Warning(s): cursing
Length: 5.3k words

It’s Friday again, and Ange is leaning her head against the window of Kyungsoo’s car. The window is half-opened, tangling her hair as they drive through the deserted road that leads to Baekhyun’s car workshop, but she doesn’t mind. In fact, the wind is perfect; it drowns out Kyungsoo’s voice.

Ange smiles as she recalls what happened last Saturday. Her night drive with Baekhyun, his bruised cheekbone, sitting with him by the river… The best part of it all is that she doesn’t have to pretend like it never happened. On the Monday after that weekend, Baekhyun asked her how her Sunday went, and when she told him that it was boring in comparison to what happened on their night drive, he smirked and said “I bet.”

“What’s making you so happy?” Kyungsoo asks, closing the windows and effectively muffling the sound of the wind.

“I’m just excited,” Ange replies. She tries to suppress her smile but finds it to be an impossible task. It feels like those good days in secondary school, when she found herself eager to go to class just to see a crush.

Not that she has a crush on Baekhyun, of course…

“Excited for what?” Kyungsoo inquires. “You finally like working with cars?”

“Something like that.”

- - - - -

When Ange arrives at the workshop, the first thing that she notices is the abundance of cars sitting at the front. There are only two cars, but for Baekhyun—a man who clearly enjoys his solitude, that’s two more than he would usually allow. Ange recognizes one as Mark’s red Chevrolet and the other as Mimi’s maroon Mercedes. Past the cars, she hears a soft chatter overlapping with what sounds like soft hissing. Since the cars partially block the entrance to the open garage, Ange can only guess as she walks closer.

Upon walking inside, Ange’s eyes immediately find Baekhyun standing far within the building. He’s wearing a heavy and strange-looking mask as he wields a blowtorch, but Ange knows that it’s him because of his dark hair—and who else would wear a t-shirt when it’s freezing outside? Sparks fly off from whatever he’s torching, and some land by his hands, but fortunately, he’s wearing thick gloves.

The bright flame of the blowtorch causes Ange to look away after a while, and she shifts her attention to the boy sitting on the ground—Mark. He’s easily recognizable to Ange because of his outrageously red hair. Although Mimi’s car is present, she’s nowhere to be seen.

“Mark,” Ange says, grabbing the boy’s attention. He abruptly turns around, and upon seeing that it’s her, breaks into a full grin.

“Ange.” Mark stands up and brushes himself off. By his feet is a small box filled with plastic-wrapped parts that Ange can’t quite identify. “Good morning,” Mark beams a little breathlessly. “You, uh, look really good.”

It’s hard not to laugh out loud, but Ange somehow manages only to giggle. She looks at Mark avert his gaze from hers and rub his neck awkwardly, and it’s then when she becomes hyperaware of the situation between the two of them. He kissed her—or tried to—a few weeks ago, after all. Ange feels bad, of course, that she doesn’t quite reciprocate his obvious crush on her, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t revel in how it manifests itself. Only someone who holds her existence with affection could find her to “look good” on an otherwise average day—and it’s comforting.

“I’m glad you like my outfit,” Ange quips with a small smile. “Don’t I look good in jeans?”

Ange motions towards her outfit with pride. Today, it’s black high-waisted skinny jeans and a short royal blue sweater, and while it’s nothing too outrageous to draw attention, it’s simple and elegant enough to seem effortless—though it took her a while to make up her mind.

Like the rest of the day in this week, she has taken a particularly keen interest in dressing extra well and looking extra good. Of course, there’s no special occasion today that requires her to put more than 20 minutes of thought into an outfit, but a meeting with a special person will always become a special occasion.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mark says quickly, disheartening Ange since he barely even looked at her—but perhaps it’s for good reason. He’s frantically shifting his gaze back and forth between her and the now unmasked Baekhyun.

“Mark,” Baekhyun shouts from the opposite side of the garage, “did I say you could take a break?”

“N-No, boss.” Mark shuffles away from Ange to grab another box sitting on a table a few meters away. By the time he rejoins Ange, Baekhyun has also made this way to where they’re standing.

Baekhyun’s brow is damp with glistening sweat, but he wipes it with the back of his gloved hand and, in the process, also moves back loose locks of hair away from his forehead. His cheek is still slightly discolored from last week’s scuffle, but the bruise is no longer angry and throbbing. Ange looks away to avoid the embarrassment of staring too openly, but she inadvertently turns her gaze towards Baekhyun’s chest.

LOVERBOY, his white shirt says in red letters just above his heart. A single, semi-chunky silver chain adorns his neck today, and Ange watches it hang as he bends down to pick up the box that Mark left on the ground. When Baekhyun looks down to examine its contents, Ange tries to look away before it’s too late, but she’s already admiring the small mole on his cheek.

“Angel,” Baekhyun abruptly states. She almost jolts backwards in surprise, but fortunately, Baekhyun is still looking down into the box and doesn’t see her expression of surprise. “I want you to go organize these with the rest of the inventory in the back.”

“Okay,” Ange murmurs with a cough. Baekhyun hands her the box, and upon peering in for a closer look, she realizes that it’s filled with a wide array of bolts and tiny car parts that she assumes to be screws for the engine. “Is this the only one?”

“I have another box,” Mark answers.

“Right, now get to work,” Baekhyun tells the both of them before sauntering over to another of his tool benches to gather some things.

Mark sighs softly once Baekhyun’s back is turned—and so does Ange. Although she can tell that Mark is simply exasperated from doing the tedious work of organizing nuts and bolts, Ange is upset at the fact that Baekhyun can’t be a little more gracious. He acts like she’s everyone else, cementing the fact that he emotionally lives in a world that’s light years away from her. Granted, he must have a million things on his mind, but it would still be nice if he smiled more frequently.

“Hey, you free tomorrow night?” Mark asks Ange, breaking her out of her trance.

“Tomorrow night?” She looks into Mark’s expectant eyes, and he nods to confirm that she heard him right. Truth be told, she wanted to ask Baekhyun if they could go on another drive—perhaps one in the countryside instead of the city—but she doesn’t want to break Mark’s heart any further. Besides, Mark has shown her that he’s more than capable of planning out a night full of activities that aren’t boring or dangerous. “Yeah, I am,” Ange beams, recalling when he took her to the small arcade and won her a Pikachu plush. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I wanted to—”

“What are you two doing?” Baekhyun snaps when he turns around from his tool bench with a frown. He stares at Mark and then at Ange. “Are you planning a date while you’re supposed to be working for me?”

“N-No,” Ange blurts out before Mark can answer. “I-I’ll get going.”

She ducks past Baekhyun and his fierce gaze to the back of his workshop where he keeps his car part inventory—and where she wishes that she could dissipate into thin air. There’s nothing more embarrassing than the events that have just transpired. Her boss—and Mark’s too—just caught the two of them talking about their after-work plans.

Cringe.

Ange bites the inside of her cheek as she gets to work with her tedious task. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to sit on the floor like Mark, but it’s back-breaking work all the same.

After about 20 minutes of arduous organization, Ange spots Mimi round the corner and walk inside Baekhyun’s workshop looking frazzled. She must have been walking outside or doing other work because her hair is messy, and her white hoodie has a small dirt mark on the front. Seeing her truthfully displeases Ange, but at least Ange can take pride in knowing that in this moment, she’s the prettiest one in Baekhyun’s car workshop. Not Mimi, but her.

Mimi starts to talk to Baekhyun in a hushed tone, so Ange dismisses it as the two of them talking about some sketchy business—but then Baekhyun laughs.

Ange quickly shifts her attention from her task to Mimi and Baekhyun who are still somehow talking in low voices—yet both are smiling. Mimi seems to more excited about something than Baekhyun is, and Baekhyun appears to be shaking his head in disapproval, but how authentic is disapproval when he’s grinning like an idiot? Biting the inside of her cheek, Ange stares at Mimi as the latter stands on her toes to whisper something into Baekhyun’s ear, causing him to laugh. At that point, Ange feels ill and softly slaps her palm across her forehead.

She wants to stop existing in that very moment, but unfortunately for her, wishes aren’t granted on necessity. In fact, they’re not granted at all. Instead, she’s forced to bear witness to whatever flirting is going on between Baekhyun and Mimi.

“Don’t worry,” Baekhyun says in a louder voice, “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Thank you,” Mimi beams in girlish glee before bidding goodbye to Baekhyun, and Ange rolls her eyes out of sheer annoyance.

Thank you, Ange mimics Mimi’s voice inside her head and gags. She doesn’t know why she feels so bothered about something like this, but the point isn’t why; it’s that she feels bothered in the first place. Although Ange doesn’t even know Mimi or her character, strong feelings of animosity have already overtaken her, and for what? For Baekhyun?

Ange wishes that she could melt into a puddle. What happened to when men weren’t ?

“Hey Angel,” Baekhyun quips from a distance. Ange hears his footsteps approach her, and when she lifts her head and gaze, Baekhyun is standing in front of her and wiping his hands on a rag. “What’s wrong?” he asks her with a gentle nod. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Ange mumbles. She motions towards the work that she has already finished. “It’s just super boring to sift through all these parts, you know?”

“It’s not fun,” Baekhyun agrees. He eyes her slumped form for a moment, and Ange wants to go back to that night in his car when it was just the two of them—and he was staring at her with those same eyes, but he’s in work mode right now. “You wanna change the wheels of my car? I taught you how a few days ago. You wanna practice?”

“Are you gonna help me with that?”

Baekhyun genuinely seems to consider her request for a moment since he goes silent, but a ripple of expression—a frown—crosses his face, and he shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says. “I have to do something else. But I’ll get Mark to help you.”

Mark?

Ange sighs softly in disappointment. She doesn’t hate Mark, of course, but she was really hoping that it would just be her and Baekhyun. Having him teach her how to change a car’s wheels was a better experience than having him teach her how to drive, and that was an exhilarating experience. Unfortunately, things are different today. Within a few seconds, Baekhyun has Mark running over to her with a big grin spread across his face.

“You ready?” Mark asks breathlessly. “I’m so good with changing tires that I could work at a pit stop.”

“A pit stop?” Ange raises her brows and laughs dryly. “Okay, Mark.”

As they begin to make their way towards the back garage, Ange shoots one final glance at the ever busy Baekhyun. He’s back to being bent over a table as he peers at something that he’s been working on all morning. Ange can’t see his face or what exactly he’s doing, but she still somehow longs to be a part of whatever it is that occupies him. Clearly, she’s no one important to him; she’s mere