Baekhyun stared at the empty bottles that were left on the table, dazed as ever. What did I do, he ran a hand through his hair in frustration after failing to erase a small piece of memory in his head. Small would be an understatement at this point, considering how passionate they both were earlier. Though the kiss they shared out of desire had to end abruptly, upon realization. 

He managed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep before his opening shift at the bar. If it weren’t for Mark’s reminder, he would’ve probably forgot about today’s maintenance. CC’s employees arrived at Baekhyun’s bar for the job while another representative explained the new rebranding concept to him. As much as he wanted to indulge in the conversation, his mind was obviously elsewhere.

“Should I confirm the information with Miss Cha before proceeding,” the rep interrupted his thought.

“No!’ the bar owner immediately blurted out, placing his hand over the rep’s cellphone to stop him from making the call. His face had anxiety written all over it with just her name being mentioned. 

“I-I’ll let her know,” he lied. 

Without a doubt, Baekyun kept their distance to the best of his ability. This following week, they had one other planned meeting at his bar to work on their marketing strategy. Since Mark was a better social media enthusiast anyway, he asked for a small favor from his employee to avoid the heiress. It wasn’t that he was running away from her, he just simply did not know what to say or how to even act after that night. He definitely just needed some time to adjust.

Baekhyun stopped by the bar later that night to switch over with Mark. Right away, he was greeted by a sly smirk. “What?” he confronted the cheeky employee in front of him.

“Euna asked for you,” Mark replied with a smile.

Trying the very best to conceal his reaction, Baekhyun simply nodded while forming an ‘o’ with his mouth. Of course the clever employee did not buy his response, they were clearly hiding something.

“Well, I’m off now. Have fun tonight and have fun with whatever game you two are playing,” Mark teased the older one before dashing out of the bar to avoid getting hit. 

Nearly a week since they started to renovate his bar, Baekhyun finally saw it coming together at last. His red and black theme was completely stripped out, recommended by the heiress herself as she quoted, “Very tacky.”

Nonetheless, he took her recommendation to modernize the bar to its fullest. Since his bar was already small, she suggested that they follow a minimalistic theme to open up the place. They spent a few days removing his initial design while slowly adding the new details. The most eye-catching feature that they just installed today was a brand new bar counter. The glass countertop was made to look sleek during the daytime while it could also illuminate the place beautifully during the night. Accompanied by the champagne lights gave it a more elegant feel, almost providing this little space a VIP experience for its vistors.

Becoming a little too intrigued by the new designs, Baekhyun did not even catch the new customer coming in. Once he finally realized, the customer had already sat himself down on the stool, directly facing the the owner behind the counter.

“Busy?” Chanyeol asked sarcastically, hinting at his nonexistent customers. To be fair, today was a weekday. But he simply did not want to admit that his bar was doing quite badly.

“What now?” the owner sighed, expecting Chanyeol to come at him with another outrage. 

“About last time…” he started. Baekhyun took a deep breath to prepare his mental state. 

“…I’m sorry,” the younger brother continued, lowering his gaze in the process to express his guilt. To make things even more awkward, Baekhyun couldn’t even speak correctly. He felt the muscle around his mouth moving, but not a single word came out of it. Feeling defeated by the silence, he slid a bottle of beer over to Chanyeol instead as a peace offering.

“And when you see her, please apologize on my behalf. I wasn’t in the right mind that night,” he finally looked up at the owner, his eyes showing obvious concern. 

“I will,” Baekhyun replied with a small nod. Over time, something about the tension between them led the two close friends down this weird path. But speaking to each other again without any resentment might just be a start to mend this friendship, right? Back again with the silence, Chanyeol took this opportunity to try out the interesting bottle of alcohol in front of him. It was sample no.5 that Baekhyun had purchased back at the brewery, thanks to Suho’s recommendation.

After taking a quick sip, the younger brother placed the bottle back down while eyeing Baekhyun intensely. “Are you two dating?” he asked out of interest, but rather startling for the bar owner, who almost choked on air.

“N-no!” he denied at once.

“Wh