid, Chanyeol’s heart dropped to his stomach as hard as he imagined it would if Baekhyun were to ever confess his love to him. He hoped that wouldn’t happen though. It would be worrying if Baekhyun fell in love with him after meeting him less than ten times.

He took a deep breath in and opened up the picture, features melting into a smile as soon as he saw the smiling corgi laying tummy up on the grass. Someone’s happy to be at the park, the caption said and Chanyeol stared at it for much longer than he should. Baekhyun was such a good puppy parent. It was a relief.

Because Chanyeol should take his child into consideration when it came to his romantic life and sure, his life wasn’t remotely close to romantic at the moment, even with Baekhyun, but if it ever happened, then he’d be happy. Baekhyun was the second parent Toben deserved. And Chanyeol was totally the second parent Mongryong deserved. The kind that would help Baekhyun actually keep Mongryong in his own house instead of his parents’. He’d said that he had no choice but to leave him to his parents all the time because he was too busy and didn’t want to make him wait at home alone all day, almost every day.

Toben jumped up the wall, trying to reach for Chanyeol’s jacket, where it was hung. With a snort, Chanyeol pressed on the screen and opened up his camera to take a video of the puppy jumping and scratching on the wall before turning to Chanyeol and trying to climb up his legs instead. He captioned it with someone’s excited to go to the park too, and sent it to Baekhyun before finally getting out of the house with a tiny bark of joy from the pup.

The reply didn’t come until Chanyeol was away from his house, Toben walking much too quicker than he should, tugging on the leash and sniffling around as they headed to the park. When the pup stopped at a random part of the pavement, Chanyeol finally got his phone out and swiped the notification open. 

Oh which park are you going to? Baekhyun said and Chanyeol smiled at the lack of typos this time. It was still adorable to imagine Baekhyun typing quickly and carelessly on his keyboard in the midst of a busy day.

There’s this park right across a starbucks, he started typing before shaking his head and erasing it. There was a much simpler way to explain it. The park where we ran into each other last time! he sent.

Toben started walking again and Chanyeol kept his phone in hand, following him and smiling when a little girl stopped her mother to wave at the pup. Toben stopped and sniffled her hand before letting her pat his little head. Chanyeol proudly smiled at the mother. He’d educated his bestest friend pretty well. 

When the woman tugged her daughter away, Chanyeol checked his phone again. I’m there too! Baekhyun had sent. Do you wanna meet up so our sons can play together?

Chanyeol didn’t even bother toning down the excitement in the yesss!!! that he sent and for once, he walked almost faster than Toben as they headed towards the park. Chanyeol perhaps should’ve dressed himself better, worn his favorite hoodie instead of this one red hoodie he rarely ever wore allied to a dark blue, thin scarf. He had no idea how his hair looked, didn’t even bother checking on the reflection of his phone. Baekhyun had surely seen him in a worse state and Chanyeol knew he wasn’t that terrible-looking even in his worst days.

Baekhyun, though, looked absolutely unreal no matter what day of the week, what time of the day,  or what period of his life it was. He didn’t really have the means to check that last one, maybe, but Chanyeol had seen him drunk off his mind. It had always been a sight to behold, just like it was now, as Baekhyun sat on a bench, waiting for him, looking up at him through the purity of his eyes. If he looked sharp and sleek with beautiful makeup on, he looked just as pretty with the bare droop of his eyelids, the pigmentation at the corners of them, the slight puffiness of his dark circles, and the brilliance of his smile.

"I hope our kids will like each other," was what he greeted Chanyeol with. It was such a stupid thing to say. But nor really. It puffed Chanyeol’s chest, made his answering laugh breathy and heavy. 

He kind of wanted to pat Baekhyun. He kind of looked like a puppy himself. Was that why he seemed like the perfect puppy parent to Toben? Probably. 

"Toben can make friends with anyone," he assured the other, plopping down next to him.

Baekhyun stretched his legs in front of him. Stylish jeans and a cuddly deep red sweater. It fell on his shoulder perfectly, snug on the roundness of its edge. Chanyeol wanted to kiss his shoulder. He didn’t know why, it was random and weird, but that shoulder just looked like it deserved a smooch and Chanyeol would happily oblige.

But they didn’t have that kind of relationship.

"Mongryong is often too lazy to make friends, as you can see," Baekhyun said, nodding towards his puppy. Chanyeol laughed at the way he was just ignoring Toben’s attempt at bonding with him through continuously walking around him and barking at him. 

"Toben won’t give up easily. He’s gonna do that with intervals until Mongryong gives up and looks at him."

"Your doggo really does sound crazy," Baekhyun said, laughing when Chanyeol turned to look at him with an exaggerated gasp. "Crazy cute!" Chanyeol narrowed his eyes at him until Baekhyun pushed him with a hand on his shoulder and they both laughed.

Toben barked, pulling their attention to him. The two puppies stood across from each other until Toben ran towards Mongryong who turned around and ran to the other side. Relatable. Chanyeol sometimes wanted to run away from Toben’s excitement too. But then life would without his bestest friend so he’d always come back to run after him anyway.

"How was your day?"

Chanyeol turned to Baekhyun with a shrug. Before his brain could muster up an answer, it got sabotaged by the blink of Baekhyun’s eyes. It was just blinking, nothing extraordinary, nothing amazing about it and yet, Baekhyun made it look like a spectacle Chanyeol should be paying a huge sum to witness.

"You look very cute without makeup on," he said, not a blurting out but a full, honest enunciation of that thought. Baekhyun was cute and Chanyeol had no problem letting him know.

Baekhyun hummed. "You mean I look better without makeup on?" 

"No, no, that’s not what I meant. You’re cute with makeup on too. It’s a different kind of cute from now though. Not lesser or greater, just different." He tugged the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands. It was a little cold. Baekhyun didn’t seem affected by it, he was staring at Chanyeol unwaveringly, listening to him. It made him just a little nervous. The good kind of nervous. "I think you look good both ways."

When Baekhyun smiled, small but defined, Chanyeol figured this must be what appreciation looked like on him. Maybe he’d given a good answer, a good and genuine one.

"Thank you," Baekhyun said, turning his body a little more towards him, resting one elbow on top of the backrest of the bench, supporting his head on his palm. His hair looked so nice, it would probably feel feather-soft if Chanyeol ran his fingers through it. "How was your day?"

"The usual," he said, dragging his gaze away from Baekhyun to check up on the dogs. They were running around together now, Mongryong chasing Toben, Toben running back towards him when Mongryong randomly stopped running. As if he really was too lazy to bother running. "I spent the day translating. What about you?"

"I spent the day doing makeup," Baekhyun answered, moving his hand, running his fingers through his hair. Chanyeol watched the movement with envy. "I did people’s makeup all day. I had a really funny client.While I was doing her foundation she asked me where I got this big sponge and then I discovered that she never wet her beauty blenders. She’d given up on them bc she couldn’t get it to work and found them lame."

Chanyeol huffed a snort. "Even I know how to use beauty blenders."

"Yeah, because I’m the one who taught you," Baekhyun chortled, bursting through the pride straightening Chanyeol’s shoulders. "You thought it was some kind of stress-relief ball when you saw it in my beauty room."

"It looked very misleading, alright," Chanyeol grumbled, about to fight back against Baekhyun’s cute mocking grimace when the puppies barked at them.

They both looked towards them just in time to see Toben lurching himself towards the other side of the park, Mongryong following shortly after.

"The craziness is spreading to your dog," Chanyeol teasingly warned Baekhyun as they both stood up to see the balls of fluff better. 

Mongryong ran much slower than Toben who was already on the other side. There was a lot of trees around this park, Chanyeol usually didn’t like letting Toben out of his sight and judging by the way Baekhyun rose on his tiptoes to see better, he didn’t either.

"Guess we gotta run with them. I’m not used to that," Baekhyun said, although more than a complaint or discomfort, it sounded like excitement when he fell back down to the sole of his feet.

"I’m very used to it, unfortunately," Chanyeol sighed theatrically, putting his hands on his waist.

Baekhyun threw him a crooked smile. "The loser pays for coffee after this."

Before Chanyeol could even register that demand, the fact that Baekhyun wanted to get coffee with him, Baekhyun already sprinted away.

Chanyeol didn’t like running for anything except for Toben. He’d missed the train or the metro once too many times from refusal of working his body that hard. 

When he caught up to Baekhyun and ran right behind him, heard his laughter and saw the lovely mooning of his eyes when he glanced at him over his shoulder, he thought that he wouldn’t mind adding Baekhyun to the list of names he’d run for.

There were three things Chanyeol hated.

One, people who hated dogs.

Two, people who hated animals.

Three, thunderstorms.

Four, Naver Translate. That translator was . Kept giving Chanyeol mistranslations when he’d been in college and was trying to translate a literary text. Wordreference was much better. God bless word reference and its many qualities. His teacher had once said that that online translator . Chanyeol had decided to hate him from then on.

But five. Five was the sight of Baekhyun crying. Not really crying. There was no tears as he looked up at Baekhyun, just a scrunched up face and closed eyes. Chanyeol kind of wanted to hold his face and tug his features apart to see if he’d look adorable even with an eye where his mouth should be. 

But that would be inappropriate. This was a drastic situation.

"Are you sure you can’t find them?" Chanyeol asked, looking around as if Baekhyun’s shoes would jump out from behind the couch. Toben always hid between his couch and his coffee table. Maybe Baekhyun’s shoes would hide there too.

"I looked everywhere," Baekhyun whined, lower lip trembling. Chanyeol’s mood glitched as it followed the movement. "They’re not here. They left the house. Why did they leave my house? It’s our house, Chanyeol, what did I do that made my shoes want to leave, Chanyeol?"

He didn’t know. He had no idea why anyone would ever want to leave Baekhyun’s house. This was a nice party. More crowded than Jongdae’s or Junmyeon’s or Sooyeon’s parties were. With colorful people. So much makeup, on boys, on girls, on drag queens, on Baekhyun. Blue, bluer blue, darker blue, glossy blue. Blue. Blue. It didn’t run on his face. Beauty didn’t wanna leave his face. Chanyeol wouldn’t want to leave either if he was on Baekhyun’s face. That was one amazing face.

"Chanyeol," Baekhyun groaned, grabbing his hand and tugging. Someone patted his head while walking past behind him and Baekhyun turned to grin at them like the sun before scrunching his nose at Chanyeol again. Even sadness looked breathtaking on Baekhyun. The red puffiness of his eyes, the sparkles around them, in them. Just what could even not look good on Baekhyun?

"Sorry," he said, not really knowing why. He just felt bad for Baekhyun. "Maybe they left because you took them off?"

He didn’t even remember why Baekhyun had taken them off. It had been a  bad decision. But Chanyeol supported it. He would support all of Baekhyun’s decisions unless they might potentially harm him or someone else. Chanyeol would be such a good husband to Baekhyun. Perhaps he should go on a hunt to find the shoes and then give them to Baekhyun in exchange of his hand in marriage. But he didn’t want to blackmail Baekhyun. Perhaps he should wait until the day Baekhyun professed his love to him and gave him a proposal full of puppies.

He was shaken out of his fantasies by Baekhyun’s loudening wail.

"You mean it’