It had only been fifteen minutes since Baekhyun had met up with Chanyeol at the grocery store on Christmas Eve, and Baekhyun was already regretting his life decisions. He should’ve just risked it and gone alone to brave the store packed with people doing last minute shopping. As usual, the human race couldn’t avoid procrastination, and the stores were absolutely packed with families running around the store trying to get all they would need for the following day’s meals.

To be fair, he was also doing last minute shopping, but that was because he was running out of food from the grocery run that Haeun had done for him.

“Chanyeol, I’m not going to eat that many strawberries in one week,” he spoke, picking up the second box of strawberries that Chanyeol had chucked into the cart and putting them back on the refrigerated shelf. 

Chanyeol scoffed and looked at him incredulously. “Who says they’re all for you? If I’m already here, I might as well do my own shopping too.” 

“Shouldn’t you get a different cart then?” Baekhyun grumbled as he put the second box of strawberries back into the cart.

Chanyeol seemed to contemplate it for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah. Why bother?”

“God, I’m regretting everything I’ve ever done to get to this moment in my life,” Baekhyun muttered as they continued walking around in the fresh produce section. He picked up a few vegetables and fruits here and there as he tried to remember what he was running out of and what he might need from his mental grocery list, and Chanyeol also added a few items into the cart as well. 

Chanyeol sent him a sly look which made Baekhyun immediately groan out loud. “Whatever it is that you’re thinking of saying — don’t.”

Of course, Chanyeol didn’t listen to Baekhyun, and he wanted to immediately jump ship and forget food to burrow in his bed. He could totally live off of delivery food for another week.

Maybe.

“Including hosting that party that led to you meeting Haeun? You seem awfully close lately.”

And there it was. Baekhyun had been trying (and failing) to think about Haeun, and it was like she had permanently made a spot for herself in his brain. He was thinking about her constantly, and it certainly didn’t help that the two were texting all the time. It started because of the casework, but now they just talked about whatever came to mind. Baekhyun would be complaining about how he couldn’t go out freely and how he was losing his mind sitting at home all day, and in return, Haeun would send him funny memes she found online. 

She was insanely comfortable to be around, and he found himself relaxed whenever he spoke to her nowadays. Despite her being his lawyer, he forgot everything he was stressed about when he laughed at something she said, and he had to admit, he also loved making her laugh.

Last night’s Christmas dinner had been fun with her around, and he was lying if he had said that he wasn’t a tad bit disappointed that she had left early into the night.

He’d also be lying if he said he wasn’t pissed off at Chanyeol and Wendy for starting the whole conversation about soulmates. From the look on Eunji’s face last night, it seemed that she had already figured it out which meant Dongwoo would know too. 

Baekhyun rolled his eyes at Chanyeol, but he responded truthfully anyways. “No, I don’t. But I do regret a lot of the stuff that happened since then. Namely not getting rid of you from my life after what happened last night.”

Chanyeol guffawed, laughing loudly enough that he drew the attention of a few shoppers nearby. “Think about it this way: at least now if something does happen between you two,” he spoke, holding up his index finger and pointing it at Baekhyun, “which it will, then you would’ve already seen each other at your worst. You would like each other despite knowing all of that. Besides, last night was genius.”

He hated when his friend made sense when it came to his love life. 

Baekhyun also hated that he desperately wanted a love life because he and Haeun had just found a proper ground to be friends, and he already wanted to learn more about her in a more intimate way. 

“Okay, first of all, there’s nothing between us—”

“Yet,” sang Chanyeol, cutting him off.

Baekhyun glared at his friend. “Second of all, Wendy is seriously rubbing off on you. You sound almost smart.”

“Dude, I had higher grades than you in high school and college.”

“No one cares about that.”

“I do!”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes and ended up muttering, “Well I certainly don’t if you’re using that brain of yours for my love life.”

“Well if I wasn’t using this brain of mine for your love life, I wouldn’t have picked up on the fact that one moment you’re saying nothing is happening between you and Haeun, but the next you’re saying that you have a love life.”

“Okay now you’re just stretching ,” Baekhyun glowered, annoyed that Chanyeol even picked up on that.

“You want there to be one, though. Between you and Haeun,” he responded with a grin, wagging his pointer finger at Baekhyun. He reached out and bent Chanyeol’s finger backwards, leading to a loud whine of pain escaping him.

“Dude! If my bond hadn’t broken, Wendy would’ve felt that!”

“Too bad,” Baekhyun shot back, moving past Chanyeol to continue moving through the store. “Besides, the first thing Haeun felt through the bond was you kicking me in the gut, so technically it’s your fault that she hated me all those years.”

“I’m not the one that got two cataract tears.” Baekhyun resisted the urge to growl again, and instead walked faster, leaving Chanyeol behind. He heard Chanyeol jogging slightly to catch up, and Baekhyun sulked for the next ten minutes, contemplating ways that he could escape the country and move to London or somewhere far, far away from him.

“Baekhyun?” Chanyeol eventually asked, breaking the silence.

“Hmm?” he answered, absentmindedly as he looked at the directions of heating up a frozen pack of pizza. 

“If Haeun knows that she’s your soulmate, what happens then?” For once, Chanyeol sounded subdued, and Baekhyun knew that his friend was fully aware that it was a sensitive subject, but he shrugged anyway.

“I should’ve told her ages ago, so whatever happens, I’ll deal with it,” he responded, not looking at his friend. “I was just too afraid of getting rejected, but I should’ve told her right when I found out instead of hiding it for ages.”

Baekhyun had realized that if he had simply told her, she might have rejected him, but the two also had the chance of talking it out and becoming friends early on. He was just too afraid of the first option to even give the second a chance. 

He finally turned around to put the frozen pizza into the cart and looked at his friend, and there was no judgement on his face, only acceptance of whatever hole Baekhyun had dug himself into. Chanyeol opened his mouth to respond, but Baekhyun’s phone rang. Baekhyun reached into his jacket pocket to pull out his phone only to see Haeun’s name flashing on the top. Sighing, he looked up at Chanyeol’s face, ready for the teasing to begin.

Sure enough, the man had a huge grin on his face, and he began to walk away backwards.

“Speak of the devil, and the devil calls. Go on,” he urged, jerking his chin towards the ringing phone. “I’ll be in the aisle over.” He winks at Baekhyun and walks away with the cart, chuckling, while Baekhyun is left there gaping.

Another ring of the phone startles Baekhyun, and he picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Baekhyun!”

“Haeun,” he responds, already smiling a little at her excited tone. He can already imagine her vibrating in her seat, biting her lip as she smiles. It’s something that she does when she gets excited, but Baekhyun doubts that she realizes that she even does that. 

“I have great news,” she exclaims, and he hears rustling and shifting the background, and he assumes that she’s at work for some reason in the middle of the day on a Saturday that also happens to be Christmas Eve.

“What’s up?” he asks, trying to lean against the cold fridge doors.

“Okay, so first I have to mention that the request for the recording fell through, but I got it. It’s happening.” 

“Seriously?” he asks. Just last night she said the earliest she could get the recording was Monday afternoon, but what happened that the deal fell through so quickly and managed to get it anyways?

Either way, Baekhyun didn’t care too much as long as they got a hold of the recording to listen to it themselves. The earlier they could get rid of every single evidence that linked him to the murder was better. He needed to find Jaehyun’s actual murderer and arrest the person himself. He owed that much to Jaehyun.

“It took a ton of calls and me threatening a lot of people, but it came through. I should have it in my inbox on Monday morning. A solid five hours before when we normally would’ve gotten it.”

“That’s amazing, Haeun. Thank you,” he responded earnestly. 

“I try,” she responded softly, and he could imagine that she would be flipping her hair over her shoulder in the moment, smiling proudly. 

“Are you actually at work right now, though.”

“Hmm, yeah,” she hummed. He heard more rustling coming through the phone, and then her phone came through much farther with other sounds becoming much clearer. He guessed that she put the phone down and put him on speakerphone. “I got the email this morning that the request was denied by the higher ups, so I ended up coming here only to find out that my boss was in today too. We ended up making a bunch of calls.”

“So how long have you been there?” Baekhyun moved