04 | BERRY NICE

Baekhyun

My entire body freezes as her words flare in my head.

Teach.

Me.

.

Bits of advice are fine. Talking is tolerable. Rants and revelations, I can handle them. But this is on another level. I genuinely do not know what to say. I mean, of course, it should be easy to just say no and walk away but—oh my god, why am I not saying no yet? Hello? Earth to Byun Baekhyun, say no and move along, you dimwit. I have this irrational worry that when I open my mouth to say no, something else would come out.

So, I keep my lips shut.

Instead, I take a step back. And another. And another. Aaand another. Until my lower back hits the edge of her desk across the room. Okay, maybe this isn’t the best move because then I’d be staying inside this office longer with her. I brace myself to say no in three, two, one—

“Do you really think Miyoung and Kyungsoo are back together?” I hear myself say. No, not that! I am ing myself over, god damn it.

I lean away from the table, looked down at it, wiped my pants before leaning down on it again. What the hell am I doing exactly? I run a hand on my still damp hair—from my Spit Fight with Doh Kyungsoo. For ’s sake, that doesn’t even sound remotely decent in my head, what the is wrong with my brain today?

“Baekhyun, we can—I guess we can discuss that after but can we talk about this first? Because I already said it and I have no plans in taking it back.” Soobin responds with a firm but nervous tone hinting in her voice. “I hope I don’t offend you in any way but I’m willing to pay you, just to be fair.” She adds.

I fold my arms across my chest as I stand straight. “What do you think of me, a prosti—oh right, yeah I am a e.” I make a fool out of myself even more with every wrong word that comes out of my mouth, so I laugh in panic.

“No, it’s not about that at all. I want to pay because I can’t just ask for such a huge favour without giving it back. It’s not going to be fair and I want to stay fair with you. Teaching me might not be easy and—”

I stop her, with my palms up in the air. “What do you mean teach you exactly? How? What kind of teaching? You mean give you advice, right? Like how I’ve been doing since you started dating around.” I try to twist my words around to maybe manipulate her into thinking that that’s exactly what she meant … in case that’s not what she meant.

“Words—” She stammers and I see her fidgeting with the pen she is holding. She looks just as terrified as I am. “—words don’t exactly work for me, I suppose. I think I need to learn it … hands-on.” I process her words in my head for an agonizing amount of time. Okay, this is my last chance to say no. Just say no, that’s it. Don’t look at her. Don’t feel bad for her. Don’t even think about getting tempted, you ing idiot—

“By hands-on, you mean?” I blurt out.

Why? Why do I need to understand it clearly? Why do I need details? I don’t need details because I’m going to say no anyway. Why can’t I just shut the up right now?

I prop my hand on my hip before easing my fingers into pinching myself hard. Maybe I’d wake myself up this way then maybe I’d act normal. Once I feel the pain enough, I wince and rush to the door immediately.

“No.” Finally, the simple word comes out of my mouth as I grab the doorknob.

But she’s still blocking the door.

I raise both of my hands up. “Uh—the door,” I mutter with a straight face. “Can you just—” I move on the other side of the door, no it’s a useless move. The doorknob is on the left side. “I think we’re done here—can you let me out, I need to—” I move from side to side for whatever reason, as if it was going to change anything at all. I watch Soobin’s shoulders droop in disappointment as she finally moves aside. “I’m sorry.” I hear her faintly say, her head dropped low but I see defeat spread across her face.

Somehow, I had to gather up the strength to actually open the door myself. It feels wrong to just leave her like this. I just hate it. I look away before I change my mind and head out of the office. When I arrive at my bar, my boss is leaning on the counter with his hand under his chin. A smile hints on his face as he watches me go under the counter panel. “What?” I ask with a firm expression.

“What’d you do in there?” He asks playfully.

Oh my god, he can’t be doing this right now. “Don’t start with me, Chef. If you’re bored, go dunk your head in a pot with boiling water and be a lobster.” I warn as I slip off of my winter jacket. I hang it in the storage room before changing into my black vest and apron. “What—I can never explain how your brain works, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo argues back before grabbing the high chair and actually sitting down.

I start prep by filling the ice basin with ice. My boss stays there silently as I get everything ready.

When I am sick of his intimidating presence, I stop from taking out the dried fruits from the dehydrator and set the tongs on the counter. “Am I getting ratioed here? What is this? Why are you just sitting there and watching me, dude? It’s intimidating, not because you’re big and scary—because that’s not the case at all, you’re just intimidating. Can you please not?” I ask.

“You start serving drinks at twelve rather than three starting tomorrow, okay? We will be open for bar & snack service during our lunch-to-dinner seating shift.” He tells me.

I take a double look at him as I process his words. “Re—really?” A smile grows on my face as I rush to him. “Well, yeah, we need to ease into it. I know your contract is still not done but if you start here much earlier in the meantime, it’ll give you more hours here and you can take, I guess, the least amount of clients during the morning or whatever. I don’t know how it works, really. But does that work for you?” He explains softly so that the servers roaming around won’t hear.

I release a deep sigh, a relieved one. “Yes, Chef. Thank you, I could kiss you right now!” I smile wider and I was about to grab him from across the counter when he jumped off the chair and leaned away. “Okay, off, asswipe.” He says before walking away, back to the office.

I find myself hopping in excitement as I fish my phone out of my pocket to call my other boss. I hide in the storage room as soon as she answered. “Hello? Hi, Miss Wang. I’m just calling regarding my schedule at the moment?”

Yes, what about it? She replies.

“My boss on the part-time job just moved my shift to twelve instead of three. So, I might not be able to take as many clients as before. I’m sorry.” I apologize although I’m really really not sorry about it.

Oh, don’t worry about it. You can still take the same number of clients; they just have to accept that they can’t have you as long as they usually do. You’re in demand, Baekhyun, we can only adjust the timing but you’re already pre-booked until your contract ends. She explains back.

I frown hard, disbelief boiling in my body. “But three clients a day—for what, every hour? Miss Wang, that’s too much for my body and I have so many other things to do so I can’t—”

You signed a full-time contract, Baekhyun. And I’ve already been nice to you by still letting you go back to your bartending job on the side even though truthfully speaking, you should be working only for me at the moment. Don’t take advantage of me. If you think your body can’t handle it, then say no to your other boss and tell him to wait until your contract with us ends, fair and square. Bye-bye. She doesn’t even let me argue more and hangs up.

My hand drops to my side as I stare in space. I don’t even know what to feel about that. It was short-lived happiness when Kyungsoo gave me more shift. It’s either I kill my body away and deal with it or … decline my new schedule here in the restaurant.

If I deal with it, then I have to remove one hour away from my time with my family and start at nine in the morning—so that nine o’clock, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, then I have to clean myself after and then—

“For ’s sake, it doesn’t even work.” I slap one side of my head over and over again as I head out of the storage room and the bar counter. The door of the office opens up just before I could grab the knob. It’s Kyungsoo again. “I just discussed it with Soobin and she’s adjusting the schedule now. See you tomorrow at twelve, alright?” he taps me on the back.

“Uh, about that—” I swallow hard. “—I can’t, I’m sorry. I think I need to stick to three o’clock for now.” I unwillingly decline his beautiful offer.

“How come?” He asks, a frown spreading across his face.

I don’t even know how to explain it to him. Or maybe I could. He’s a man. He’ll get it, right? “You see, I—” I scratch my neck aggressively just to stall. “—I just had a talk with my other boss in the agency and uhm, she’s okay with me working here at twelve but she doesn’t want to change the number of clients I get and I just don’t think I can handle that. Physically and … mentally.” I confess, leaning closer to him.

“Oh … yeah, don’t worry about it. I understand. Sorry if I made it complicated.” He assures me right away, slapping my back firmly in a brotherly manner. “Just let Soobin know so that she doesn’t further adjust the schedule of the restaurant. She might update the website—just tell her now. I need to get back in the kitchen, okay?” He taps me one last time before rushing to the kitchen.

I grab the door of the office and knock twice before coming in. I feel the awkwardness waving through me again, and I sigh.

Soobin looks at me for two seconds before looking back down at the computer screen. “I’m glad that you’re working here more now, Baekhyun! You must be so excited.” She grins and she’s using that tone on me again. Her work voice. Her professional voice. The shy and bubbly fake Soobin voice that everyone else knows of.

Well, I don’t like it. Especially now, knowing that she’s doing it because I turned her down. She must feel so humiliated.

But still, I prefer her awkward and blunt tone of voice. The real her. I only get to see it once in a while, when it’s just the two of us. Just like this morning when we bumped into each other, or ten minutes ago when we were alone in this office.

She’s fidgeting with her pen again while her other hand moves along the mouse, in a frantic manner. She carries that same pen with her everywhere she goes to this restaurant.

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack. I’m not sure if she’s even really doing anything on the computer at this point. She’s just stimming. She does it a lot more when she’s talking on the phone, I’ve always noticed. I see her eyes wander around but she blinks tightly when she seemingly catches herself.

Honestly, she has always reminded me of my brother.

Maybe not as bad as he is, obv