Lunch Date

Baekhyun does not pay for lunch, and Kyungsoo’s not about to let him live it down.

Set: 4ish years before Cutlass; Kyungsoo is 19, Baekhyun is 20.

(Baekhyun basically met half of his crew running from someone. Nothing new!)

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Baekhyun was genuinely upset when he saw the man through the restaurant window, because the meal he’d ordered was absolutely heavenly and he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in a week. He always seemed to forget without Luhan there to nag him about it.

From an objective standard, the stir-fry was wonderful: the beef was marinated to perfection, the rice noodles were clearly freshly made by a very advanced chef, and the assortment of vegetables complimented the flavours wonderfully. Baekhyun was absolutely starving when he dug in.

Maybe it was a blessing that he’d at least the chance to finish half the dish before he spotted the man who’d been chasing him. Kim family, he’d deduced, but the man’s power had something to do with phasing through objects and Baekhyun hadn’t been able to land a clean hit without the aid of his power. Even with it, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to manage, and if he didn’t, it meant that his power would be exposed, and then all the hiding he’d done would be for nothing. He figured Luhan could make a contraption to deal with him and they were supposed to meet a day later, but the man was frightfully good at keeping up with him and it was exhausting trying to evade.

Giving his unfinished meal one last wistful look, Baekhyun double checked his surroundings and slipped out of the restaurant.

Thankfully, the man was nowhere in sight. Baekhyun had figured out that he wasn’t capable of phasing through things with his whole body, such as walking through a wall—he apparently needed at least one part of his body still materially tangible—but he was much too adept and controlling where he wanted to phase. Clearly it was one of the better members of the Kim family.

The streets were busy when he headed towards the inn, intent on grabbing his small pack of belongings and hightailing it out of the town before he was spotted. Thankfully, the man didn’t appear, and Baekhyun had turned down the road that led to the inn when somebody said, “Our meals aren’t even expensive.”

Baekhyun whirled around, hand moving for his cutlass. Behind him stood a boy around his height, wearing simple grey robes, arms folded across his chest. He had large eyes, relatively shorter hair (at least compared to Baekhyun, who was constantly brushing his bangs from his eyes), full lips that were pulled in a frown. He couldn’t have been over twenty, Baekhyun figured.

“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun said, a bit dumbfounded. “I think you’ve got the wrong person.”

“Then do you reckon you can fetch your twin? Because he just ate at my restaurant and left without paying for his meal, and left half of it unfinished. An absolute disregard for my cooking.”

Oh. Baekhyun didn’t feel all too great about that. It wasn’t as if he wanted to leave without finishing the meal and without paying, but if the man from the Kim family spotted him there, a full on fight in the restaurant would’ve been worse.

But he really needed to get out of here, so he replied, “I’ll relay that to my twin for you. I scarcely see him these days, though.”

The boy was not amused. “Pay for your meal right now. It’s impolite already that you wasted half of it.”

Baekhyun scanned the alley behind him, beginning to feel slightly antsy. The easiest way to shake him off—the chef, it seemed—would probably be to pay, so he reached into his backpack for the sack of coins. It was negative.

It’s at the inn, in my other bag. Baekhyun groaned. “I really need to go,” he told him. “Genuinely sorry about this.”

His initial intent had been to scramble onto the small pile of boxes, grab the low overhang of a roof, and escape there. It would be easier to find the inn, at any rate, and he needed to get moving fast to shake off both the chef and the man from the Kim family.

Baekhyun had barely managed a step when there was the grating of metal, and in his periphery, he saw a blade levelled steadily to his neck.

His back was to the chef, but he could hear his footsteps come a little closer. “Don’t think you can run off without paying.”

Clearly the chef label needed a little fixing, because as far as most restaurant owners or workers were concerned, none of them threatened unpaying customers with a sword. Baekhyun froze on command, readying to draw his cutlass.

There was a split second of time where neither of them moved. Then he’d snatched up his own blade and was shoving the sword away from his throat, striking back.

His swing was parried with practiced ease, and the shock that it had was so great that Baekhyun nearly couldn’t block when the chef swung at him. The grating of metal against metal was frightfully loud, and Baekhyun was torn between trying to figure out how to overpower him and get away and wondering if the noise would draw in the man from the Kim family who was probably in the area.

For a while, they were evenly matched, which was very, very new. Baekhyun had been skilled, even back at his family, with a blade. This boy, whoever he was, had received clearly advanced training, and Baekhyun couldn’t quite figure out just what he was doing working at a restaurant. Was he hiding from someone? In disguise?

He nearly missed a block, lost in his thought. At the last moment, Baekhyun twisted, feinted, and kicked him as hard as he could in the chest.

It was enough to knock him back into the dirt path. Baekhyun took the chance to make a run for the roof again, and this time, he was fast enough to make it up without being halted with a sword.

As he pulled himself over, he spared one more glance over his shoulder. The chef was just beginning to pick himself up, still gripping his sword, though Baekhyun didn’t allow himself to linger longer before sprinting. He needed to get back to the inn, grab the rest of his belongings, then leave the town as soon as possible.

To his relief, nobody followed him on his way back. Baekhyun took a few turns before he spotted the inn he was staying at.

Thankfully, the streets were empty below, which meant nobody would witness him as he leapt over a rooftop onto another, then onto the balcony of his room at the inn. Very carefully, Baekhyun pulled open the door and slipped inside.

The room was as he had left it. Baekhyun scanned around him for good measure, but not a single thing was out of place since he’d left in the morning. Sheathing his cutlass, he began to pack up: the pair of pants at the back of the chair, his second bag of coins hidden behind a drawer, another dagger that he hadn’t space to strap on. Between the frighteningly skilled chef and the Kim family’s man, he needed to get out of the area as fast as he could. Briefly, he pondered if it would be possible to drop by at the restaurant and pay for his meal, but it was a detour back and he couldn’t afford being seen.

Baekhyun was shouldering his bag again when he caught movement in his periphery. A half-translucent figure seemed to glide through his door, then his figure turned more tangible. The man seemed to flicker for a moment before he made it through the door with his entire body.

Baekhyun froze. Suddenly, sparring on the streets with the chef was far more preferable.

“Baekhyun,” the man said, lip curling. “People usually don’t run so far for me to kill them, you know.”

Baekhyun secured the strap of his bag and straightened. He could make it out of the balcony and then run for it, but now that the man had caught up to him, it would be difficult to get away, leaving him the only option o