Baekhyun’s cheeks are flushed and he feels a warmth inside his chest even though the LED screen on the shop he is passing by says it’s minus 2 degrees. ‘I wonder why’ he mutters to himself, reaching up to press his palms against his red cheeks. ‘Hmmm,’ he brings his hands up in front of his face and blinks at them. He moves his hands away from him and squints at them before bringing them close again. ‘Curiouser and curiouser…’ he says and hiccups. He has a glove only on one hand, no wonder he felt off balance all this time. 

The road is empty. The lights are dimmed and most of the shops are closed. Baekhyun wonders what time it is. And then he wonders vaguely what he is doing here and where exactly he was going. He frowns at his hands one last time and then decides to shrug it off. ‘Eh, nothing to do but keep going…’ he hiccups again and starts giggling. He shoves his hands in his pockets to keep them warm and decides that he is going to keep walking straight till he gets home. ‘Straight, Baekhyun, straight home. No turns, or curves…’ some more giggles, ‘no more, no more.’ 

Baekhyun squints at the road in front of him. He can see a glint of something red a little head of him. The little glint of red flickers and wanes a little and he sees a cloud of smoke emit from it. His brain feels a little foggy at the moment so it takes him a little bit of time to see the arm attached to the little red blob and the clouds of smoke. 

‘Michin nom’ Baekhyun shakes his head, ‘Who the comes out on a night like this?’ he giggles at just how stupid the guy is. Then he stops and his head sideways. This guy is directly in his path. Directly. And he promised himself he will go straight home, no turns, no curves. How was he supposed to go straight home when some stupid was right in front of him. Baekhyun takes a few more steps till he is about 2m away from the red blob and the man attached to it. 

‘Hey’ he says, trying to sound friendly but firm. His voice comes out as a muffled garble. He clears his throat and tries again but gets nothing. Shaking his head he takes a deep breath and opens his mouth. ‘HEY,’ his own voice is so loud that this time even Baekhyun takes a startled step back.

The figure leaning against the wall moves just slightly and Baekhyun sees a pair of eyes flash at him briefly. The eyes look away and the hand clutching the cigarette comes up again, and soon there is another cloud of smoke in front of his face. Baekhyun’s eyes follow the hand of the man, he notices the square tipped fingers and laid back and confident grip on the cigarette. Pretty, he thinks. 

‘Hey. Hey man, look’ Baekhyun says, trying to sound very reasonable. It doesn’t help though that he hiccups a bit and his feet seem to not want to stay still on the ground. ‘Look, man. I need to like, kind of go home. Go straight home. But look, you are kind of in my way. So, man, no hard feeling, Im sure you understand these things. When a man needs to go home a man needs to go home, man. so I was wonderin-‘ a few more hiccups, ‘ wondering whether you would like consider sort of getting out my way. Now.’ He finished off and nods confidently. He has always been a good communicator, he was confident he got the message across.

The man gestures at the rest of the wide pavement with his hand. The red ashes clinging to the edge of the cigarette falls to the floor in a shower of fire and sharpness. Baekhyun twists his head to look at the rest of the pavement and yes there is quite a lot of space there. But he can’t afford to get sidetracked now. ‘Yes yes man I see the pavement, any other day I would use all that, I am a reasonable man.’ he hiccups really loudly and leans a hand against the wall to steady himself.

The man leaning against the wall sighs and lowers his cigarette. 

‘You are drunk,’ he says, his voice deep and a little guttural. There is something about it that sweeps over Baekhyun like a gust of cold air. 

‘Oh.’ Baekhyun blinks. ‘Oooooooh’ 

‘OOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhh. This makes a lot of sense!’ Baekhyun says slowly, looking down at his un-gloved hand. ‘Right, I am drunk. This helps, that’s one mystery solved but -‘ he looks up at the man. ‘I still need to go straight home. Straight.’ 

The deep voiced guy mutters something that sounds suspiciously like ‘ing humans’ and Baekhyun is immediately heckled. 

‘Hey man, I am being nice here, you don’t need to be an and say mean things about my species and like then what about your species huh? What about your species? Wait a minute - what species are you anyway?’ Baekhyun sticks his face out at the guy and examines him closely. The guy’s eyes flash warningly at him. ‘Look at you man and your ing huge eyes, what species are you huh? HUH?’ Baekhyun wobbles and he trips over his own feet which sends him careening towards the guy. His reactions slow and his brain even slower Baekhyun watches the guy raise his hand up and flick his finger at him as if to swat away a fly and suddenly time and space catches up and Baekhyun is smacked across the face with a burst of cold wind so hard that he falls over backward landing on his . 

Baekhyun sputters for a few seconds, breathless as the cold air rushes over him and into his lungs and his bones ache from the sharp fall. He blinks up at the guy staring down at him incensed. All he wanted to do was go home! That’s all, go straight home. He jabs an accusing finger at the guy and makes angry cat noises. 

‘Look, I have had a long day. Maybe you can just please ing go home?’ says the guy in an exasperated voice. He sounds tired but also intimidating. Baekhyun’s mind registers this vaguely while he pulls himself up to his feet. He wobbles and steadies himself and notices that the guy, as threatening as he sounds, is small made. In fact the guy is even shorter than him despite the fiery eyes. How cute. Baekhyun decides to forgive him for the flicking thing and takes a step forward. 

‘Look man let’s discuss this’ he says while putting a hand on top of the guy’s head and mussing up his hair. It takes him approximately 2 seconds to realise he made a mistake but by the time he catches up he has been lifted off his feet and pinned against the wall, the guy’s muscular forearms pressing on his windpipe. 

Baekhyun gasps and punches ineffectively against the bits of the guy he can reach, which seems to make no impact at all as if hands were made of cotton wool. 

The guy leans into his face menacingly and Baekhyun feels fear race through his veins for the first time that night. It sobers him up for a bit and he wonders how he didn’t notice something was off from the beginning. The guy seems to glow with some sort of energy that Baekhyun couldn’t put into words and his cold arm kept Baekhyun’s feet dangling off the floor with no seeming effort.

I told you. I told you to just go home.’ 

Baekhyun tries to say that that’s exactly what he was going to do but his crushed windpipe lets out nothing but some garbled noises. Baekhyun is starting to see spots in front of his eyes and knows he is about to pass out and he casts his mind around desperately for something to do.

‘Did I - not - tell you - to just go home?’ the guy leans in closer, whispering angrily. 

Baekhyun freezes, stopping his futile struggles against his captor as he stares hypnotically at the face in front of him. He notices the cupid bow mouth, the square jaws and the wide eyes in a dim corner of his mind. Square jaw… he thinks… wide eyes… cupid bow lips…cupid bow lips…. His eyes fixate on them. The guy says something else in his low voice but lack of oxygen and his fear makes sure he hears nothing, and instead, instead Baekhyun leans forward and does the only thing that comes to his mind. 

He leans forward and until his lips brush against those cupid bow lips. He feels them move against his catching the guy mid-sentence and his lower lips slides over plus lips and he presses forward deepening the kiss. There is a guttural sound of shock and Baekhyun sees his eyes widen even further before he closes his own. The arm pressing on his windpipe goes slack and Baekhyun has a moment to register this before he is sliding down the wall and his assailant moves away from him. Baekhyun looks up shakily and realises with shock that the guy has a bright flush spreading from his ears to his neck but that something is not right. Something is not right because the guy takes another step back, pulling the one glove Baekhyun had on his hand with him and collapses on to the ground in a dead faint. 

Baekhyun blinks down at his hands. Now he has lost both of his gloves. 

‘Well, ’.