Of Expectations and Surprises

Part 1 of a collection of scenes from Cutlass from Baekhyun’s point of view!

Baekhyun’s first meeting with Song Hei is nothing like he expects, and he doesn’t know just what to think of her.

Set: End of chapter 1 of Cutlass and some of chapter 2. A lot of this chapter is actually based on a conversation Baekhyun and Hei had in Hell’s Gate, when Hei asked Baekhyun what he thought of her when he first saw her. So here’s an expanded, real-time version of that :) This is part 1 of a few one-shots of Baekhyun’s POV of several Cutlass scenes, but next chapter should be the Kyungsoo one.

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Seungwan had given Baekhyun a brief physical description of Song Hei before he broke into Hua, but around my height (“so she’s short?”), pretty, large eyes and very serious expression could’ve applied to a thousand more people, and Baekhyun had found the clear directions to where the girl’s house was to be much more useful in making sure he was even kidnapping the right person.

He’d contemplated how he was going to approach Song Hei for a couple of days now, but never came up with a solid plan. According to Seungwan, she was relatively withdrawn, which, given everything else he knew about her, wasn’t surprising. She also startled easily. Baekhyun wasn’t sure what the best approach was.

After the last guard caught him around the stomach with his blade, Baekhyun decided to go with his second plan—feigning hurt. Although now it was less of a feint and actual, genuine pain, because the gash on his stomach wasn’t pleasant and he needed something to staunch the bleeding.

Seungwan hadn’t been around Song Hei long enough to get much of a read on her personality, although Baekhyun supposed the fact that she was shy could’ve probably played a hand in that. When he’d asked whether Hei would help a stranger bleeding out on her front porch, Seungwan’s only response was that Hei hated messes but wasn’t an inherently nasty person, so Baekhyun figured that if she didn’t decide to help him, he could always go with the first plan.

Making sure he looked as pathetic as possible lying on the doorstep, he knocked on the door and prayed that she was the only one home.

It took quite a couple of hits before he heard a muffled voice call, “I’m coming! Give me a moment.” She probably assumed him to be someone else.

Baekhyun knocked once more for good measure before the door creaked open with what felt like a very cautious force. A girl poked a head out, eyes scanning overhead before they dropped onto Baekhyun.

By general standards, Song Hei was quite pretty. She also had a small build like Seungwan had mentioned and Baekhyun was certain he’d be almost a head taller if he’d been standing, but it wasn’t either of those that gave it away.

She looked scared, but he supposed that a stranger bleeding out on one’s doorstep was reason enough for it to be. But she looked… breakable. Or maybe fragile. Her skin was pale in a way that made him wonder how much she even saw the sun. Looking at her, Baekhyun found himself dreading that somehow, her family had already broken her past repair, and that even if she had the power to bring them through Hell’s Gate in technicality, she wouldn’t ever be capable of doing it. And being around people who could easily break—Baekhyun hated that. Heejin had seemed untouchable, yet she’d bled red like any other person. She’d been strong. This girl in front of him seemed like one wrong push would snap her in half, and Baekhyun didn’t know if he could rely on someone like her to be the cornerstone of his plan. He’d seen many children from the families, most of which were trained into soldiers on a puppet string for their family. They’d been brash and proud and haughty because of their heritage. But Baekhyun had never seen a child of a family look like how Song Hei did. What she was wearing was ridiculous even for a family’s standards, and her hairstyle was so perfect and elaborate that it made his head hurt. She quite literally looked like some sort of doll her family had decided to play dress-up with, so clearly terrified rather than proud or scornful like what Baekhyun was used to from family members.

Hands clenched white around the doorframe, Song Hei stared down at him with wide eyes. She opened , closed it, then stared a moment longer. Her hands started to tremble. Baekhyun was certain she was about to scream for help, and he readied himself to move.

She opened again, and he tensed. Song Hei didn’t scream, though. “Who… who are you?” Her voice was trembling as hard as her hands. “What happened to you?”

Eight years on the run had taught him a lot of things, but acting was one of the skills Baekhyun liked to believe he refined the most. “Help,” he managed, almost wincing at how he sounded. He hoped it sounded convincing rather than downright dramatic. “Please help me.”

Her eyes darted around, past him and down the path, as if looking for a clue. There was no one there, though—Baekhyun had made sure all the guards were dead and out of the way, although it wasn’t as if Song Hei could see that.

“What happened to you?” she repeated. “Why are you…” She trailed off helplessly, releasing her death grip on the door with one hand to gesture at him.

“Someone attacked me.” Baekhyun had rehearsed this script for quite some time. “Please, miss. Please help.”

Song Hei stared at him for a while longer. She seemed to be contemplating her options, and Baekhyun was fully preparing himself for her to slam the door in his face and call for help when she bent forward slightly. “Can you stand up?” she asked. He had to remind himself not to gape at her, because against all odds—she was actually helping him? He’d kept that option in mind, but it had seemed too good to be true. Because really—any sane person with common sense would’ve found at least twenty things questionable about his situation. “I don’t know what I can help with…” Another hopeless glance at the blood. “I’ll try to bandage the wound and clean it.”

Baekhyun could stand up quite easily, but he had an act to keep up, at least until he had the wound bandaged. He pushed himself to his feet slowly, gripping the doorframe that Song Hei had finally let go of. He saw her gaze flicker to his hand, which left a smudge of angry red on the painted white, and she cringed.

For a brief moment, he stood at his full height, looking down at the girl in front of him. She stared back with wide eyes, clearly afraid. She was afraid, she knew something